Do you hear that?

It’s the sound of kids playing on the beach, runners pounding the pavement, kayakers slapping the water with paddles, and bicyclists pedaling down country roads.

It’s the soundtrack of summer and it’s beautiful.

What is not so beautiful is the sight of bikers – young and old – not wearing helmets.

We noticed it a few months ago, as the weather turned to more favorable bicycling conditions. We thought it was perhaps an isolated incident. Oh how wrong we were. We have seen countless bike riders barreling down our roads sans protective headgear.

There is currently no state law requiring helmet use. While some cities and counties have local helmet ordinances, San Juan County is unfortunately not one of them. So that means it up to you to use a little common sense.

Here is why it’s important to wear a helmet: it protects a precious commodity – your brain. A helmet is the single most effective way to prevent a life-threatening head injury. Even if you take a minor tumble on your bike, cranial impact with the ground can be serious. It’s much better to have a helmet buffering the impact between a head and rock-hard asphalt.

If you do hit a hard surface with your bike helmet, make sure to replace it, as helmets lose their capacity to absorb shock after taking serious hits.

It may seem like no big deal to hop on your bike and pedal into Eastsound without a helmet. Yet all it takes is one car, one rock or one glance off the roadway to change everything.

We’d much rather hear the sounds of summer than an ambulance’s siren.