ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Sometimes Safety Can Be a Bit Nerdy

Bicycle helmets may not make much of a fashion statement--two students at Fountain Valley’s Harry C. Fulton Middle School this week described them as “nerdy” and “ugly”--but they are a proven safety device. National research indicates that helmets help reduce head injuries by up to 85%, and that’s important to the Fountain Valley School District, where hundreds of youngsters ride to school daily.

The use of helmets--especially among schoolchildren--should be as routine as it is for sports professionals. One way to help bring that about is to require students who ride their bicycles to school to don helmets, as the district does for its third- to eighth-graders. It is following the example set last year by Irvine Unified School District, the first district in Orange County to adopt a mandatory helmet rule for elementary school students. Soon after Irvine Unified’s policy was adopted, a seventh-grader fell off her bicycle and landed on her head. The impact cracked her helmet--but the girl avoided serious head injury. Her battered helmet is now used as a prop in bicycle safety talks.

To work best, school helmet policies need the support of principals, teachers, parents, police and administrators. Thus fortified, however, more school districts should join in the effort to make helmets as routine a part of bike riding as handlebars and wheels.