Cycling is a great freedom – don’t shackle it with helmets and high-vis
Why are we so obsessed with making cyclists wear helmets and high-vis clothing? The issue is in the news again after the Department for Transport announced a wide-ranging cycle safety review which is likely to consider whether to make them mandatory. I hope the DFT will firmly reject any such measure.
Most British cyclists already do wear helmets, but the evidence is that, as a group, it doesn’t make them safer. There are individual cases where a helmet has prevented more serious injury, but anecdote doesn’t beat data. A review of compulsory helmet laws in Canada found no benefit. Hardly any Dutch cyclists wear helmets, yet the Netherlands is the safest place in the world to ride a bike. There’s even evidence that helmets encourage drivers to pass closer to cyclists, making accidents more likely.
Helmets and high-vis also don’t protect against a big killer of cyclists: heavy goods vehicles. High-vis clothing won’t help if you’re in a lorry’s blind spot, and a helmet doesn’t protect against major crush injuries.
What mandatory helmet and clothing laws do achieve is making people less likely to cycle. While new such laws in Australia were followed by a small decrease in cyclists with head injuries, this could also have been due to a simultaneous crackdown on speeding and drink driving. What definitely did happen was fewer people getting on their bikes.
It’s easy to see why. Bicycles offer a wonderful freedom: hop on, push down and go anywhere you like. They cost far less money to buy, run or maintain than a car. That freedom is curtailed if you have to remember your helmet and fluorescent bib or else be stopped on your way by a traffic officer. On a commute you can store your clobber at work, but it’s hardly practical if you’re only popping down the shops. Why would we want to rob people of such low-cost independence?
These laws would also slash the numbers using bike share schemes. I’m not going to always carry a helmet and jacket on the off chance I need to pick up an obike for 10 minutes, and I doubt you would either. Melbourne and Sydney’s bike sharing schemes are surprisingly unpopular for such forward-thinking cities.
Then there is the exercise. Any barrier which reduces cycling participation will have a bigger effect on public health than injuries caused by lack of protection. Individuals can wear helmets if it makes them feel safer, but we shouldn’t rush to mandate measures which could unwittingly worsen the obesity crisis.
If the Government really wants to make cycling safer for all, it should invest in proper road infrastructure. After all, you can’t be knocked off your bike if motor vehicles aren’t using the same bit of asphalt. That’s why the Dutch don’t wear helmets: they don’t feel they need to. Mandatory clothing is a distraction from doing the harder work that really will make cyclists safe.