Bicycle Helmets and Head Lice Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute Head Lice and Cleaning Helmets Head lice are a potential problem for bike rental shops who provide helmets to bike renters. They are also a problem for schools who want to use the same set of helmets for students in different classes. Lice are the most difficult problem with helmets to be exchanged among students, since simple washing with mild soap and water can easily take care of plain old dirt and hair oils.
Head lice are gray insects about the size of a sesame seed who are blood-sucking parasites.
They thrive only on human heads and hair. Head lice infestations are common throughout the US, and they cross all social groups and and ethnic communities. Although annoying, head lice do not carry diseases. But the saliva they leave produces intense itching of the scalp, with possible secondary bacterial infections. The female louse produces about 90 eggs, known as nits, during a one month lifetime.