If there was no compression of the liner then the helmet is OK.

Wow- people are paranoid here. The helmet is fine. If your kid bikes to school, he/she probably already dropped the helmet more than once before lunch. A more active kid probably used the helmet as kickball, or used the helmet to bat baseballs.

As stated by OP in the first 4 words..... The kid is 3

Barry

Logic says that if the head isn't inside the helmet upon impact with ground, it's probably fine But if you're looking for peace of mind, what's $25.bucks? I get a kick out people that buy used from second hand stores. "Life is like a box of chocolates...."

A drop of 5' and a weight of what? 10 or 12 ounces? It sounds like a very light impact, Your call, but if it was me I wouldn't sweat it.

I'm not a big believer in that "You dropped your helmet 5 ft and now it's no good."

The forces at play when someone wearing a helmet falls from a bike are like ~100x those of just the helmet, they scale linearly with weight right? My helmet falls off my bike sometimes at speed and I never deemed it damaged, for what it’s worth. The 100x number is also assuming you fall off your bike when stopped, what happens during most crashes is more than 100x what happened to that helmet.

Lol @ people considering replacing a helmet that fell 5 ft. Just lol.

I put the probability of any given helmet having been dropped at least 5 feet in the store and/or warehouse at 50%.

"Used helmet, excellent condition, only been dropped onto concrete from 5 feet once."

Would you buy it?

One more vote for "no problem," as long as her head wasn't in the helmet as she fell. Failure mode for a helmet is compression of the foam against the shell (where, unfortunately, you can't see it). If her head is 5 pounds, and the helmet weighs 12 ounces, there's less than an ounce in line with the shock (the rest of the foam has an indirect load path, so the shock will be greatly reduced). As long as nothing's visibly torn or broken (and if it was, you probably wouldn't be asking), the helmet's fine.

^ This. The only possible damage from the described drop would be to the shell. If the shell is OK, then the helmet is fine. Of course if this somehow resulted in a crack to the foam then the helmet is junk, but that is MOST unlikely.

You guys watch baseball? How many times do you see the batters toss their helmets? Are you going to run out the and ask them to replace the helmets between every inning?

It's all about that "styrofoam shell." (insert your favorite science names, like expanded polystyrene or whatever). The job of that stuff is to absorb most of the impact force in a fall, rather than it all being applied to your eggshell skull. The problem arises when that "ability to absorb and compress" has been utilized -- it's a one-time service for that foam. So, after you whack your skull on the ground inside your helmet, you have "done the compression," and the foam will not serve its mission in a future impact. So you replace the helmet after a fall and treat your skull to new, uncompressed foam. And it's not something you can necessarily inspect post-impact, so the rule is "you bang it and it's new helmet time." What the "it's OK" voters here are saying is: this drop most likely did not compromise the foam. Ride on, kiddie"

In response to Bald Paul ... I'd be full stop at "used helmet" regardless of a drop or not. Used helmet? That's just gross. Like used underwear.

Helmet thread merged into Helmet Thread 2.

If a 5 ft drop while empty is likely to make the serious injury mitigation capability of bicycle helmets suspect, the capability and/or reliance for protection from such a fragile product when worn is also suspect.

My point was that if he felt comfortable using a helmet that had been dropped, then use it. If not, don't. His child, his decision.

Thanks everyone for the (mostly) helpful insights.

I have decided to buy her a new helmet. She'll be 3 in a few weeks, so it is going to be one of her birghday presents. Judging from the information given in the replies, the current helmet is *probably* fine. It's just for my peace of mind.

Get her one of these, I left the brim on mine like a cap.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...e228e08f4.jpeg

Would I buy used underwear in excellent condition even if it appears OK? Probably not as a matter of esthetics, not safety or health..
Would my family reuse my or my child's used underwear if in excellent condition after laundering? Yes.
There are no hidden defects that are not also visible that would make underwear or bicycle helmets unserviceable .

Replacing helmets in visibly excellent condition due to a fear of hidden defects (or time induced hidden degradation) is a successful marketing ploy promoted by so-called safety advocates encouraged by some helmet manufacturers and retailers.

Little kids seem to really like the fun ones. I see a lot of kids her age wearing the ones with bunny ears and other funny decorations. And yeah, that peace of mind is as good a reason as any.

Could somebody buy Johnny One-Note a new trumpet, please?

A few years ago, I was hit by a car, and my helmet didn't have a mark on it. Given that I was pretty much completely disoriented for about a minute after the crash and don't actually remember being hit, I could not say for certain whether or not I had struck something with my head. Sorry if you don't approve, but I did discard the helmet out of caution.

Got it. All that your anecdote proves is that you also are susceptible to marketing induced caution/just to be safe suspicions and conjecture. I could care less if you choose to discard serviceable stuff, replace it with equally serviceable stuff and believe that makes you safer.

Basic Helmet Fit Guidance
 

I recently started cycling to do a triathlon. Don't have any LBS or other sporting goods stores around here. I went to Walmart (🫣) and none of the bike helmets fit well (I'm sure that's not surprising 😅). IIRC they were all around $20-40, Schwinn, Bell, Zefal, and Ozark brands.

Didn't buy anything, but came back later bc I was too busy to go anywhere else and didn't know the first thing about finding the right helmet online.

It appears I have a long head and all these helmets are made for round heads. I bought the Schwinn, which I thought fit best, but it is only tight at the center of my forehead and at the back of my head. All of the helmets, the adjustable band part only went from the back of the head to near the ears, so it doesn't touch the front half of the head at all except at the center of the forehead. There's a gap at the sides of my head (all of the helmets had a gap, some nearly one inch on both sides). I either tighten the helmet so much that it hurts my forehead a lot, or it is tolerably tight but will jump around/become repositioned whenever I go over bumps (and there are a few sections with multiple bad tree root bumps on my usual route).

I'm in USA. Does anyone have suggestions on where I can find a (low budget option) better fitting bike helmet or have recommendations of brands/models? I do feel safer with a helmet, but I don't feel top of the line protection is essential bc I don't cycle that fast and I'm basically only on empty bike trails with no vehicle traffic.

No, it demonstrates that I really don't have confidence in my ability to determine whether foam has been compressed when I definitely had been knocked unconscious while wearing the helmet. It's adorable that you think that's susceptibility to marketing. My handlebars were quite mangled by the crash, for all I know that helmet may already have saved my skull and brain from serious damage. I have literally no idea how my head was oriented when I hit the ground,

You must still be disoriented from your collision if you can't tell by eyeball and fingers if the foam has been compressed. If infinitesimally minute "invisible" compression were a credible safety factor what gives you confidence that any and every helmet that has been handled at all since leaving the assembly line (if not before) doesn't suffer from such a defect?