Links
Summary: Helmet and bike safety links. Please check our links policy
before proposing a new one.
The sections below: - or you can just page down
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Helmet Information Sites
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Promotion Campaigns and Resources
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Injury Prevention Sites
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Helmets and related products and add-ons
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Helmet Covers
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Sites We Disagree With (on another page)
Helmet Information Sites
SafetyLit produces a weekly digest with
hundreds of journal articles abstracted every week. A search using the phrase "bicycle helmet" finds more than 300
journal articles and reports on the topic. A goldmine for researchers provided by the Center for Injury Prevention Policy
& Practice at San Diego State University. You can subscribe for the weekly report, one of the most useful ways to keep
current on journal articles in the helmet field.
You can research
transportation-related journal articles on bicycle helmets (and other subjects) on the TRIS Search Page. TRIS has more
than 400,000 books, journal articles, and technical reports on transportation research from the 1960's to the present.
Put "bicycle helmet" (without quotes) in the search window and it will return more than 145 references. The abstracts are
sometimes disappointing, but the citations are very useful.
Snell's site has info on their standards and publications.
They develop standards and test helmets to them in their own labs, issuing a certification if the helmet passes. They
have a list up of Snell-certified helmets. They also have the first published reports from the Harborview research that
Snell funded.
NOCSAE sets
standards for helmets for football, lacrosse, baseball and softball batters. Their headgear is all for multiple hits and
usually provides for replacement of the interior at regular intervals. They use an "anthropomorphic" headform designed to
respond to impact like a human head.
SEI's page has info on their safety equipment
certification programs. Their helmet certification program tests helmets to the ASTM standard and verifies the
manufacturer's quality control procedures. They include a list of certified helmets.
CPSC has a page up with information on their
helmet standard, product recalls and hazards, research, and the agency's current calendar of meetings. Here is the page
with
their listing of recalls including helmets. (We have a page of
just their helmet recalls.) They have other material you can find by doing a search on "helmet." You
can also subscribe to their press release by email service and receive recall notifications.
A private for-profit source of copies of the
bicycle helmet standards we discuss.
The famed consumer magazine has a website that is part
free, part paid subscription. We have
summaries of their helmet articles. They mentioned us
in their Blog in 2007.
Train the Trainer Helmet Workshop
The Minnesota State Bicycle Advisory Committee in collaboration with Injury
Prevention Specialists of the Minnesota Department of Health, and the Twin Cities Bicycling Club presents a "Train the
Trainer" Workshop on Bicycle Helmet Safety. The workshop teaches instructors how to run a class on selecting and fitting
a helmet. Check the web, or this page with
the email they send out to publicize the workshop.
Safe Kids Worldwide is a movement to prevent unintentional
childhood injury. They have more than 300 state and local coalitions running community-based campaigns on child occupant
protection, bicycle safety, residential fire detection, and scald burn prevention. They ran the most extensive and most
effective helmet promotion campaign anyone has ever mounted in the US in 1989,and continue to have an active interest in
helmets. Safe Kids provides inexpensive helmets to their chapters and to other non-profits through Bell, one of their
sponsors. We have contact information for that on our
page on inexpensive helmets. In
addition, some of their local coalitions have helmet information up.
DOT's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
has a website up with materials for teaching kids to ride safely, including a
bike safety web page. It links to pamphlets and materials
available for campaigns, and classroom materials for teachers.
Stanford's B-Hip Program
Stanford University's program for bicycle safety.
This very useful page features the author's
observations of the ten worst situations for cyclists getting hit by cars, and his suggestions for how to handle them.
Includes clear illustrations of the bad situations.
China Helmet Initiative - David Scott
David Scott
is a teacher at Jiangnan University in Wuxi. He has launched a local helmet initiative, beginning with his students. He
is working on getting some statistics and information together about helmets and head injuries in China. He has produced
a well-done video to promote helmets there.
Stakki Stikka is an Australian program using unique helmet stickers.
Injury Prevention Sites
Home of the famous Thompson, Rivara
and Thompson studies on helmet effectiveness. Summarizes major studies of helmet effectiveness, with estimates of the
protection helmets offer and more. Their page on helmet effectiveness, which charts the findings of a number of studies.
Also useful is their page on the effectiveness of helmet education interventions.
This project of the University of
North Carolina is funded by the US Department of Transportation. It provides resources primarily to officials who serve
as bicycle planners in localities all over the US, but the website has injury prevention info, research data, statistics
and other resources available for all.
This website has access to many CDC
documents on injury prevention, including helmets. For helmets the most interesting document is their 1995
Injury-Control Recommendations: Bicycle Helmets. (Also
available
in .pdf format.) We have one page of the
Recommendations in our page on bicycle helmet laws, a
compilation of evaluations done on helmet law
effectiveness. CDC also has an interesting page on
head
injury and concussion. Since their resources move, you may need to use
this search link.
Sites We Disagree With
Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation
"Updated 2020-08-29 to reflect the current status of this website. Below is an archive of the original page. Currently
the site is mainly an archive, to preserve links that site articles. Not much has been added since about 2016. Efforts
are currently underway to renew the editorial direction and add new content."
We have more on
this page on helmet opposition.
Helmet Manufacturers
Mirrors
Every vehicle on the road needs a mirror. Most helmet mirrors are tiny. They are close to the eye and
actually show you most of what you need to see. But if you prefer a larger one, check out the
Safezone Helmet Mirror. This one is 2.25" (57mm). That seems
huge, but it does not block vision very much. It is geeky-looking, not stylish. It is well made and seems heavy at 1.5
oz/43 g. We recommend you not use the very strong mounting zip ties provided, but use hook and loop on the part that lies
against the helmet so it will detach in a crash, even though the plastic ball-and-socket pieces in the arm will also
detach. It seems expensive at $40, about twice what most small mirrors cost. We would mount any mirror with hook-and-loop
to be sure it will readily detach in a fall.
The Octoplus Kit
is a starfish-shaped foam kit to replace helmet pads that claims to be universal fit. We don't quite believe that, but if
your pads have disintegrated it may be worth checking out.
Bicycle helmet stickers in graphic designs to add either
reflectivity or florescent color to your helmet. There is one warning bystanders not to remove the helmet after a crash.
We have examined a PET-shell helmet with their graphics on it for a year and found no evidence that the adhesive had
damaged the shell. The reflectivity seemed decent to us but their florescent colors are not reflective.
Strip lights you can attach to your helmet or bike. We have
never seen one in the field and don't know if they would help or not. Our sample self-destructed in about 12 minutes of
operating time. See our page on
the ideal helmet for our cautionary ideas on attaching anything
to the outside of your helmet.
Da Brim makes very
large helmet visors and all-around brims for really good sun protection. Probably a little flappy in high winds or if you
ride too fast, but they also have a front stabilizer for riding on a recumbent bike.
Ice Dot
This info is stale! We don't find the IceDot site on the web any more.
Ice Dot is a crash sensor mounted on the exterior of a helmet that attempts to sense when the wearer has crashed. It
records helmet motion, not the impact to the head, but it senses velocity, torque and impact severity. When an impact
sets it off, the rider has time to deactivate it. If not deactivated it uses the rider's phone to send a text message
with GPS coordinates to the Ice Dot website reporting the crash, and the website passes the SOS along to your pre-entered
contacts. There is an info sticker on the helmet with your unique identifier pointing EMT crews to medical info that you
have loaded on the Ice Dot web page. The initial cost is $150 for the sensor and setup, and $10 per year after that. For
those who just want to use a wristband, Ice Dot sells those along with the helmet stickers for $20, with a URL that EMT's
can use to access your emergency data on the Ice Dot site. That service also has the $10 annual fee. The site is
icedot.org. The sensor must be charged from a charger or USB port, and will run for 24 hours on a charge. Some riders who
often ride solo in remote areas--that still have cell coverage--welcomed the announcement. Field reports will be needed
to determine the ability of the crash sensor to react appropriately to real life crashes.
O-Tus makes small near-ear speakers that attach to the helmet near your ears. We have not heard the sound
quality. They would still inevitably affect your hearing what happens around you, a sense that we think is critical to
safe bicycling. Not recommended, particularly because
their
mounting video recommends shaving some foam off the edge of your helmet so the adhesive on the mount will stick. To
our shock, the technician actually takes a knife and shaves off some foam to make a more level mount, and to remove dirty
foam that will not give a good adhesive surface. Since our message is "never modify your helmet liner" and nobody knows
how much foam a user might take off, we would avoid this product.
Plum Enterprises makes protective headgear for anyone from
babies to adults in need of head protection around the house after head injury, surgery, during epileptic seizures, etc.
These are protective caps not designed for the heavy impacts seen in bicycling.
Streetglo has reflective stickers and vinyl decals in at least nine
colors and a large variety of designs, mostly intended for motorcycle helmets. The larger ones cover a full helmet. There
is one warning bystanders not to remove the helmet after a crash. Some of their reflective materials come from 3m. Others
come from Nippon Carbide Industries (USA), who certify that the material will not damage motorcycle helmet shells made of
PET, Lexan and other plastics. They have now added bicycle kits, and their web page has
some good photos of the results. That much
material tends to be expensive.
Helmet Covers and Add-ons
Helmet covers and other add-ons are a special category. The lycra covers
that are held on with elastic bands around the bottom are probably ok, since
research years
ago showed that they just slip off in a crash, and are actually beneficial for sliding for the first inch or so. But
we have never seen any lab tests of the ones with horns or other projections, so we would not use one, and you are on you
own with those. We have
a page up on helmet covers.