Are all bike helmets equal?

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the brain bucket you wear for bicycling may not be suitable for in-line skating or skateboarding.

Helmets are built to protect folks' noggins from the types of impacts that occur in different activities. A bicycle helmet won't do the job in a skiing or motorcycle accident, for instance.

The New England Journal of Medicine says that donning a bicycle helmet for a bike ride can reduce the risk of head injury by 85% and brain injury by 88%. The CPSC estimates that 151,000 bicyclists were treated at emegency rooms in the US for head injuries in 2004; about 7% required hospitalization.

“Many of these injuries could have been prevented through proper helmet usage,” the CPSC says in announcing a new pamphlet on helmet use. It doesn't say, however, how it arrived at its estimates or how many of those people were wearing helmets.

 The pamplet, “Which Helmet for Which Activity?” (available online) cites different helmet types for bicycling (includes low-speed in-line scooters and recreational skating), BMX cycling, downhill mountain bike racing, and aggressive skating and skateboarding.

Safety Neal's Fireside Chat wonders whether the CPSC has become a shill for the helmet producers. “Is there really that great a difference between a motorcycle helmet and a snowmobile helmet?”

Meanwhile, a group of Australian doctors attacked a researcher's views that compulsory helmet use has no impact on reducing the number of head injuries.

Dr. Dorothy Robinson's report in the British Medical Journal turned heads when she said compulsory helmet laws weren't beneficial and discouraged people from riding bikes.

A member of the Australian Medical Association commented, “Helmets deter some people, but the lack of an adequate connected bicycle network is far more of a deterrent.”