Should I wear a helmet while riding a Razor scooter?

I completely agree. I have seen a number of skull fractures in children riding scooters without helmets.

Before such things as crash test dummies, the force needed to fracture a child's skull was tested experimentally with cadavers. Grotesque, but it changed the way we see falls, and ultimately created an industry which builds cheap, attractive helmets for activities such as this, and in doing so countless tragedies have been averted. It turns out that even slow speeds and uninterrupted falls of just 4-5 feet onto pavement or concrete can cause massive skull fractures. When someone is traveling on a skate board, on roller skates, or a scooter like the razor, they have a very real chance of having such a fall. Travel at 2mph which is suddenly interrupted causes the body to fall forward from a height of 4-5 feet, and can result in an impact which, if taken on the skull, can kill. And it does, in significant numbers, particularly children. Yet that same impact can be made relatively harmless by wearing a simple bike helmet. So yes, I would say that wearing a helmet is a good idea. It's such a trivial insurance against a not-uncommon mishap, that can spell the difference between a few scrapes and a major and perhaps fatal injury to one's brain.

Things to consider: Ambulance crews consider striking your head on a hard surface after falling only your height to be one indicator of a "load and go" situation (one where the high chance of significant injury outweighs the general need to establish IVs or check baseline vitals before beginning transport). Falling from a Razor (or any other type of scooter or skates) usually involves momentum as well as height.  For instance, if you biff while coming down a particularly nasty ramp, you may be adding ten miles per hour or so to your momentum.  Higher momentum usually equals more significant injury. Razors, scooters, and skates don't work very well on soft surfaces, and who wants to ride / skate on a plain, flat surface?  Most popular riding areas, whether sponsored or impromptu, include ramps, rails, planters, and other types of hard (concrete or metal) obstacles. Traumatic brain injuries aren't particularly forgiving.  By this, I mean that when you damage the brain, it doesn't heal like a bone or muscle.  Some victims of traumatic brain injuries never fully recover.  Some flat-out die because the injury bled and caused pressure on the sections of the brain which regulate breathing and heart rate.  Even the people who make full recoveries usually do so only after long rehabilitation processes. Helmets protect your head.  Yes, you can still get a concussion while wearing a helmet, but the helmet goes a long way toward protecting the skull, too.  Since the skull in the primary defense mechanism for the brain, splitting your skull open  meansthe brain is pretty nastily exposed. There's very little downside to wearing a helmet, other than your cool hairdo may get messed up.  Would you prefer to have your sweet baboo flicking your locks over to straighten your hair?  Or squeezing your limp hand to see if you can even respond to touch? Yes.  Wear a helmet.

How important do you consider keeping your brain intact relative to the importance of any perceived embarrassment or inconvenience for wearing the helmet? Take into consideration the conditions where you will be riding the scooter and the likelihood of a crash in those conditions. I consider keeping my brain intact to be of relatively high importance so wearing a helmet when on a two wheeled contraption usually seems like a good idea when doing so in conditions where the chance of crashing are more than "negligible."

Funny you should ask that right now. One of our best software developers fell off his kid's razor scooter last week and severely smashed up his face and got a concussion as well. So my answer is "absolutely!"

Though it may look stupid, I'm going to go with yes. If you look closely at my mouth (actually that would be pretty creepy, so maybe not) but you would see that my 2 front teeth are fake. Guess how that happened? Yup, crashing my razor scooter in 4th grade. I could just as easily have hit my head. Please wear your helmet! Although I can eat ice cream without that weird cold-teeth-ouch situation happening. But yeah, no. Wear the helmet. It's for your own good.

Safety>Image