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news
Could Volvo and POC end the helmet debate? Swedish firms partner for "world first" car and cycle helmet crash tests (+ video)
Could Volvo Cars and POC be about to settle the helmet debate? The Swedish brands have teamed up for what they claim is a "world-first" series of crash tests that will assess the impact on cycle helmets in collisions with cars – and, by comparing the results with those of existing regulations regarding pedestrian head protection, will enable them “to make a direct comparison between wearing a helmet and not wearing a helmet.”
Volvo says that the initiative is a development of its existing strategy of looking to avoid collisions altogether through features such as cyclist and pedestrian detection systems in its vehicles.
The Volvo-POC research project will see a number of specially designed crash tests at the car manufacturer’s safety research facilities in Gothenburg, Sweden.
It also forms part of wider research aimed at obtaining a greater understanding of the types of long-term injuries sustained by cyclists.
The tests will involve POC cycle helmets, mounted on crash test dummy heads, being launched from a testing rig towards different areas of the bonnet of a static Volvo car.
The helmets will be fired at different speeds and angles, says the car manufacturer, and the tests are in line with current regulatory test procedures for pedestrian head protection, which the two companies say will enable them “to make a direct comparison between wearing a helmet and not wearing a helmet.” They add:
Current bike helmet testing procedures are fairly rudimentary, involving helmets being dropped from different heights on either a flat or an angled surface, and do not take into account vehicle to bike accidents. The Volvo-POC project aims to further refine and advance such testing.
The learnings from the research project will help POC make its helmets safer and more protective in the event of a car-bike accident, while the tests will also provide valuable insights and learnings for Volvo Cars into these types of accidents for future development.
Malin Ekholm, Head of the Volvo Cars Safety Centre, said: “This project with POC is a good example of our pioneering spirit in safety.
“We often develop new testing methods for challenging traffic scenarios. Our aim is not only to meet legal requirements or pass rating tests; instead, we go beyond ratings, using real traffic situations to develop technology that further improves safety.”
“Much like Volvo Cars, safety is at the very centre of our mission, and drives all our ideas and innovations,” commented Oscar Huss, Head of Product Development at POC.
“By working closely with scientific leaders in the POC Lab, we strive to lead the way in introducing new safety ideas. Certification standards are essential, but they should never limit our willingness to look beyond their parameters to find better and more innovative ways to reduce the consequences of accidents.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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94 comments
There are some comments on here that really do take the biscuit.
When i am out on the bike i'm not thinking " This polystyrene bun on my head will save me,lets go and have an accident ". How ridiculous.
As for "people with helmets crash more often ".Unbelievable. 99% of cyclists i see are wearing a helmet so it follows in an accident that the cyclist is likely to be wearing a helmet.
I know BTB and Burt are raging against the world but when it comes to using foul language on a forum then you've extinguished your own argument.
You miss the point.
I don't, personally, think the 'risk compensation' issue is a major one. With mountain bikers on trails, possibly, maybe, dunno, but I doubt that urban commuters ride more dangerously because they have a helmet on. It is _possible_ that drivers are less careful around helmet-wearers (visible lycra probably provokes them as well), but the only evidence for that is one very weak study, so who knows?
The real story behind 'helmet wearers have more accidents' is that helmet promoters are constantly telling us about the awful accidents they've had and that the helmet 'saved their life'. It may not be true that they have more accidents, it's really just that they never shut up about those they have had, hence it sounds like it.
The main point is that helmets are a trivial issue when it comes to the main dangers to cyclists and that they are a symbol of the transfer of responsibility from those who actually cause the problem to the victims. And that the arguments used to push them are so illogical.
Risk compensation is an observable effect with much supporting evidence.
Studies have shown that helmetted cyclists do have more crashes than bare headed ones.
No reliable studies show that helmets make cycling safer, so they aren't just trivial, they are irrelevant. They are just being used by politicians, the media, the motoring lobby and the gullible to attack cyclists and blame the victims, to deflect from their own failings.
Risk compensation _in general_ is clearly a well-established phenomenon, but I haven't personally seen proof that it applies to urban commuter cyclists. I don't know I have the energy to read up on that to a degree where I could argue for that case, when there's more than enough reason to discount pro-helmet fanatics already.
I'm not sure there's a distinction between 'trivial' and 'irrelevant'! Mainly I just find them a kind of symbol of victim-blaming. A way to tell non-motorists to know their place.
I wouldn't argue that risk compensation is well established at all.
A quick glance at the Wikipedia page will show that the evidence is equivocal at best.
Even the famous UK seat belt example vanishes once you dig a bit deeper in to the numbers.
When deciding whether to do something people tend to evaluate the likelihood of bad concequences for themselves. Are you really denying that? You clearly have a radically-different idea about human pyschology, I guess.
Why do we have legal penalties for crimes, then, if the risk of going to jail has no bearing on people's willingness to break the law? Maybe we should scrap the entire legal system?
Why have speed limits if the risk of being done for speeding has no effect on people's willingness to drive at 70mph?
(I glanced at the wiki page and it appears to be talking about a very technical narrow use of the term - I'm talking about what English words actually mean in usual usage).
In fact that wiki page contradicts itself:
So in other words, motorists do indeed drive faster if they percive a lower risk to themselves of being done for speeding. That's risk-compensation as far as I can see. Motorists will increase their speed till they reach a similar level of risk of facing legal penalties. How is that _not_ risk compensation or risk homeostasis? The 'expert' opinion on it appears rather confused, judging from Wiki's take on it.
The question of the relation to accident rates is irrelevant, as speeding motorists is a bad thing for all non-motorists in the area, regardless of accident rates, as it's unpleasant and deters others from using or crossing the road.
It may seem to be a common sense assumption but it is quite hard to demonstrate in any reproducible way which indicates that perhaps reality is a bit more nuanced. The wiki page had links to several studies that demonstrated the opposite to the study you cited above.
In terms of PPE, there is no clear evidence of risk compensation existing.
Where are the contradictory links you refer to? The quote I gave is _from_ that Wiki page, that's what that page itself says about speeding.
There seems to be an unsupported assumption that speeding is not bad unless it is shown to necessarily increase accident rates.
The relationship between perceived risk of getting caught and the willingness to speed seems to be simply ignored because of that assumption, when in fact that _is_ risk compensation. As far as I can see their own data actually proves what they claim it disproves, simply because they are operating with unexamined asssumptions.
As I said to start with, I don't know about the issue with cyclists own behaviour regarding helmets, but clearly risk-compensation occurs in general.
I ask again - why do we have police or a criminal justice system at all, if people don't factor in thre risk of getting caught and paying legal penalties when choosing to commit crimes? Should you not be calling for the whole lot of them to be abolished, if you really believe risk-compensation does not happen at all?
The links are in the section which disputes risk homeostasis.
You seem to have adopted your own, incredibly broad, definition of risk compensation which as you've admitted differs considerably from the 'technical term'.
Obviously human beings make risk/benefit decisions. I'm not going to dispute that.
There is however no clear evidence of risk compensation (the technical definition) occurring with PPE and its very existence is a matter of continued debate.
You often see risk compensation (technical definition) stated as fact by the anti-helmet brigade.
Their apparent enthusiasm for proof and facts clearly not extending to include a cornerstone of the anti helmet argument.
You haven't got it yet, have you? Rich_cb is right and everyone else is wrong.
Whereas everything you post is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
I'm looking forward to your next 'fact'...
You could have used foul language yourself and extinguished your own arguments instead of using anecdote, assumption and opinion to do it; would have saved time.
You might like to read up a bit on helmets, safety devices and risk compensation, so that your next post at least has the faintest basis in fact.
"Hello. Reality calling joeegg. Over here!"
That's Mr. BTBS to you son, and swearing is simply because of the complete and utter lunacy and continued and very typical behaviour by companies more interested in protecting their own bottom line than they are lives and people to simply get about without being in fear all the time, so much so they don't go out at all (on bikes).
My words, sweary or not, are backed up with facts, unlike you Mr. Anecdote with your 99% of cyclists wearing helmets nonsense, not to mention that even if true, the 99 people out of a 100 are going to end up having more incidents by rate than the singular who isn't wearing, we already know this is true everywhere, all countries and not just cycling.
If I were to come off my bike, for whatever reason, and hit my head off a kerb, wall, railing, bollard etc. I’d fancy my chances a lot more if I had a helmet on.
And if I were to choose between wearing a helmet and coming off versus not wearing a helmet and not coming off, I'd prefer to not come off. It's obvious, isn't it?
If only life was that simple. Shit happens.
Exactly - and shit seems to happen more to helmet wearers which is an unexpected consequence.
Boring having the same conversation over-and-over, but new people keep turning up and making the same inane points ("it's common sense, innit?" "If you hit your head against a wall woudn't you rather be wearing a helmet"...blah blah). It's the illogicallity of the arguments that annoys me, not the helmets.
Your logic implies you wear a helmet at all times. If you are saying you limit it to when on the bike - you need to explain why. Why does the same reasoning not apply to when you walk down stairs, are a passenger in a car, have a shower, or run? Why do you not wear stab-proof vests whenever you are out and about? After all, if someone were to stab you, you'd faancy your chances a lot more if you had a stab-proof vest on.
Your argument is simply 'there is a (non-quantified) risk of something, ergo all-and-everything I can do to reduce that risk by some unspecified amount is necessarily justified'.
Wouldn't "not riding the bike at all" reduce that risk even more? Why do you not opt for that one? It's what most people choose, after all.
Agree with everything you wrote there.
A great article by CB that addresses some of this:
https://chrisboardman.com/blog/index_files/e67d4b8aac0c709c5801ce466bdcd...
(though the pro-helmet shouters & shamers usually CBA to read it)
Knife crime has been in the news of late. Government wants to tackle it so they put resources into policing and even talk about using the army.
But if they use the same logic as some people do for cycle helmets shouldn't they just subsidise stab vests for Londoners? And tell them that they're dickheads for not wearing one.
Then we can have lots of boringly predictable articles about 'research' by armour and knife companies (who merely want to sell more armour and more knives, not make our streets safe) about making slightly better stab vests. Sorted.
I recommend that you acquaint yourself with some facts about helmets. You might then be less convinced of their effectiveness in any and all situations.
The premise of this test is that a slightly better helmet is a good move but the people who disagree are looking at the bigger picture (and have probably read more about the topic).
By all means wear one if you wish but it really is NOT the solution.
Thanks for assuming that I’m not acquainted with both sides of the argument. Risk is based on both likelihood and severity - I wear a helmet to reduce the severity.
You don't cite anything that quanitifies those risk though. I just suspect the real reason people wear helmets when cylcing is due to social pressure. People seem oblivious to how social norms affect their judgements about such probabilities, hence you don't wear a 'walking down stairs' helmet because that isn't socially expected, nobody is ever victim-blamed for failing to wear one.
Social norms determine what people consider reasonable. A big clue they are involved is if people start referring to 'common sense'.
(I include myself - I doubt I'd wear a helmet if I were in a society where it wasn't expected)
Loving all the assumptions people are making about me on here. I’ve only had 2 visits to hospital in recent years, both after coming off my bike, no cars involved, both due to road surface (oil). Therefore, for me, this raises the ‘likelihood’ side of the equation. On both occasions my head went down hard yet I suffered no serious injury - therefore, I believe, my helmet reduced the severity. I also try to reduce the likelihood by being more aware of the road surface etc. The anti-helmet argument seems mainly to focus on likelihood.
Conversely, anecdote is not evidence.
If any of us makes assumptions then it's based on the assumptions and biases you've kindly provided us with (and I can tell you now that most of us have seen such assumptions many times before).
We're talking about a far bigger issue than your anecdotal evidence so best you get down off your high horse and look at the big picture.
Meanwhile no-one is suggesting that you should stop wearing a helmet if that's what you want to do, but please leave it on when you get out of the bath, walk down stairs, climb a ladder etc etc. After all, if it saves one life...
If I’m making any assumptions they are:
I’ve had 2 head injuries as a result of coming off my bike, therefore it could happen again.
If I smack my head off the tarmac at 20mph I’d rather it had a helmet on it.
These are based on my experiences, if that’s bias then I hold my hands up.
The reason I don’t wear one all the time (or a stab vest for that matter) is also based on my experiences.
Fine. As I said before, no-one is telling you not to wear one.
All we're doing is questioning some assumptions. So far you've given no indication that you're interested in questioning them yourself.
This happens over and over again, at Fluffy said. People come on here, spraying the same weak arguments then wonder why we don't all give them love and respect for 'educating' us about it.
In what way have I tried to educate, or expected love and respect? I’ve simply explained why I do what I do.
Listening to some of the conspiracy theory stuff on here I’m surprised people aren’t all campaigning for tin foil hats to be compulsory.
Yeah yeah, same old bollocks yet again.
You appear to have taken ZERO interest in what people are actually saying, you just turn up your headphones and shout louder.
Call people names all you like, it merely demonstrates how blinkered you are. How utterly predictable and boring.
Neatly sums up the comments on any article about helmets...
You’ve accused me of ‘spraying weak arguments’, trying to ‘educate’ people, and coming on here for ‘love and respect’ when all I did was share my experiences. Utter hypocrisy and deflection to now say I’m name calling and not listening.
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