The Unhelpful Ways Cities Talk About Bike Helmets

American cyclists have long been beset by a paradox: Despite wearing bicycle helmets at one of the highest rates in the world, they also have among the highest rates of cycling accidents and fatalities. There’s no doubt that city officials spend a lot of time talking up the safety benefits of helmets. But could the way they communicate that message actually be undermining overall bike safety?

That’s the question geographer Gregg Culver of the University of Heidelberg set out to answer in a recent study. There’s already plenty of evidence that helmets aren’t key to preventing injuries and deaths. Countries like Denmark and Germany, where very few cyclists wear helmets, have proven that building separated bike infrastructure, reducing car speeds, and attracting large numbers of cyclists (the “safety in numbers effect”) are the most effective ways to keep cyclists safe. But since helmets obviously do prevent some injuries, and it’s cheap and easy for a city to say so, that often becomes the focus of bike safety efforts. So Culver looked at how that message is getting across, and why it’s not working