Using Your Noggin

Wilmington, Delaware
Friday, May 22, 2009 @ 03:57 PM EDT

Carol Ireland was cycling near Hockessin on a sunny day last October when her bike struck a pothole. The next thing she knew, she hit the ground head first.
“I can’t even describe how hard I hit the ground,” she said. “I’d be dead if I didn’t wear a helmet, and if by any chance I survived, I’d be paralyzed. My helmet was cracked in nine places.”

Ireland is one of many bicyclists who support stronger enforcement of the law requiring children to wear bicycle helmets.

Delaware’s law is among the strictest in the nation. Last year, the state amended it to require all 16- and 17-year-olds to wear a conforming helmet when riding a bicycle, skateboard or motorized scooter. The law originally applied only to children younger than 16. California and New Mexico are the only other states that mandate helmet use in children as old as 17, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

To further increase
awareness, duPont
Hospital runs a Bike
Safety Rodeo at local
schools to illustrate
the importance of
wearing a helmet,
as well as how to
use hand signals
and how to maneuver
a course. In addition,
the hospital opened a
child safety store, where
parents can get,
among other goods,
discounted helmets.

Parents of children who violate the law can be fined $25 for the first offense and $50 for each subsequent offense. But many kids and parents don’t know the law exists. What’s more, the fine is rarely levied.

Still, research shows that helmets protect heads. Wearing a bike helmet can reduce the risk of head injury by 85 percent, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Wilmington resident Carmela Yeatman has made it a point to get the word out about bike helmet safety. Her younger brother suffered permanent injuries from a bicycle accident when he was riding helmetless. In August, she founded the nonprofit group Safe Noggin to promote helmet safety through community-based programs.

Ignorance of the bike helmet law is widespread. A recent state Department of Transportation safety campaign aimed at drivers included billboard ads featuring a young girl riding a bicycle as seen through a car windshield. She wasn’t wearing a helmet. A New Castle County’s publication of events last year also featured a young girl riding helmetless.

“If the state government isn’t protecting us, who is?” Yeatman said. “Somebody has to give the message.”

Regardless of whether people know about the law, bike-related accidents and deaths have dropped. Since April 1996, when the state’s first bike helmet law was enacted, there have been no bicycle-related deaths among children. From 1979 to 1995, there were 27 deaths.

The state has also seen a 37 percent decrease in the number of hospitalizations for children due to bicycle injuries, according to the 2008 Childhood Injury in Delaware report.

Sean Elwell “I do see that there are more kids wearing helmets and there’s a greater push on the importance of wearing helmets,” said Sean M. Elwell, injury prevention coordinator of the trauma program at Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, in Rockland.

But Elwell, who is also a registered nurse, said the duPont Hospital emergency department still treats many kids for injuries that could’ve been averted had they been wearing helmets. He’s also concerned that many children may suffer a concussion in a fall and not report it. Even a mild concussion can result in prolonged symptoms of dizziness, headaches and poor concentration.

“A young child’s skull is still forming and they’ll be more likely to fall since they haven’t the ability to keep their balance,” he said.

Ireland, who lives in Hockessin, said she was adamant about her kids wearing a helmet when they were growing up. “I caught my daughter once without a helmet and I told her that if I caught her again without one I would confiscate her bike. It is such cheap insurance,” she said.

A quality helmet for a child can range from $20 to $40. The state report found that the average cost of a bicycle-related hospital admission was $9,352.

When Yeatman approaches teenage bicyclists without helmets in mall parking lots, it’s to tell them about her brother’s accident in 1990. Rob Antignani spent six weeks in a coma when he was 15 after he was severely injured in a bicycle crash.

“In so many sports, we protect ourselves in so many ways, with elbow pads and knee pads,” Yeatman said, “but it’s most important to protect your head.”

By law, 14-year-old Rosie Gale must wear a helmet for almost four more years. But she never has. Most days, she rides her bicycle from her home near Frankford to the sub shop where she works, about a seven-minute trip.

She said she’s unafraid of passing cars because she’s aware of her surroundings and knows her signals.

“I think for younger kids it’s a good idea to wear a helmet because they’re not as coordinated,” she said. “When you’re a teenager, you’re more coordinated. I’d be pretty frustrated and aggravated if there’s a law that they’re going to enforce on me.”

Gale also thinks it’s impractical for police to require helmet use in her lightly trafficked neighborhood, although she even eschews a helmet in busier areas, such as Bethany Beach on a recent weekend. She said the only cyclists she ever sees wearing helmets are bike cops – never anyone her own age.

“There’s probably a handful of teens that are irresponsible and not as coordinated and who think they are invincible, and [the lawmakers] punish all the teenagers by making the law for us,” said Gale, adding that the law would send a better message about helmet safety if it also applied to adults.

Rosie’s mother said she would prefer that her daughter wear a helmet. But she realizes her daughter may not feel comfortable wearing a helmet on a hot day, and she is certain that Rosie is well aware of her surroundings when she rides.

“People are riding at pretty low speeds here,” Leslie Gale said. “I’d pay the fine, but if they do start enforcing it, we may have to find a different way for her to get to work.”

Positive encouragement

One person who won’t ride a bike without a helmet is Cpl. Brian Taylor of the New Castle County Police Department. Taylor spends a couple days each week during warm months on bike patrol, one of the favorite duties of his job.

Although he sees “tons of kids without helmets” during his neighborhood patrols, he’s never issued a ticket.

“We don’t want the kids to hate cops, we don’t want to go up there and – bam! – slam a ticket on them,” he said. “If we decided this is going to be something we’re really going to enforce, we’d be issuing tickets every day.”

And, he said, “If we just start giving tickets ... the kids may just change the times when they ride their bikes to when we’re not around.”

Instead, he said, positive encouragement is the best approach. Some communities have come up with creative ideas to increase helmet use, such as police issuing “tickets” for free treats at a local ice cream shop to children who do wear helmets. He also believes more children would wear bike helmets if helmets came with the bikes.

“Some of these parents can’t afford the ticket. And they probably can’t afford the helmet,” he said.

Cpl. Trinidad Navarro, New Castle County police spokesman, said officers do enforce the helmet law on occasion.

“We have discretion when it comes to minor offenses,” he said. “… You look at the totality of the circumstances. It doesn’t mean we have to write tickets every time. We may enforce it just by educating the community.”

Delaware has several initiatives to get helmets onto the heads of young cyclists.

Low-income children can get free or reduced-price helmets through the Delaware Bicycle Helmet Bank. Run by the state Office of Highway Safety, the program sends coordinators into poor areas to teach children about bicycle safety, brain injuries and the law. After these presentations, coordinators help fit kids with a free helmet.

The office has distributed about 1,230 helmets in the past decade. The money for the helmets comes through donations.

Mike Love is the coordinator in Kent and Sussex counties. He finds that kids are more likely to wear helmets when their parents are sitting in on his presentations. Although he believes everyone should wear a helmet, he said it’s understandable that the law applies only to children. They are more likely to make mistakes on the road, such as pulling out from a driveway without looking both ways.

Yeatman’s Safe Noggin has taken a different approach. Instead of helmets, it’s giving out T-shirts to children of kindergarten age that say: “Sometimes it’s good to be hardheaded.”

By targeting children so young, Yeatman hopes they will eventually value bike helmets as highly as seatbelts. That way, they won’t feel peer pressure to go without one since it will have become a way of life for them.

It’s bad parenting, she said, for parents to allow their kids to ride bikes without helmets.
“And it’s also the law.”

Contact Hiran Ratnayake at 324-2547 or hratnayake@delawareonline.com.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20090512/HEALTH/90512002/1006/NEWS

modified: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 @ 04:47 PM EDT
created: Friday, May 22, 2009 @ 03:57 PM EDT

About Nemours

Nemours, one of the nation’s largest pediatric health systems, is dedicated to achieving higher standards in children’s health. Nemours offers an integrated spectrum of clinical treatment coupled with research, advocacy, and educational health and prevention services extending to all families in the communities it serves. Starting with Alfred I. duPont’s bequest over seventy years ago, Nemours has grown into a multi-dimensional organization offering personalized clinical and preventive care focused on children.

Nemours owns and operates the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware and major children’s specialty clinics in Delaware (Wilmington), Florida (Jacksonville, Orlando and Pensacola), Pennsylvania (Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr) and New Jersey (Atlantic City and Voorhees). Having recently received preliminary approval from the State of Florida, Nemours will establish a new full-service children’s hospital as part of an integrated pediatric health campus in Orlando. KidsHealth.org, the world’s most visited pediatric health care Web site for parents, kids and teens, is a project of Nemours.

Nemours employs over 4,400 individuals, including 430 pediatric physicians, specialists and surgeons who cared for approximately a quarter of a million children in 2007. The organization’s goal is to align with parents, physicians, community leaders, children’s advocates and elected officials to ensure optimal wellness for every child. Additional information about Nemours can be found at www.nemours.org.