All my friends did that too. It was the norm in the 80s when I was growing up. To my recollection, any deaths or serious injuries from it were somewhere between

All my friends did that too. It was the norm in the 80s when I was growing up. To my recollection, any deaths or serious injuries from it were somewhere between rare and non-existent. That's not survivor bias. I have no doubt that a study would find there were more then than there are now, but things don't exist in isolation. We make trades for everything. For example, we've traded relatively rare (and usually treatable) skin cancer for more widespread sunlight deprivation and Vitamin D deficiency that's implicated in a number of different conditions. I don't think this was a good trade, personally. In this case we've traded our kids' childhoods and parents' exercise of discretion--this is part of their life cycle too, keep in mind--for what I'm quite convinced is a minimal increase in safety. Mandatory bicycle helmets? Sure, if it stopped there. But we've gotten way more paranoid than that. I don't think that's a good trade either.