Helmets help - Brief Article

Vibrant Life, Nov-Dec, 2003

More children are using protective helmets when cycling, and that's good news. But the bad news is that most children wear the helmets incorrectly.

Massachusetts researchers found that 73 percent of children age 4 to 18 are wearing helmets while biking. That's up from just 18 percent in 1991. But only 4 percent of children are fully protected by those helmets. The three main difficulties are that the helmet rests too high on the forehead, the strap does not fit in a "v" pattern around the ears, and the helmet slides too easily on the head forward or backward.

All these factors can expose a child's frontal region of the skull, the most common site of impact in bike head injuries.

(Pediatrics)