Cyclists: be safe - be seen as a bad target
Created | Updated Aug 28, 2005
Sleek bodies topped off with colourful aerodynamic helmets can acquire an aura of invincibility. But such bodies do not withstand attack, evade danger or reconstitute themselves in the miraculous manner of super-heroes or super-villains.
Helmets do not prevent accidents from happening, though they are effective in reducing the severity of head injuries that occur in falls from stationary or slowly-moving bikes1. However while helmet use is rising, in the US at least cyclists' head injuries have been rising even faster, and not falling at all as we might have expected.
A bicycling mystery
Here are two quotes from a piece in The New York Times2:
Millions of parents take it as an article of faith that putting a bicycle helmet on their children, or themselves, will help keep them out of harm's way. But new data on bicycle accidents raises questions about that. The number of head injuries has increased 10 percent since 1991, even as bicycle helmet use has risen sharply, according to figures compiled by the [United States] Consumer Product Safety Commission. But given that ridership has declined over the same period, the rate of head injuries per active cyclist has increased 51 percent just as bicycle helmets have become widespread.
. . . "It's puzzling to me that we can’t find the benefit of bike helmets here," said Ronald L. Medford, the assistant executive director of the safety commission's hazard identification office.
A possible explanation
What could account for such a surprising development?
One possible explanation can be derived from the consideration of aggressive and defensive camouflage in living creatures.
The importance of appearance
Mimicry has produced in nature startling forms of outward appearance that protect their wearers by advertising true or false facts. Predators appear disguised as harmless things, or melt into the background; tasty edible bugs appear disguised as poisonous ones, or as stinging insects, or indigestible twigs.
The reasons for mimicry are generally obvious; all non-white polar bears became extinct ages ago, having died of hunger in hard times when they couldn’t sneak up on seals as effectively as their whiter cousins. Flies that happened to resemble wasps were allowed to survive by predators that could have eaten them but chose not to, and so on. See such studies as “Life on Earth” for endless examples.
Survival strategies
So what is the best survival strategy for a cyclist? To be seen, certainly; but to be seen as what?
One definitely doesn’t want to be seen as something that will bounce if dropped.
What exactly is the threat?
One Researcher says:
It is easy and crazy in equal measure to cast 'the motorist' as the enemy. Let me here pay heartfelt thanks to the hundreds of motorists who forbear to crush me every time I cycle. I owe my life to every one of you.
I like you to see me for what I am: a mostly-harmless grandad getting about his business peacefully and quietly. I have given up wearing a helmet, not least because on my kind of bike, a recumbent, the chances of being thrown on my head in an accident are very greatly reduced (at a guess I would say to the level of a pedestrian’s chances).
If there were a helmet that looked exactly like my cloth cap, that’s what I would wear. What I wish to appeal to is the motorist’s appreciation of my very real vulnerability; in this I daily put my trust.
The ideal cycling guise
However, if we decide to take on the predatory role, our ideal persona is surely:
With Overwhelming Likelihood of Success in a Court Case
and the piece of equipment that will perfectly serve the twin purposes of
(1) cushioning the skull against falls, and
(2) acting as a sharp and constant reminder of a driver's duty to his neighbour, is
This can be counted on to do its job even in times and places where lawyers no longer wear such accessories.
Conclusion
A cycle helmet is not an all-round physical protection device like the 'shields' in Star Trek. Use of a cool helmet may induce a subconscious assumption in road users, that the cyclist is more resilient than is actually the case. The talisman effect, if it is to work, should be used to make the rider's vulnerability more rather than less obvious.
The measures suggested above have not yet been tested, so this Entry can not as a whole be classed as 'factual'. Rather, it points out a warning: any dress with even the slightest overtones of super-powers may be strategically A Very Bad Choice.
