A helmet is not armor. It can not replace safe infrastructure and safe distance

A 2018 study entitled The Impact of Helmet Wearing on Crashes and Injuries, in which former British Cycling Councilor Colin Clarke and journalist Cris Gillham analyzed data from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, found that „helmet use leads to higher accident rates and cyclists with helmets crash more often and with worse injuries than those who do not wear helmets.” How to explain this?

The debate about wearing a helmet while riding a bike is almost always very heated. British Olympic champion Chris Boardman also experienced this firsthand when he appeared on the BBC’s Morning Show to discuss cycling infrastructure in 2014 and was bombarded with angry reactions from viewers for being filmed riding the streets without a helmet. “I understand why helmets and reflective clothing arouse such passions. I understand that people want to use them. But that’s a solution that deals with the consequences. I want to debate the cause and lobby for things that really make cycling safer. The helmet is not even in the top ten of them,” he wrote about it later.

Bitter choices of strangers

Nick Hussey, owner of cycling clothing company Vulpine, had a similar experience when photos of models without helmets appeared on his website. Users of social networks flooded him with hateful reactions. Hussey then commented on The Guardian’s cycling blog. He prefaced his reaction with a hypothetical parallel where he walks into a bar, starts ripping drinks out of people’s hands and mouths, and loudly shouts, „Stop drinking or you will die.” That’s roughly what he thinks the whole never-ending debate about helmets looks like. „Strangers blame strangers for choices that have no bearing on their lives. Not only is it weird, but it’s also a waste of time and energy,” Hussey continues.

Cycling in the city is not Tour de France

Statistically safer than gardening

Boardman further pointed out that in the Netherlands, probably the safest country for cyclists in the world, almost no one uses helmets or reflective elements. Cycling won’t become safer by forcing cyclists to dress like a front line. Only a secure infrastructure and clearly defined rules will ensure this. „Cycling is statistically safer than gardening. However, it doesn’t feel that way when you’re at a busy intersection next to a truck that’s too close,” continues Boardman. Not only emergency medicine doctors, but also BESIP regularly refer to the fact that a bicycle helmet protects against fatal head injuries. „We know that a helmet reduces the risk of brain injury by up to two thirds when falling on the head,” warns British traumatologist John Black. Does it make sense or not?

Beneficial activity in a dangerous environment

Another doctor, this time an expert in public health and physical activity, Harry Rutter, is much more skeptical about the importance we attach to wearing a helmet. “The biggest risk of injury when cycling is not cycling itself, it’s motorists,” argues in his City Cycling handbook. “Cycling is a beneficial activity that often takes place in a dangerous environment. Nevertheless, out of all three factors affecting cyclist injuries, i.e. infrastructure, motorists and cyclists, cyclists are studied the most,” it says.

For the safety of cyclists, separated infrastructure is the key. Photo from Malaga

The number of accidents with a helmet is not decreasing

That said, a 2001 study concluded that helmets reduce the risk of head injury in a fall by 60%. Norwegian academic and road safety expert Rune Elvik pointed out in 2011 that overall protection may be slightly less given the likelihood of a helmet injuring your neck. And he also noticed that increasing the number of people cycling with helmets (for example, if required by law) did not lead to a reduction in head injuries. Data experts from the Czech Radio point out that helmets usually do not help cyclists in a collision with a car.

When less is more

Robert Chirinko is an economics professor at the University of Illinois, but he has a small obsession with watching how people’s behavior changes based on their perception of risk. The point is that in a small car, which poses a greater danger to passengers in the event of a crash, drivers tend to drive more carefully and in the end are far safer than drivers of super-armored SUVs. Chirinko also asks, “Is a bigger helmet and more protection the solution to injuries in American football? More protection leads to a subjective feeling of safety and thus increases the risks of clashes and confrontations. If players feel less safe, they will adjust their behavior accordingly,” he explains.

Cyclists shouldn’t dress like they’re on the front line, says Olympic champion Boardman

How we offset risk

Chirinko calls this phenomenon “trigger behavior,” his professional term for what psychologists call risk compensation. And this is also a key element in the debate about helmets. Indeed, it seems that the perception of reduced risk with the help of a helmet leads to the fact that both cyclists and drivers behave subconsciously more recklessly and recklessly. One of the most famous experiments on this topic was carried out in 2006 by psychologist Ian Walker from the University of Bath, when he measured the distance of 2,500 cars that passed him while cycling. In half the cases he was wearing a helmet, in the other half he was not. The results showed that with a helmet, drivers tended to pass him an average of 8.5 cm closer. According to Walker, this could be because drivers perceive helmeted cyclists as more experienced and predictable than those without helmets.

So yes, a helmet can protect you if someone hits you on the road. But it also makes it more likely to happen. Especially if the safe distance is not clearly defined by law. The AutoMat association is a member of the European Cycling Federation, and we wrote about its position on the obligation of cyclists to wear a helmet here.

PS: Compulsory wearing of a helmet for children obviously makes sense. Children fall off the bike more often and more often end up on their head, because it is larger in relation to other parts of the body. But we all need a safe, preferably separated infrastructure and a clearly defined safe distance. Whether we have a helmet or not.