Anyway, this is boring. Hank, how about some new decals/stickers such as \Workcycles: Better for your head than a Volvo\?

The trading standards should include warnings at the point of sale and in advertisements or promotional material for helmets.

1 There is evidence of increased accident risk of 14% per cycling-km for cyclists wearing a helmet. (Erke and Elvik 2007)

2. Helmets are designed to protect the head from low impact injury at 12 mph or less. In fatal accidents the force of impact is considered to be so significant that generally most protection would fail.

3 Accidental hanging to young children can occur while engaging in activities other than bicycle riding, helmets should be removed when not cycling.

4 Neck injuries (usually low in number) may increase by an estimated 36%.
(The 36% figure is from Attewell report CR 195)

5 Helmets can easily break due to being made of low strength material.

6 The case for helmets is far from sound and advice to wear them should be limited. Individual choice should prevail so that no one is discouraged from cycling.

for more information see, Health and safety assessment of state bicycle helmet laws in the USA. http://www.ctcyorkshirehumber.org.uk/USA_helmet_laws.pdf

I’ve heard that U.S. DOT standards are more stringent than Snell or the U.S. CPSC standards, but I don’t know whether that’s true. My first helmet from the early 1980s was heavier and “beefier” than current ones. I read somewhere that they were safer, but I don’t know that that’s true either.

I emailed Nutcase awhile back about where they sourced their web page’s safety stats. It turns out to be http://www.helmets.org

I haven’t done a full survey of all manufacturer’s websites, but the handful of sites I looked at usually promote “massive vents” and “airflow,” with almost no claim on protection. If I were in the helmet-making business, I’d probably do the same. Making any claims beyond meeting applicable standards is an invitation to a lawsuit.

I am at a loss as I don’t know if the labels have changed, but I doubt the main gist of them has, so let’s look at the 2nd and 3rd labels above:

The first about foreseeable impacts is accurate but vague. The second is similar but more specific and tells people not to use them with mopeds, scooters, motorcycles and those small all-terrain vehicles (and this is illegal if not enforced in most places).

Marketing and advertising – what people see before they buy a helmet or switch brands – might be more difficult to deal with, but still has to be truthful or at least not specifically misleading. One sees a label only after they buy a helmet.

It seems to be quite justified to have more accurate labels inside the helmet indicating how and how not a helmet is tested, and also in the manual etc. which comes inside the helmet packaging. It might be good beforehand to determine not just if people know that helmets are not tested but also what they do or do not know. Clearly a new proposed regulation which mandates mentioning of the word “automobile” would get attacked. And excessive “lawyering” of this issue could lead to the definition of helmets as inadequate protection on shared roads under current conditions of e.g. too high speeds. Perhaps that would a good outcome, as we want safer roads to be primarily the responsibility of drivers at an individual level (rather than cyclists), and government bodies at a collective one (rather than the helmet industry, which cannot really protect cyclists as much as they imply.)

In fact if they are more honest about helmets it could result – if you follow my logic above – in safer streets and a huge increase in cycling which means that smart companies will sell, for example, more locks! And perhaps fewer helmets. ABUS (just an example) is prepared for this, as they sell helmets AND locks.

But really I would be pleased to just start a discussion and hopefully some research.