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Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute
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Pamphlets



Summary: How to get our pamphlets on paper, on disk or by email. Some from other sources, too.



Our Own Pamphlets

We provide our pamphlets free for non-profit reproduction and distribution in four ways:


  • As a file for local printing in Word format (readable by most word processors). Some computers are not set up to download a Word file, and you will get just an error message. If that happens, use the .pdf files above.

    To save a Word file to your local hard drive:

    • right click on the title below

    • select Save Target As

    • the Save dialog comes up, and you save the file to your word processing area

    • Open the file with Word or your word processor.

    If you just left click on the title the way you normally do for Web files, some browsers will try to display the file, usually doing a lousy job of it. Some will just stall out.

    Here are the files:

  • On actual paper by postal mail

    We can mail high resolution duplicating masters (produced at 1200 x 1200 dpi) to you on paper, but we need your postal mailing address. Send us your postal mailing address by email

    or write to us at:

      Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute
      4611 Seventh Street South
      Arlington, VA 22204-1419
      USA

    and include a postal mailing address. We will mail the pamphlets on heavy white paper, unfolded, normally within 24 hours. There is no charge for the pamphlet masters. We also include a sample of the CPSC pamphlet described below.


Non-profits are free to add their logo or a sentence telling the reader that this pamphlet was provided through you. But if you want to make changes in the text please just do that and take all of our info off, making you responsible for the content.

Commercial users should contact us to ask about adding anything. You are not permitted to charge for our pamphlets. Local bicycle shops are almost non-profits anyway, so we encourge you to duplicate any of our materials to hand them out in your shop.

Your copy of Word will treat the files a little differently from ours because it is almost certain that some of our default settings differ. The formatting of these pamphlets is necessarily tight. If you are using the Word version please be prepared to deal with little adjustments if you find that the page breaks are not right, for example, and you get three pages instead of just two (the front and back). You may need to fiddle with margins, page setup, or paragraph spacing, even though we have used standard fonts and spacing. Make sure you have selected the option "View - Print Layout." We also recommend using "File - Print Preview" to avoid doing excessive printouts while you are fiddling. We do not recommend making any of the text smaller to fit things in. It is small enough already to discourage many readers!

Occasionally we get a message from someone whose browser will not download the file for them. If that happens to you, send us an email and we can send you the files attached to a return email. We can even send them to you by postal mail on a CD. If you need a CD, you may want to just request our Toolkit for Helmet Promotion Programs, including our web page on a CD, our pamphlets, and four DVDs with videos. We do not charge for the DVDs, CDs or the Toolkit. The costs are minimal and our consumer donations cover them.


US DOT Pamphlets on Paper

The Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a Web server up with materials for teaching kids to ride safely, including a kids bike safety Web page. They also have pamphlets and materials available for campaigns, and classroom materials for teachers. Here is a page describing most of them. Their stuff is all free, but "in limited quantities." (50 pamphlets, 25 posters). Ordering on the NHTSA Web site is best. Or contact Safety Countermeasures Div., NHTSA, Dept. of Transportation, 400 7th St. SW, Washington, DC 20590-0001. For personal assistance send an email to Paula Bawer. If you know what you want to order you can fax an order directly to the warehouse: 202-493-2062.

Here is one sheet that NHTSA no longer distributes, but we think it's a winner. It's called "Prevent Bicycle Crashes" and covers both sides of a standard flat sheet of paper. You can download it to print out in either word format if your system allows downloading word files, or in PDF format if those work better for you. We include it in our Toolkit.


US Consumer Product Safety Commission Pamphlets

CSPC has a Web page where you can order their pamphlets on bicycle and helmet safety. If you are viewing this page on our CD, we have included their Which Helmet for Which Activity pamphlet as a .pdf file.

State of California Pamphlets

The California Department of Health Services Web site has a very useful site up with many materials for school-based helmet promotion campaigns. They have lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations and one pamphlet in Spanish. We have the files on the CD in our Toolkit.


City of Madison Pamphlets

The City of Madison has produced a nice flyer on fitting your helmet. Here is the .pdf version for printing it out. We include it in our Toolkit. They also developed a pamphlet titled How Children See Traffic.


Comic Book from Connecticut Children's Medical Center

Captain Super Safe is a 16 page comic in .pdf format with a story of lost helmets solved by Captain Super Safe. If printed out in black and white it would make a good coloring book.


Snell Foundation's Snell Safety Education Center


The Snell Memorial Foundation has full color pamphlets, buttons, posters, videos and other helmet promotion materials. They ask for a small donation and send you an invoice. You can contact them through their Web site or by postal mail to

    Snell Safety Education Center
    3628 Madison Avenue, Suite 11
    North Highlands, CA 95660

You can also call them. Their telephone number is (916) 331-5073. Or you can send them email at info@smf.org.


First Wheels, First Helmets

The Monroe, WI, Safe Kids Coaltion developed a program called First Wheels, First Helmets to encourage parents to put helmets on kids from the first wheeled vehicle they get, usually a tricycle. They put together this tri-fold pamphlet. It can be printed out in color or black-and-white and the photos still look good. For two sided printing, use the "flip on short edge" setting.




This page was revised or reformatted on: February 21, 2019. BHSI logo
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