What's the best way to respond when parents have kids put a helmet on a kid's head in a way that doesn't help that much?

Question

There are a couple of things that people are told in relation to bike helmets. I am concerned with the third.

The first is that everyone should wear a helmet whenever riding a bicycle (not: kids have it placed as a safety expectation, but one that clearly doesn't apply to parents).

The second is that if you get in an accident and fall on your helmet, congratulations! You've destroyed completely the value of a perfectly good helmet, instead of the person suffering possible brain injury. Throw it away and buy a new one that will protect for the next accident.

But the third is that there is a right way and a wrong way to put on a helmet, and the wrong way has a majority share.

The right way is illustrated in the first picture, and the wrong, more common way, is in the second picture:

RIGHT WAY:

WRONG WAY:

The difference, beside the fact that the right way looks dorky, uncool and way too far forward, is that if the person portrayed in the first picture were to faceplant hard, the helmet will take a good chunk of the impact; it may not directly protect the whole face but in a sizable portion of bicycle crashes the helmet will significantly mitigate the force of the impact.

The second way that seems obvious and looks right will leave plenty of possibility for the helmet to be pushed out of the way, or not need to be pushed out of the way, so that if the person faceplants the helmet may have little effect beyond the ornamental. Having a helmet worn this way is a bit like wearing a seatbelt that is halfway to being pushed far in enough to click, and I have seen this way of wearing a good helmet on the picture on the front of a medical group's safety brochure explaining to parents why children should wear helmets for certain activities.

So what is the best response when I see parents using helmets in some sense but not in a way that will really help in an accident. Mostly I've kept quiet when this happens, and I originally looked for a manners or communication StackExchange site to post this in, but I'm wondering what is an appropriate response when they think buying a helmet is enough, and do not seem to recognize that there is more to getting serious benefit from a helmet than somehow having the helmet touching a child's head.

So what kinds of responses are helpful when parents have paid for a helmet but aren't using it nearly as helpfully as it could be used?

Answer 1

I would say the answer depends on the role of the person asking the question.

Are you a bike shop owner or employee? Then you should point it out to your customers, preferably while selling them a helmet. Point it out to the parents who put helmets on their kids heads in your store. You're basically an acknowledged public expert in the matter; this is roughly equivalent to Eric Lippert looking over my shoulder and pointing out my improper use of semicolons, or Phil Jackson walking by the gym and telling me my free-throw technique needs improvement. Use that role to your advantage.

Are you a biker seeing people on the road? I'd keep your mouth shut then unless it's somebody you know. You wouldn't want someone walking up to you on the street telling you that your shirt doesn't match your pants, either, and most people don't like being told how to parent by strangers.

Are you a friend of the parents? Then it's probably okay, if you are close enough to otherwise discuss parenting with them, or if you're the generally accepted expert on biking of your friend group; see #1.

Are you a school teacher, pastor, or other esteemed member of the community with a mentor type role with the parents or children? Then it's probably appropriate to mention it once.

Anyone else is similar to the biker on the road - it's not your business to directly confront anyone. If you want to change peoples' minds, then do it via advocacy. Write a blog post, go to online communities. (I suppose perhaps you're doing that here.) (If that is what you're doing here- or want to - post a question, "What is the right way to put my child's helmet on?" and answer it, with pictures as you did (but perhaps with a kid??).) See if you can get your local news to do a story on it. Especially if there's been a recent bike fatality, odds are they'll do it.