Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute
The Helmet Update by email
Volume 21, #4 - September 9, 2003
All issues index
CPSC announces recall of Tony Hawk skate-style helmets.
CPSC Studies Recall Effectiveness
Today CPSC concluded a series of three workshops on Recall Effectiveness. They focussed on barriers to more effective
recalls, best practices, how to improve the amount of product retrieved and how to measure success. We covered the
meetings because helmet recalls are typically not very effective and seldom get a significant percentage of the helmets
back.
There were no fireworks at the meetings. CPSC seemed to be trying to educate the companies, lawyers and consultants
attending as much as elicit new ideas. All panels agreed that recalls vary in effectiveness depending on the product,
threat of injury, purchase price and willingness of the manufacturer to offer incentives. Some manufacturers or retailers
have extensive databases to contact buyers, but even if the message gets to them, busy consumers often just pitch the
defective product rather than deal with the recall. Current recalls for products under $100 are doing well to get 20 to
30 per cent of the product back. A study of one recall of $300 cameras showed that 30 per cent of the buyers just trashed
them. This matches the unwillingness to deal with rebate coupons, redeemed by only 15 per cent if they are $5 or under,
and only 50 per cent if they are for $50.
With consumers trashing the product, how do you measure success? Someone needs to do some in-depth analysis of individual
recalls to find out what is happening. Panel members repeatedly said CPSC should use its experience with recalls to
resolve the measurement question and distill the best practices. CPSC replied that they could not do so with their
current database, could not afford to do so with their budget constraints, and did not understand why manufacturers with
big budgets who were spending big bucks on recalls did not do the analysis.
The bottom line remains that recalls are ineffective and a poor substitute for getting the product right before it goes
out the door.
Our request to CPSC under the Freedom of Information Act for a full list of cases where they have considered forcing the
recall of a bike helmet is still working its way through the FOIA maze. We want to know how many helmets failed lab tests
but were not recalled because the failure was "marginal."
Safe Kids begins measuring helmet use
The National Safe Kids Campaign is launching a major project to survey helmet use by 5 to 14 year olds across the US.
Safe Kids currently is enrolling 34 of its state coalitions and actively recruiting to cover the rest. The study will be
based on field observations, actually counting helmets on heads, and should be far more accurate than estimates based on
telephone or classroom surveys.
BHSI has been participating in the working group developing the survey instrument and methodology. Other participants
include staffers from CPSC, NHTSA, Bell Sports and the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. Results should be available at
the end of 2003. For more information, contact Beth-Ellen Cody, MPH, Manager, Injury Epidemiology, National Safe Kids
Campaign at
bcody@safekids.org.
The Helmet Update - Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute
Randy Swart, Editor - info@helmets.org
4611 Seventh Street South, Arlington, VA 22204-1419 USA
(703) 486-0100
info@helmets.org
www.helmets.org