Caroline Price - Age 13

It just isn't right! Our children are supposed to outlive us."

- Ruth Price

We greatly appreciate that so many people have let us know that they would like to link to Wear A Helmet.org. In order to try and make things easy, we have created some banners that can be used.

Below is a sample of banners that you can put on your site. Instead of saving the images to your hard drive and then uploading them to your site, we ask that - when possible - you add the HTML code supplied instead. This will save you bandwidth on your site and also allow us to make changes to the banners without your needing to change anything on your page. We will maintain the size and name of each banner so you will not have a missing image appear on your page. If you have a site that you feel would be valuable to visitors to this site, please let us know so that we can link to you also.

We will be adding more images soon. If you have an idea for some text that you would like to see on a banner, please use the contact us link to let us know.

“I wanted to share my son, Jacob's story to spread awareness to everyone also on wearing bike helmets. Also to make sure your child wears the helmet because it’s not enough to have you have to wear.

Jacob is 7 1/2 years old.  On July 21 2006 Jacob was riding his bike with his cousin and lost control of his bike and ran into his cousin's handlebars and flip off.  He had a fracture to his left side of his skull.  With the swelling caused him to have seizures and at one point he stopped breathing. They had to place a drain in his skull to relieve some of the pressure.   He spent 7 days in the ICU and we have been at Madonna's Rehab center since Aug. 7th.  He just started to walk with help and he has short term memory loss on top of needing Physical, Occupational and speech therapies.  They doctors believe he make close to a full recovery but with traumatic brain injuries it is a long process.  It has been a long road for him and our family but we are blessed that he has made it this far.

All my children had a helmet but never wore them. Now it a rule for the whole family NO helmet, No bike! It this story can help in anyway to make sure all the children have helmets it is worth it.”

- Maxine 

Did you know that not all hemlets are made the same? And helmets designed for one type of activity may not be designed for another? Bike helmets do not protect skateboarders for example. Even with the proper helmet on, the care and maintanince of bycycles, skateboards, scooters, and in-line skates is also a large factor in accidents.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's 2004 estimates, bicyclists received about 151,000 head injuries that were treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms. Nearly 11,000 or 7 percent of those emergency room visits resulted in hospitalization.

Skateboarders visited hospital emergency rooms with about 18,000 head injuries, and approximately 760 or 4 percent were hospitalized. CPSC estimates horseback riders received about 14,000 emergency room-treated head injuries. Approximately 2,400 or 17 percent of those head injuries required hospitalization.

Many of these injuries could have been prevented through proper helmet usage.

In addition, wearing a helmet correctly is a major factor in preventing injury in the event of an accident.

Here are some statistics to think about:

• Non-helmeted riders are 14 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than helmeted riders.
• Helmets can prevent an estimated 75% of bicycle fatalities among children.
• 85-88% of critical head and brain injuries can be prevented through the use of a bicycle helmet.
• By wearing a helmet, an injury can be prevented every 4 minutes.
• A bicyclist died every six hours in the year 2002.
• Universal bicycle helmet use by children ages 4-15 can prevent 39,000-45,000 head injuries, and 18,000-55,000 scalp and face injuries annually.
• In the year 2000, 90% of bicycle fatalities occurred to riders not wearing helmets.
  Source: ThinkFirst Foundation http://www.thinkfirst.org/teens/BicycleSafety.asp.

Death due to a head injury isn't something that CAN happen, it DOES happen.

Two articles on the Internet discuss general Helmet Safety Information and are suggested reading for anyone who knows someone who takes part in activities such as the ones listed above. Please read these articles and print them out to discuss with someone you know.

Gear Up, Strap It On – Helmets Can Save Lives and Reduce Injuries

Crash Helmet Safety Information from Dean Health System

Another important fact that is often not thought about is that helmets are designed to handle an accident but will often need to be replaced if you are involved in a serious impact. In the event that you do have any sort of accident, your helmet should be inspected by a professional before riding again. Most bike and skateboard shops will inspect your helmet for free. Even if there does not appear to be any damage, it should be inspected.

Additional information will be available on this page soon. If you have links to other helmet safety sites, please use the contact us link located on the left to let us know.