Quick Answers
- Quick Answers!
- Fast info for Frequently Asked Questions.
- Buying a helmet?
- Our Consumer's Guide to Bicycle Helmets
- Helmets for 2008
- Preview of our upcoming report on this year's helmets.
- How to fit a helmet
- How to get all the protection you paid for.
- Toolkit for helmet programs and teachers
- Resources, statistics, pamphlets, videos, more.
- The Media Room
- Quote of the Day and how to quote our other text
- Teachers and student teachers
- Classroom materials
- Helmets Made Simple
- If our pages are hard to read, try this.
New Stuff
- Washington Post article based on faulty study.
- Reporters can't find a real helmet issue, so . . .
- Parade Magazine cover with bare-headed comic
- What we do when we see one of those.
- Specialized has recalled their superlight 2D helmet.
- Helmet did not pass CPSC certification tests.
- Response to "truck ran over cyclist's head"
- A helmet can help, but will crush if really run over.
- The Consumer Reports blog featured us on April 4th.
- A nice article on our founder, Randy Swart.
- Response to British Study on passing clearance.
- British study on how close cars in UK pass helmeted cyclists
- New York City releases data on bicycle deaths
- NYC finds 97% of dead cyclists had no helmet.
- What's New
- What we have added or modified recently.
- Briefs on recent developments
- News about helmets and the helmet industry.
- Our latest email newsletter
- The Helmet Update.
Helmets
- Helmets for the 2008 season: a preview
- Summary of the Helmets for 2008 page we are working on.
- Consumer Reports helmet article
- Review of the June, 2006 article.
- Helmet recalls
- All CPSC compliance actions since 1995.
- Types of helmets
- Road, mountain, downhill, skate, chrono
- Helmet terms and definitions
- Meanings for the helmet terms we use.
- Plastics in your helmet?
- Helmet plastics are probably not a cause for concern.
- Cheap helmets!
- Sources of helmets for promotion campaigns.
- Yard sale helmets
- Should I buy a used helmet at a yard sale?
- Full Face helmets
- Do you want facial protection?
- Very large helmets
- Our advice for riders with very large heads.
- Very small helmets
- Why can't I find a helmet small enough?
- Hairstyles and baseball caps
- Baseball caps, pony tails, beads, braids, "helmet hair"
- Do-rags and head covers under helmets
- Does a head cover affect helmet fit?
- One-size-fits-all helmets
- Can ring fit systems fit your head?
- Vents and squared-off lines
- You can have too many vents in your helmet!
- Reporting shattered visors
- How to report shattered or snagged visors
- The helmet industry
- Industry news on a few of the manufacturers.
- How to Fit a Helmet
- How to fit a helmet for best protection.
- Helmet fit checklist
- How to make sure your fitting worked.
- Helmet sizing
- How to measure your head for a helmet.
- Winter helmets
- Warm headgear for winter commuting and riding.
- Reflective helmets
- Should you add reflective tape to your helmet?
- Other helmets
- Ski, soccer, skating, equestrian and more.
- Multi-purpose helmets
- Can't I just use the same helmet for everything?
- Helmets for motorbikes and scooters
- Why a bicycle helmet is not ok for motor vehicles.
- New York Times Article
- "Head Injuries Piling Up?" Times' reputation sinking?
- Media coverage with unsafe riders
- Messages to the media from the outraged.
- Crash!
- Stories where the helmet worked.
- Other crashes
- No helmet or non-bicycle. These tend to be downers.
- When can I ride again?
- Ask your doctor before riding after a crash.
Children
- Getting My Child to Wear A Helmet
- Ten ideas for encouraging your kids to use helmets.
- Why kids don't like to wear helmets.
- Reasons the kids give when asked.
- Warning: No helmets on playgrounds!
- Advice after deaths of two helmeted children.
- Helmets for poor kids
- Factors affecting promotion in poor neighborhoods
- What size is my child's head?
- How to measure.
- Very large toddler helmets
- Helmets for toddlers with very large heads.
- Taking your child along?
- Helmets, trailers, childseats and shaken babies.
- Hairstyles and baseball caps
- Baseball caps, pony tails, beads, braids, "helmet hair"
- Lice! Headlice can be a problem
- Cleaning helmets for rentals and schools
Special Helmets
- Helmets for teens
- "My teen won't wear a helmet!"
- Helmets on campus
- Is a college brain worth protecting?
- Helmets for seniors
- Does an older brain need different protection?
- Helmets with Hearing Aids
- Where to put a hearing aid and how to deal with sweat
- Helmets for special needs
- Suggestions for developmental disabilities and seizures
- Helmets for head injured riders
- What to wear if you have a previous injury.
- Helmets for bald riders
- Avoiding funny tan lines and other tips.
- Helmets for very small adult heads
- Why look like a mushroom?
- Helmets for police
- Helmets for police officers, with police graphics
- Helmets for bicycle polo
- What you need to protect your head in cycle polo
- Helmets for time trialing
- Chrono helmets with extreme aero shapes
- Helmets and turbans
- How can a Sikh wear a bicycle helmet?
Standards
- Standards for bicycle helmets
- ASTM, ANSI, Snell, CPSC, CEN and others.
- The ideal helmet standard
- Our idea of the perfect bicycle helmet standard.
- Making progress in standards
- What is needed for further standards improvement.
- Helmet performance limits
- How much a helmet can take and keep on protecting.
- Helmet testing
- How helmets are tested in the lab.
- Helmet test labs
- Labs who test helmets or supply test equipment.
- ASTM headgear subcommittee section
- Materials from ASTM F8.53 subcommittee.
- ANSI Z90.4 Committee - Inactive list.
- The ANSI Z90.4 standard died and was revived as ASTM.
Maintenance and Repairs
- Replacing a helmet
- Our advice on when to replace your helmet.
- Repairing a helmet
- How to fix your helmet when it comes unglued.
- Replacing a buckle
- Can you find a replacement buckle? Maybe!
- Threading straps through a buckle
- Illustrations and photos to help you rethread.
- Recycling helmets
- What to do with your faithful old helmet.
Construction and Design
- How Helmets Work
- Basics on construction and testing standards
- How bicycle helmets are made
- A summary of manufacturing steps
- Bicycle helmet foams
- Info on EPS, EPP, EPU and more.
- Molded-in-the-shell helmets
- It can make better helmets, but not necessarily.
- Helmet Cooling
- Info on ventilation and cooler riding.
- Helmet Designers
- Our short list of indepedent helmet designers.
Statistics and Research
- Helmet and Injury statistics
- They don't agree, so take your pick!
- Helmet documents
- Materials we have scanned in or downloaded.
- Helmet construction and materials
- Helmet design for students and researchers.
- Researchers' page
- Info for a thesis or a science project.
- Term papers on bike helmets
- Where to find the info to write a term paper
- A workshop on bike helmets
- Points to cover when you do a workshop.
- Helmet Patents
- Some significant patents and how to find others.
- The cost of making a bike helmet
- Our guesses on manufacturing and sales costs.
- The total market for bike helmets
- How many helmets are sold each year?
Helmet Laws
- Mandatory helmet laws
- States, counties, cities, positions, opponents.
- Issues from the usenet "helmet
wars"
- Our slant on the endless helmet law arguments.
Beyond Helmets: essential safety stuff
- National Strategies for Bicycle Safety.
- An attempt to fix all of the problems!
- Rider education
- Our pamphlet on teaching kids, plus links.
- Lights on Helmets
- Headlights and taillights mounted on helmets can be useful.
- Other bike safety equipment
- Gloves, mouthguards, lights, flags, tires, more.
- Bike Safety Month
- When is bike safety day, week or month.
Who We Are
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Welcome! We are the helmet advocacy program of the Washington
Area Bicyclist Association. We are a small, active, non-profit consumer-funded program providing bicycle helmet information. We try to explain the technology of helmets to consumers, and promote better helmets through improved standards. Our volunteers serve on the ASTM helmet standard committee and are active in commenting on actions of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. We provide a Toolkit of materials for helmet programs and a periodic email helmet newsletter, both free. We are all volunteers, funded entirely by consumer donations. We maintain our independence by never accepting funds from the industry. As much as we believe in helmets we still consider them a secondary safety measure and urge that primary measures such as safer roads and education programs for riders and drivers not be neglected. Last year we served 3.2 million pages to more than 850,000 distinct users.
- Our FAQ: can you trust this site?
- Where we came from, what we do and how.
- Some nice words from Consumer Reports
- BHSI's founder named Safety Crusader.
- ASTM's Hulse Memorial Award
- Recognition for BHSI's work on helmet standards.
- Our Program
- What we hope to accomplish this year.
- How to support our work!
- We are funded 100% by consumer donations.
- What we need today
- Graphics, crossword or teaching skills?
- How we run our site
- Our philosophy, design, page hits and more.
- Promises, promises
- What we hope to add to our site some day.
What We Can Do For You
- Our publications
- Newsletter, pamphlets, list of laws, more.
- Our email newsletter
- The Helmet Update, our periodic free newsletter.
- Between news events, check our Briefs.
- Media guidance
- Quotes and a few rules on quoting our site.
- Webmaster guidance
- You can quote us but not use our pages.
- Access to our data
- Web, email, telephone, postal mail.
- Teachers, educators, scout leaders, workshops, rodeos.
- Check out our resources, including lesson plans.
- Bike shop owners - We encourage you to use our pamphlets.
- We provide free duplicating masters.
Search our Site
- Search our site.
- Finds anything on our site.
- A Map of our site.
- A page by page map in outline form.
- A subject index to our pages.
- If you haven't found it yet, try here!
Links
- Helmet links
- Links to other helmet-related pages.
- Head Injury Survivors
- Links to people who have survived a head injury.
- Graphical pages for young riders
- Want graphics? Comics? Superheroes?
- Surfing!
- Links to relevant bicycle pages.
- Our links policy
- When we add a non-helmet bicycle link.
Translate Our Pages
Feedback
- Problems With Our Site?
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Please use this link for comments or questions
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Our contact info:Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute
4611 Seventh Street South
Arlington, VA 22204-1419 USA
Voice and fax: (703) 486-0100
email: please use this link.
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© All pages on this site are copyrighted by the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute, 1989-2007. Reproduction for non-profit use is encouraged, but on the Web please link to our pages rather than reproducing them--we update frequently and a copy will be quickly outdated. Webmasters please see this page.
This page was last revised on: October 6, 2008.
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