The reason is simple. The main helmet manufacturers are American and when they started suddenly promoting helmets in the late 1980’s, they targeted their local market and aimed helmets at those who cycled there; namely sports enthusiasts and hobby cyclists. The helmet was yet another piece of ‘necessary gear’. They capitalized on their branding of cycling as a fast-paced sport.

Ironically, no helmet manufacturer will tell you that helmets will or can save lives. This is simply because they are merely designed to protect the head from non-life threatening injuries in solo accidents under 20 km/h.

The helmet scepticism in Europe is due to thorough scientifc research on the subject. It can be summed up in the report issued by the European Council of Ministers of Transport [the ministers of transport for each EU nation] called National Policies to Promote Cycling (2004).

“PROMISING, a research project commissioned by the European Union and coordinated by the SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research (2001), suggests that from the point of view of restrictiveness, even the official promotion of helmets may have negative consequences for bicycle use, and that to prevent helmets having a negative effect on the use of bicycles, the best approach is to leave the promotion of helmet wear to manufacturers and shopkeepers.

The report entitled ‘Head Injuries and Helmet Law for Cyclists’ by Dorothy L. Robinson, Bicycle Research report No. 81 (March 1997) shows that the main effect of the introduction of the general helmet law for cyclists in Australia was a drop in bicycle use.”

As a result the national cyclist federations in Holland, Germany, Belgium, Great Britain, Ireland, France, among other countries do NOT promote helmets and fight legislation tooth and nail.