MTLA Bike Helmet Program

If you would like to help purchase bike helmets for kids, you can make a contribution online - or, print out this form and mail a check - thank you!

Bicycle helmets can help prevent serious injuries to children and adults.  The Montana Trial Lawyers Association distributes nearly 1,000 bicycle safety helmets to children around Montana each year.  MTLA has given away over 20,000 sports helmets in the past twenty plus years to children in grades K-8 throughout Montana - at schools, community skate parks and kids recreational programs. Some of the helmets are distributed at minor league baseball games in cooperation with the Brain Injury Alliance of Montana - BIAMT.

The program was initiated in 1998 by then MTLA Board President John Morrison. The program received a big funding boost in 1999 when the attorneys that represented Montana against Big Tobacco donated part of their fees to establish an Endowment that continues to help fund the program. Many thanks to those founding MTLA member attorneys - Monte Beck, Joe Bottomly, Karl Englund, Tom Lewis, Jim Molloy, John Morrison, Greg Munro and David Paoli.
 
Trial lawyers represent people who have been injured to help them recover money to pay for medical bills and other expenses caused by their injuries.  Too often trial lawyers have represented kids who were hit by cars and injured while riding their bikes, and too often those kids suffered severe injuries to their brains, injuries that could have been prevented if the kids would have been wearing helmets.  Broken bones and scraped skin heal, but brain injuries usually do not.

We decided to try and help prevent kids from suffering brain injuries by providing helmets, free of charge, to kids across Montana.  Bike helmets are a simple and effective protection. We hope that by distributing a helmet kids will develop a safety habit that will protect them for the rest of their lives.   If a helmet protects just one kid from the tragedy of suffering a traumatic head injury, the program will be worth it.

We have an adult help size the helmets for the kids so it protects the way it was intended.  And we encourage kids to wear their helmet every time they ride their bikes, now and in the future.  As we tell the kids:  Your brain is the part of you that makes you, well YOU - it's your humor, your feelings, your smarts, your abilities, your personality - please protect it!

Our thanks to Top Gear HelmetsRUs currently, and Bell Sports previously, for giving special price breaks on bike helmets for this program!

While we cannot provide enough helmets to fill all the needs in Montana, if your school or organization would like to participate in MTLA's Bike Helmet Program, please send us a request.

If you would like to help purchase bike helmets for kids, you can make a contribution online - or, print out this form and mail a check - thank you!

Here are a few of the reasons for this program.

For information on brain injuries, start with the Brain Injury Alliance of Montana (BIAMT).