We were all kids once upon a time, which means that we all know exactly how kids think.
They want to find out what stuff is by eating it, they want to dig for worms with their toothbrushes, they want to jump off of high things, and they never, ever want to wear anything that will keep them safe.
Sunscreen, bug spray, life jackets? Nope, no, and no way. And ask them to put on a bike helmet, and you’re likely to have a mutiny on your hands, because helmets don’t look “cool.”
Fortunately, now we can offer the perfect rebuttal to that last dilemma — just show them a picture of what a bike helmet looks like after a bad collision.
Better yet, take a moment and show it to every person in your family that rides a bike. Chances are good that even those in your family who should know better sometimes skip this basic level of protection.
Now, you’ll finally have all the proof you need to demonstrate that bike helmets aren’t a suggestion; they’re a must.
Scroll down below to see what impact can do to a bike helmet, and how to stay safe on a bike.
We got to thinking about the issue of bike safety after a photo began blowing up on the internet recently.
The picture looks innocuous at first glance, but when you take a closer look, you realize that the styrofoam padding around the the edges of the helmet is completely shattered.
The photo, taken by an Englishman called Tim Stirrup, is the result of an accident he had while bicycling in Hertfordshire, U.K.
According to Metro, it was a situation in which the cyclist did everything right, but still ended up on the wrong end of an accident.
He had stopped to let a driving elderly couple go, and to warn them about being aware of cyclists, but they still abruptly sideswiped him farther down the road.
He was knocked around with a few minor injuries, as was his bike, but his helmet took the brunt of the impact, much like the one pictured above.
While it might be frightening to some of us to think that a helmet could be destroyed with one impact, it's actually exactly what they're supposed to do.
Helmets are designed with a couple of levels of defense.
If you take a light knock, your helmet will simply absorb the blow and protect your noggin.
However, if you take a really hard fall, as in a road accident, the foam of the helmet is meant to crush under impact.
This keeps your head from being held rigid and stationary while the helmet moves violently with the force of the fall.
Having no flexibility at all in your neck can actually cause equally severe injuries to blunt trauma, so it's incredibly important that the helmet work on these two levels.
What matters the most is that the helmet is protecting your melon.
In other words, that crushed and cracked helmet gives a pretty solid picture of what might happen to someone's head if they got in an accident without a helmet on.
The fellow pictured above landed himself in the hospital with a neck brace and crushed his helmet; we don't like to imagine what would have happened if he'd left his safety gear at home.
People don't always realize how dangerous biking can be under certain circumstances.
On the one hand, it's something that all kids learn early on, and is usually pretty safe in a suburban environment.
In a city, on a busy road, or in challenging terrain, however, biking is a whole other kettle of fish, and can be the cause of serious accidents.
In the U.S. there were 50,000 bike-related injuries in 2014 alone, and 726 cyclists were killed in the same year in collisions with motor vehicles.
Often, as in the case of Mr. Stirrup, mentioned above, the cyclist has done everything right, and is completely caught off guard when the impact comes.
That's why it's so important to always wear a helmet, and make sure that you're well protected, even when you don't see an accident coming.
If this important info makes you worry for the cyclists you know, please make sure to SHARE and remind everyone of the importance of bike helmets!
