Other Bicycle Helmet Campaigns

There are many other helmet campaigns that helped to push the safety for all people. Wearing a helmet is a simple action, in return it protects the most important part of human body. Below is a list of existing helmet campaigns: (it is evident that wearing a bicycle helmet successfully decrease the risk of head injury, as the campaigns emerged in different parts of the world)

1. Helmet.org. This website provides a lot of information regarding to helmet. Whether you have a question about helmet, going on this site is the best choice to look for your answer. The site also included statistics from various researches that proved how effect helmets are protecting us.
2. Headway. Headway continues its efforts to promote the use of cycle helmets, and campaigns to make it compulsory for children under the age of 16 to wear helmets while cycling. From contact with our Groups and Branches across the UK, we know that this is an ongoing issue that affects a large number of our service users and their families. By encouraging cyclists to wear helmets we are fulfilling one of our crucial aims – to help reduce the prevalence of brain injury in society.
3. Above All, Wear a Helmet. Even though this campaign is aimed for motorcyclists, the same concept applies of wearing a bicycle helmet. The campaign aims to improve the safety of drivers and passengers of motorbikes and scooters and advocates the compulsory wearing of helmets for all journeys.
4. No Excuse, Wear a Helmet. The campaign features three images which appear on two dozen posters throughout the city in high bike-traffic areas. In two images, bikers not wearing helmets have sustained injuries from a crash. In the third, a female biker was protected by her helmet.
   
5. No Helmet, No Ride competition is designed to provide an interactive way for children to learn about the importance of always wearing a helmet when riding a wheeled device. In 2014 the competition called on primary school students to create a video, radio ad or illustrated story around the theme ‘No Helmet, No Ride’. 

   These are all some fascinating and inspiring campaigns!
   Be sure to wear a helmet at all time, a life saver is within your action.

   Lin

Looking At The Other Side: Contentious Issure Around MHL

As discussed earlier, New Zealand and Australia are the two countries that required people of all age to wear a bicycle helmet at all time. There is no federal law in the U.S requiring bicycle helmets. The states are localities began adopting laws in 1987. Most are limited to children under 18. Some states have passed the law regarding to MHL but are repealed later. Israel experimented with national legislation, but repealed the law in 2011 after a four year trial. Here are some of the objectives against MHL:

• They do not improve injury rates
• Discourage regular recreation exercise in an era of high obesity
• Unnecessary
• Intrusion of individual freedom

There are studies that have proven that the Mandatory Helmet Laws has not reduced head injury rates. Dr Dorothy Robinson from the University of New England, who found ‘enforced helmet laws discourage cycling but produce no obvious response in percentage of head injuries’.

MHLs change people’s behavior and perception of risk. Some cyclists take more risks while riding with a helmet than they would without, while studies have shown that some motorists drive closer to helmeted cyclists, than unhelmeted ones. This tendency for individuals to react to a perceived increase in safety by taking more risk is known as risk compensation.

I am not encouraging people not to wear a bicycle helmet but rather to provide an insight on why some countries do not require MHL, and why people hated MHL. What are your thoughts on this?  Below is a collection of tweets that included #helmet laws
Interesting right..?

Lin

Helmet and its merit

Long before in the history, “helmet” has been used for protective reasons, helmet in this context can be the protective gears and armors that that soldiers wore during the Medieval Age. Tracing back in 900BC, the oldest known use of helmet was by Assyrian soldiers. They wore thick leather on their heads to protect the head from sword blows and flying arrows in combat.

The word helmet is diminutive from helm, a Medieval word for protective combat headgear. The Medieval great helm covers the whole head and often is accompanied with camail protecting throat and neck as well. Originally a helmet was a helm which covered the head partly.

Over the course of human history, many different types of helmet have developed. Most early helmets had military uses especially in combat-related purposes, some helmets held ceremonial purposes as well. Two important types of helmets are Corinthian helmet and Roman galea.

Later on the protective gears took different forms and were composed with different materials. The materials including a wide range of substances such as metal, plastic, rubber, leather, and plant fiber. No matter what materials the helmets are made up of, the primary function of helmets is to protect the most important part of human body.  As in contemporary society, wearing a helmet became a common practice in recreational activities and sport purposes such as football, water polo, hotkey, baseball, and bicycle. For each specific helmets, it is designed with different intentions. Take bicycle helmet and rock climbing helmet for comparison, one is designed to be particularly against blunt impact forces from the wearer’s head  striking the road, another is designed to endure heavy impact from above.

Now that we have provided a clear historical and  background information of helmets, what do you think helmets are for? And what are the reasons for people not wearing a helmet in different occasions?

Lin