What is a "bicycle helmet"?

What is a "bicycle helmet"?

Pat Hines (Traffic Safety Educator & Executive Director, SafeMoves) gives expert video advice on: How can my child stay safe while riding a bicycle?; How do I check the quality of a bicycle helmet?; How often do I need to replace a bicycle helmet? and more...

A lot of parents look at a bicycle helmet and it looks like an ice chest. The bicycle helmet has white foam and a piece of flimsy looking plastic and a couple of straps. Parents don't realize that this piece of foam is the difference between your child surviving a bike crash and not. A lot of parents will say "Well, I never rode a bike with a bicycle helmet when I was a kid and I'm around to talk about it". Well, times are different now: there's more traffic, bicycles are faster, children are taking more risks, and they're less supervised. So a bicycle helmet is a really a really important thing. And, the way the bicycle helmet works is interesting because the bicycle helmet is like a gigantic sponge. And, if you took the sponge and put it on a puddle of water, that sponge would soak up the water. Well, that's exactly what the foam does on a fall. When that bicycle helmet hits the ground the bicycle helmet soaks up the energy of the fall. This is the way we explain it to children, because they are as sceptical about bicycle helmets as parents are. That a bicycle helmet is a gigantic sponge which soaks up the energy of the fall, slows it down, and protects your head. And then I show the benefits of the bicycle helmet using the watermelon drop. There's nothing more graphic that can show a child why a bicycle helmet is so important because that watermelon is the same consistency as all of our heads. When that bicycle helmet smashes on the ground, you don't have to say too much to a child. They understand that wearing a bicycle helmet can prevent that and if you don't that's what happens. So starting young, showing that a bicycle helmet does work, showing how protective a bicycle helmet is, and peer pressure. If everyone in the family is wearing a bicycle helmet, and Mom and Dad say no bicycle helmet, no bike, that bicycle helmet is going to do its job.