I was a little conflicted today about the oh so important topic of bicycle helmets. I know I'm really going out on a limb by admitting this, but my kids rarely wear their helmets. They really only ride on our quiet, kid-friendly street where a total of 42 children ride bikes from sun up to sun down sans helmet and so far no one has spilled their brains on the sidewalk. Anytime they venture further that that, they are expected to put theirs on or else! (ahem. uh-huh.right.)
This is how it all began...
Some people I know asked me a couple of questions about helmets for my kids, and I quietly started to seethe regarding the neurotic nature of {some people}. Would they send their children through life in a freaking bubble if it were legal in all 52 states? Good grief! Then I realized that maybe I should pop a Midol and investigate why I had such strong feelings about the subject.
So what else is a girl to do when life's haunting questions need to be answered? Post a facebook poll, of course. Duh. I was a bit surprised at the responses I received. Not so much by the unanimous response of "HELL YES YOU WEAR THE HELMET!" but more at who some of the "hell yeses" came from.
Here's something you may not know about me yet: I am a super, to a fault, laid back mom. I don't stress over skinned knees, broken arms, 104 degree fevers or kids that sing along to the radio and know that certain songs bleep out the word bitch. "The world is a big, nasty place and you might as well learn some of the pitfalls while you're under the safe, cozy warmth of my wing." is my unspoken motto. Apparently up until today I didn't stress over head injuries either.
But, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. So I'm reading my facebook replies and remembering previous conversations about the ever-loathed (at my house) bicycle helmet and getting kind of pissed- not at the responses, but at something that was just bugging me, making me question myself.
Here's something else you may not know about me: I hate, no, HATE moms/parents that act or believe certain ways because that is the "good *perfect* mom" thing to do. Those moms that put themselves on a 2-year waiting list for the best preschool when they can hardly afford their groceries each month because that will put them in the {good family} group just make my skin crawl. Similarly so, moms that make their kids wear bike helmets because they are afraid of what the other moms will think of them equally give me hives around my neck. (seriously, i'm itching right now just thinking about them.) I think I was worried about being one of those moms.
So I was getting that itchy feeling all while I'm just "listening" to some women that I really respect tell me why they want their kids to wear helmets, growing more and more itchy. WHY?? (Aside from the aforementioned "lunar cycle" that we won't talk about again.) I'm ranting and raving about how much our kids hate the helmet and it would totally change pedaling around the 5-house-radius they are allowed to ride for them, and they are too hot in the summer and blah blah blah and... Then Mr. Know-It-All chimes in with his cut to the quick logic that always gets me. "If your kids had an accident tomorrow and became vegetables you'd kill yourself." Well shit.
Taking a moment to truly ask myself why I was feeling so pissy about said helmet, I had to admit this one, gut-wrenching truth to me: I know my kids need to wear the damn thing, but I am too lazy to fight the fight. So I turn to Mr. Know-It-All (I honestly say that in a good way) and say, "So, we're deciding right now that our kids have to wear their helmets no matter what then, huh?"
YEP.
{Thanks friends, for saving my kids' brains!)
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Depends if you want science or vox pop. Helmet laws have stopped a lot of people cycling and have done nothing for head injury rates, see Robinson DL. No clear evidence from countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets. BMJ. 2006 March 25; 332(7543): 722–725. doi: 10.1136/bmj.332.7543.722-a. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=16565131 (Robinson's work uses the best scientific methods, all available control groups and so on.)
ReplyDeleteIn real accidents bike helmets don't seem to crush as designed, they break instead. The senior engineer of Bell Sports, the market leader in cycle helmets, has written: “Another source of field experience is our experience with damaged helmets returned to customer service... I collected damaged infant/toddler helmets for several months in 1995. Not only did I not see bottomed out helmets, I didn’t see any helmet showing signs of crushing on the inside.” In 1987, the Australian Federal Office of Road Safety found that in real accidents "very little crushing of the liner foam was usually evident... What in fact happens in a real crash impact is that the human head deforms elastically on impact. The standard impact attenuation test making use of a solid headform does not consider the effect of human head deformation with the result that all acceleration attenuation occurs in compression of the liner. Since the solid headform is more capable of crushing helmet padding, manufacturers have had to provide relatively stiff foam in the helmet so that it would pass the impact attenuation test..."
It appears that helmets break easily, but don't absorb the impact at all well. A broken helmet has simply failed, and the widespread anecdotes on the theme of "a helmet saved my life" seem to owe more to wishful thinking than to science. As for the occasional anecdotes about "a car ran over my head" (http://www.kptv.com/news/21541052/detail.html), see the pro-helmet site http://www.helmets.org/smush.htm; if a car goes over your head, I'm sorry to say you won't be sitting up and praising your helmet. The only known connection between helmets and death is that helmets have strangled a few young children who were wearing helmets while playing off their bicycles, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet for an incomplete list.
Helmet propaganda relies on overemphasizing the very small dangers of cycling and seldom seems to emphasize its large benefits. At my moderately advanced age it's far too dangerous not to cycle - regular cycling, Danish style, not too far, not too fast, nearly halves the death rate, see http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/160/11/1621 All-Cause Mortality Associated With Physical Activity During Leisure Time, Work, Sports, and Cycling to Work. Andersen et al, Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:1621-1628. Taking up moderate exercise is about as beneficial as giving up smoking. Bicycling is good for health, but bike helmets don't seem to be.
Thanks, Richard. I think that comment is the most random comment from a stranger I've ever had (and my former blog used to get QUITE a few). But I'm leaving it because it cracks me UP!
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