Editorial: Use your head, get a helmet

Moving house brings with it a variety of emotions.

One of them is contemplation, specifically the "throw away or keep" conundrum.

This week, I held in my hand an old bicycle helmet. It's broken, so why keep it? Although it no longer does the job it was designed to do, it still serves a useful purpose.

Each time I look at it, it reminds me why I always wear a helmet while riding my mountainbike and why I will nag my children - any person really - to wear one as well. This helmet broke during the act of saving my life. If it did not save my life then it most certainly saved me from some form of serious head injury after I fell off my bike at speed.

This week, the helmet also caused me to reflect on how few children and adult bike riders we see in Whangarei wearing head protection. On Saturday, I was driving along Kamo Rd when a boy on a bicycle swooped off the footpath, onto the road in front of me, across the road. No helmet, and he hadn't looked to see what was coming.

I didn't hit him but he could easily have been killed.

There are also safety concerns - reported in yesterday's Northern Advocate - over motorcyclists in Northland. They tend to wear helmets, but not securely. A loose helmet has its obvious dangers.

RoadSafe Northland's co-ordinator Gillian Archer says the parts of our body that we should protect most are our head and brain. They seem to be the parts we use least when it comes to bike safety.

Perhaps, if we were tougher on our kids and as parents made bicycle helmets compulsory, we'd raise adults that used motorcycle helmets properly. And as for that old helmet of mine, it's a no-brainer, I'm keeping it.