On billboards, buses, and bus stops, Californians have been inundated with fear-mongering advertisements, like the one shown below. They come from the First-Five which collects 50-cent per pack of cigarettes to fund various child welfare programs.
Children wearing bike helmets are featured prominently in the billboards. Rather than promote cycling as a healthy activity for youngsters, the image gives negative portrayal of bikes. Surely any activity that involves crash helmets can’t be good for kids, right? Of course, the statistics say otherwise. Helmets are now known to be completely worthless as crash protection, and their widespread promotion are attributed with decline in popularity of cycling.
Compare California’s public service advertisement with those found in Holland — where bicycling is heavily promoted as fun, healthful activity. No helmets are ever seen on posters or TV advertisements. Indeed, Dutch planners actively discourage the promotion of bike helmets as a safety measure.
By far, the greatest risk to kids isn’t drowning, walking to school, or riding bikes (as implied by the posters), but childhood obesity. Traffic engineering and suburban development have shrunk the environment available to kids. As a result, incidence of childhood diabetes and heart disease have exploded in the US largely due to kids’ sedentary behavior — and fears parents have about allowing their kids out of the house to ride bikes.
Systemic Failure 
“Helmets are now known to be completely worthless as crash protection, and their widespread promotion” – just out of curiosity, I’ve never seen this anywhere authoritative. Do you have a citation? Link?
Nationwide mandatory helmet laws in countries like Australia provide excellent data for before-and-after comparison of accident and fatality rates.
See for example:
British Medical Journal 2006;332(7543):722 (25 March),
“No clear evidence from countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets,” D L Robinson, senior statistician
University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia.
Unfortunately, the link at the BMJ site requires paid subscription, but the overall findings of the article are as follows:
1. Within a year of the law’s adoption, rate of helmet use more than doubled.
2. If bike helmets were even remotely as effective as proponents claim, dramatic reduction in serious injury/fatality rates would have been seen.
3. While there was a decline in injury and fatality rates among cyclists, that reduction was consistent with the overall decline of accidents seen among all road users during the time period. The injury/fatality rate among pedestrians, for example, went down much more (presumably pedestrians weren’t wearing helmets).
Another reference is the “official” standard of compliance that all bike helmet manufacturers are supposed to follow. It specifically states that helmets are not intended to protect the user against collisions against motor vehicles.
Start with motorcycle helmets first.
The literature is not nearly as conclusive as you make it out to be, see:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16417901
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10796827?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=1&log$=relatedreviews&logdbfrom=pubmed
“REVIEWER’S CONCLUSIONS: Helmets reduce bicycle-related head and facial injuries for bicyclists of all ages involved in all types of crashes including those involving motor vehicles.”
Using phrases like “helmets are known,” when there is no consensus hurts your argument.
The articles cited by David come from Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center. The ridiculous photo of a helmet-wearing toddler shown on their web site exemplifies American approach to bicycle safety; i.e. heavy promotion and/or mandatory requirement for cycle helmet use.
By contrast, the overwhelming consensus among European bicycle planners is measures such as: driver education, speed enforcement, traffic calming, dedicated bicycle infrastructure — and positive messages about the benefits of cycling. They avoid helmet promotion entirely.
A major PSA campaign should promote proven measures consistent with industry best practices. In this case, there is no dispute that the European approach is far superior. They consistently achieve order-of-magnitude reduction in serious injuries/fatalities (and order-of-magnitude increase in bicycle mode-share) relative to helmet-oriented American approach.
Even when the engineering and scientific community reaches consensus on an issue, one can still find articles giving contrary viewpoint in the literature. I will do follow-up blog posting giving raw data from Australia crash data, so readers can draw their own conclusions. Unlike other helmet studies, I don’t believe anyone has disputed the data itself.
I think you’re reading too much into the advertisement. If they were trying to create a negative portrayal of bikes and dissuade children from biking, they wouldn’t have included it on the poster at all. It’s not supposed to look scary. The kid is smiling. She’s happy. Biking is fun.
On the data side, a former colleague of mine found a reduction in traumatic brain injury in California as a result of helmet usage:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V5S-4D5JSPS-1&_user=10&_coverDate=01%2F01%2F2005&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_orig=browse&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=fd7a511a4bf92ed955873dd28ddfff72
Of course helmets don’t protect people from crashes.
But they protect an individual’s skull and brain in the event of a crash where the bicyclist’s head is impacted. A helmet suppo
You know who should really wear helmets? Pedestrians! Being a pedestrian is one of the most daring traffic participant. Pedestrians die at a higher rate than do bicyclists.
The Danish government is promoting walking helmets:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/08/walking-helmet-is-good-helmet.html
To recap: “A properly fitted bicycle helmet reduces the risk of head injury by as much as 85 percent and the risk of brain injury by as much as 88 percent.” A helmet won’t reduce your crash risk (according to a UK researcher, it might increase it because motorists tent to drive closer to those wearing helmets), but it will reduce head injuries when you do collide.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/pedbimot/bike/EasyStepsWeb/index.htm
I agree with tis,
But they protect an individual’s skull and brain in the event of a crash where the bicyclist’s head is impacted.
Even when the engineering and scientific community reaches consensus on an issue, one can still find articles giving contrary viewpoint in the literature. I will do follow-up blog posting giving raw data from Australia crash data, so readers can draw their own conclusions. Unlike other helmet studies, I don’t believe anyone has disputed the data itself.
Rivara and Thompsons work, that you cite, has been thoroughly discredited. Read Curnow.
There is some danger in non-specialists thinking they have the whole answer because they have read one or two studies.
Helmets have almost zero positive effect on safety, and do much to distort the public policy of road planning. Helmets unfortunately only reduce injuries by reducing cycling.
Helmets are designed to cushion an 11 pound weight (your head) by a fall from 3 feet, at zero forward motion.
In order to have a helmet protect your head from a 20 MPH crash, you’d need over a foot of foam with interior crumple regions.
As a road racer we have to wear a helmet while racing. We have no choice although make the most of things by wearing what we would consider Cool Bicycle Helmets if there ever was such a thing. I’ve seen numerous studies regarding helmet use and they all seem to tell a different message. I’ve also seen previously that you’re more likely to have an accident whilst wearing a helmet however you never see things like that appear due to the helmet ‘brigade’.