Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute

Toolkit for Helmet Promotion Programs

Summary: References and resources for promoting helmets. The materials are also available on paper--see below

Resources specific to helmet safety:

• Our list of helmet program resources has sources of helmet program info and materials, with an indication of what they can do for you. Free pamphlets, posters, videos, bookmarks.
• Our helmet workshop outline.
• Statistics from various sources.
• Sources of inexpensive helmets.
• Equal performance of cheap vs. expensive helmets
• Videos for helmet campaigns. Three of them are free!
• Public Service Announcements on helmet safety
• A quiz for 5th graders on helmet safety to teach them to use the web.
• The page of Quick Answers where the kids research the quiz answers.
• A word gmae that is a cahllnege to raed.
• A simple page on helmets.
• A bicycle helmet safety song.
• An 11x17 or four page coloring book in .pdf format from RAGBRAI.
• A maze and a connect-the-numbers.
• A scrambled word puzzle on bike parts.
• A page on the brain from the Texas Bicycle Coalition.
• A mold for making gelatin brains.
• Demonstrations with melons, eggs and gelatin brains
• Helmet tongue-twisters.
• Sources of posters.
• Graphics or clip art for your pamphlet or poster
• Funding sources.
• What Makes an Ideal Helmet.
• How to Fit a Helmet.
• What a helmet does in a crash.
• Our pamphlet: A Buyer's Guide to Bicycle Helmets.
• Our pamphlet: A Bicycle Helmet for My Child.
• Our pamphlet: How to Fit a Bicycle Helmet.
• Our Helmet Fit Checklist to make sure your fitting worked.
• A page on helmet sizing and fitting from the Texas Bicycle Coalition.
• How to get our pamphlets on paper.
• CPSC's pamphlet: Which Helmet for Which Activity. We also have a copy of this pamphlet. It can be printed out on legal size paper (8.5" x 14"). It is extremely useful as the only official source of advice on using helmets certified for a different activity if there is no specific standard for a sport or activity.
• Basic campaign advice: an overview of what a program can be.
• A manual for helmet promotion programs originally written by John Williams and the folks at Adventure Cycling, kept up to date here at BHSI.
• How to get DOT's free pamphlets on paper, including a big report on lessons learned about bicycle helmet laws.
• Pamphlets and videos in Spanish and French
• A US DOT teacher guide: Demonstrating Bicycle Helmet Effectiveness.
• DOT's bike safety pamphlet for adults.
• Sprocketman comic book from CPSC.
• Comic book: Captain Super Safe - a 16 page comic in .pdf format with a story of lost helmets solved by Captain Super Safe. If printed out in black and white it would make a good coloring book. The Youtube version is here.
• Our bookmarks with a "Be Sure it Fits" theme.
• Our page of medical journal articles on bike helmets.
• Some more expensive pamphlets and comic books.
• An illustration of correct helmet fit from CPSC.
• Our advice on How to train helmet fitters.
• A page on avoiding head lice while swapping helmets.
• Outline for a Talk on Bicycle Safety.
• Yard signs for printing out from Virginia DOT. (Page down for the 3 signs)
• Traffic signs for setting up playground courses.
• Why kids don't like to wear helmets.
• Persuading your kids to wear helmets.
• Kids and Bike Safety: Tips on riding and sidewalk use.
• Promoting helmets in equity neighborhoods.
• When are kids ready to ride?
• Helmets for Tricycle Riders?
• A warning: no helmets on playground equipment or climbing trees!.
• Helmets on college campuses.
• Tips for bike safety on college campuses.
• A moving head injury story by a wife in Boulder.
• Heartfelt helmet campaign materials from a grieving parent.
• A novel for middle schoolers: Mick Harte was Here.
• Crash stories.
• Frequently-Asked Questions About Bicycle Helmets.
• Mandatory Helmet Laws.
• DOT's long 2004 study of early Mandatory Helmet Laws.
• Helmets for the current season.
• CPSC's video clip on helmet testing and fit.
• A Summary of Helmet Standards.
• Using stickers on helmets.
• How to Repair a Helmet.
• How to run a program to fit and repair helmets.
• Will kids use helmets you give them?.
• A program that makes sure kids wear their free helmets.
• How to evaluate a helmet program.
• Other bike safety equipment.
• Multi-purpose helmets.
• Canadian helmet promotion materials.

Materials on Paper and DVD or USB thumb drive

We have a Toolkit for Helmet Promotion Programs that includes some of the materials above on paper. Here is the file we print out to send you the Toolkit. It also includes duplicating masters of our pamphlets and other handout materials. There is a CD with the program manual and a California manual described above. And finally, we include four DVD's with the three DOT bike helmet and safety videos and four other helmet safety videos. We can also send the videos on a USB thumb drive if that format is better for you.

We send the Toolkit to you free, and you are welcome to duplicate any of the materials for school, police or any other non-profit use by a non-profit organization. (For-profits please check with us, except for local bike shops, who are encouraged to duplicate and hand out any of our materials.) Just email us. Be sure to give us a postal mailing address if you want the Toolkit! We can usually get it in the mail to you within 24 hours, but if you need it sooner there are links to all of the materials here on this page. Here is more on requesting our materials, and here is a pdf file with the contents of the Toolkit if you can't wait for snail mail.

Other Sites

• Here is our Links Page for helmet program sites beyond those mentioned below.
• The US Department of Transportation has a Bicycle Safer Journey site: with videos, curricula, lesson plans, quizzes, and just about everything you need for classroom instruction of basic bicycle safety, including helmets. Spanish materials included. Links to other sites for more curricula. Not a helmet-specific site, but by far the best thing DOT has ever produced. We can send you their videos on disk if downloading from YouTube doesn't work for you.
• Mackinac Island Community Helmet project. A unique approach to community helmet promotion.
• How Not to Get Hit by Cars is a useful way to approach bicycle safety, emphasizing that "wearing a helmet will do absolutely nothing to prevent you from getting hit by a car."
• Rad Rider was once the best graphics-based helmet site on the web. It had a 20-page comic book with super hero, chase scenes, violence, and stuff that scrolls, spins, morphs and moves all over the screen -- all putting across a safety and helmet theme. Plus a quiz you take on line and get feedback on correct answers. Gone now, but not forgotten and we are looking for it.
• Virginia has a Safe Routes to Schools page with many materials. They have a .pdf page with three yard signs designed for 24 x 18 inches that can also be printed out on standard letter-sized paper or cardboard.
• For a much broader range of bicycle safety information than the helmet material we have here, don't miss the PedBike Info site for a full range of bike info including education resources and teaching materials.