Here is a more recent meta-analysis of the effects of bike helmets. Highlights from the studies are:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457518301301?via%3Dihub
I’m happy to tell you all of the permanent brain damage my friend got from not wearing a bike helmet. At very low speeds.
From my perspective, helmets for kids should be law. Just like special car seats and seat belts. Kids do stupid things on bikes.
Back in about 1992, a new middle school opened near my home. Prior to the opening, the school district sent information and some rules for the new school. One rule was a requirement for bike helmets for all those that ride bikes to the school. This was prior to King County requiring bike helmets for all. Some people raised a stink about this. A few weeks after opening, the school sent home information clarifying the helmet requirement. Based on state law, the school district is responsible for the safe passage to and from school for all students, this includes those that ride buses, walk, ride bikes. The only exception was those transported in a personal vehicle to and from school. Based on this information, the school district felt they could require the helmets. Didn’t matter to me either way, we lived far enough from the school that my kids would not be riding their bikes. I now live across the street from that school. The school at some point banned students riding bikes to school due to the high volume of traffic around the school making bike riding unsafe.
Thank you~I appreciated being able to read it.
@BippityBoppityBoo Did you actually read it?
@wguy123 Unfortunately I can’t actually read the study you linked to – it is only ‘for sale’.
The site I linked to has free links to the studies and articles shown and shows both sides of the story, not just the “wear a helmet or you’re an ass” side. It links to thousands of pages of actual information and research, not just scary clickbait headlines.
Here’s another interesting tidbit. Were you aware that when professional cyclists were mandated to wear helmets their death rate went up?
Big rise in fatalities as helmets made mandatory
Yes. The abstract. Seemed fairly unequivocally in favor of bike helmets if you’re fond of your brain function. I am.
I have an adult child who is a pediatric sub specialty physician. He never rides his bike without a helmet and I doubt he is being led astray by ‘clickbait science’. He does neurological research and cares for people with head injuries. Listen to the science.
Maybe the discussion around bicycle helmet efficacy could be moved to it’s own thread? The OP is just asking about schools enforcing helmet rules.
Bicycle helmet efficacy appears to be part of the answer to the OP. So I would say continue it if desired.
Major factor left out:Increase in number of participants.
Otherwise, there’s no way to compare.
Yeah, I’ll give that site a pass when this is part of their policy statement:
I guess helmet sceptic materials are less subject to copyright while supportive of helmet materials are. I wonder why? 
Some very questionable issues with that statistic from your link:
This is an extremely sloppy use of statistics, and a classic example of the small sample fallacy. Decadal death tolls of 10 or fewer are so small that you can’t really infer anything meaningful from their decade-to-decade fluctuations.
The statistic also doesn’t take into account any other relevant factors such as increasing population numbers, population density, traffic density and speed, popularity of cycle racing (as running_coach noted), etc.
Declaring that a correlation between increased cycle-racing deaths and the implementation of bike-helmet requirements implies a causal connection is an idiocy worthy of the Spurious Correlations website.
Moreover, your chosen (currently inactive) citation source cyclehelmets . org self-identifies as “helmet-sceptic”. They claim that it’s because the preponderance of the evidence points that way, but also confess that their access to pro-helmet evidence is limited by copyright restrictions. (And it’s pretty evident from the above example that their ideas of what constitutes statistical evidence are not necessarily trustworthy.)
There’s a lot to be said for the organization’s advocacy of other cycling-safety measures besides helmet use, but AFAICT their assessments of helmet safety issues are strongly biased and motivated by anti-helmet-law views.
Yes, especially in the OP’s reference to helmet requirements as a health education issue. Obviously the question whether helmet use provides health benefits is relevant to that.
Homophobic? Certainly not ever in my life have I been accused of that before and if you knew me you’d know why that is. A pansy is a brightly colored flower. What that has to do with homophobia is lost on me.
Around here, cyclists, in particular those wearing cyclist outfits (is that better?) have long had a reputation for taking up the road and many haven’t the courtesy to move to the side to permit vehicles to pass. There was no malicious intent towards anybody. It’s just what it is.
Warning for @Keith1 for continuing use of a homophobic slur after being told not to, and for arguing moderation outside of ATMB.
Fear sells and it sells big time. There is a lot more money to be made selling fear than there is telling people to be skeptical of those who wish to sell them products of dubious efficacy.
Think about the hundreds of millions of people around the world who ride bikes and don’t wear helmets. They literally laugh at the foolish Americans and Australians wearing their plastic hats.
Riding a bicycle is simply not an inherently dangerous activity.
Worth repeating:
“ … the extensive literature review found no reliable real-world evidence of helmets being beneficial in reducing cyclists’ injuries …”
No reliable read-world evidence – but plenty of clickbait scare stories. Fear sells, especially to those who choose not to read both sides of a story.
The site you are promoting only presents one side. Their own policy statement mentions this.
It does not say that.
It’s a biased site filled with bad statistics. Take a look at Kimstu’s excellent post a few up…
You can read their policy statement page and come away convinced that they are NOT “helmet skeptic”? Wow!
You can certainly try to twist it that way if you want to believe in helmets … but that is not what I said.
Getting back to stuff that relates to the OP.
Some cons of helmet wearing:
-Increased risky behavior caused by using safety equipment
-Cyclists riding faster, more aggressively, sometimes beyond their ability
-Olympic boxers eliminated head gear because it makes a bigger target making them easier to hit and getting hit more often. A cycle helmet has the same effect.
-Football players spearing each other because they are wearing safety equipment
-Kids (and many adults) often wear helmets incorrectly
-Warning label on kids helmets – It is more dangerous to wear a helmet when not riding a bike – strangling.
There are two sides to this story but I tire of the twisting of the echo chamber now. Good night.
I don’t know what state you’re in to look up the specific laws; however, most states follow federal guidelines so they are similar on traffic laws. My state specifically allows riding two abreast & for the cyclist to take the entire lane on any “roadway that has a width of not more than one lane of traffic in each direction” (§3301 c 2 ii)