About Us
Summary: We are a bicycle helmet advocacy program explaining helmet technology to consumers and working to improve helmet standards.
Mission Statement
The Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute is an independent, volunteer-led 501 (c) (3) organization whose mission is to protect an ever-growing number of cyclists from head injury by encouraging the use of bicycle helmets meeting minimum objective safety standards. To achieve this goal we share objective quality ratings with the public, explain helmet technology, contract independent lab testing of helmet protection and support efforts to improve helmet standards.
Who We Are
Welcome! We are a bicycle helmet advocacy program explaining helmet technology to consumers and working to improve helmet standards. Founded in 1989, we are a small, active, non-profit consumer-funded program with a volunteer staff. Our volunteers serve on the ASTM helmet standards 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 newsletter, both free.
We are funded entirely by consumer donations. We maintain our independence by never accepting funds from the industry. We are a 501(c)3 non-profit, so your contributions to us are tax-deductible. We spend 100% on program expenses, nothing on administration or salaries and nothing on fundraising.
We do not use cookies at all on this site. No tracking, no ads, no rude pop-ups urging you to subscribe to our newsletter. We don’t have any interest in selling your data. We are not an affiliate advertising site and do not profit from your clicks on any of our links. In a typical year our secure website serves 2 million pages to more than 700,000 distinct users. We have been up continuously since 1995 with better than 99.9% uptime. We converted our site to WordPress in 2026. Our legacy site is still available on The Wayback Machine at archive.org.
We believe in helmets but know that they are a secondary safety measure and urge that primary measures such as safer roads and education programs for riders and drivers get high priority to resolve our current road safety crisis. Until our roads are reconfigured taking a safe systems design approach the appalling daily carnage will continue.
Our Program
What we hope to accomplish this year
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