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This study deals with the risk of injury to the bicyclist's head and the benefits of wearing a bicycle helmet in terms of reduction of injury severity or even injury avoidance. The accident data of 4,245 injured bicyclists as a randomized sample, collected by a scientific research team within the GIDAS project (German In-Depth Accident Study) were analyzed. Given that head injuries result in approximately 40% of bicycle-related crashes, helmet usage provides a sensible first-level approach for improving incidence and severity of head injuries. The effectiveness of the bicycle helmet was examined using descriptive and multivariate analysis for 433 bicyclists with a helmet and 3,812 bicyclists without a helmet. Skull fractures, severe brain injuries and skull base fractures were up to 80% less frequent for bicyclists wearing a helmet.

Crash helmets for motorcyclists are subject to certain test specifications by national and international reglements. For the European community the ECE-R 22 is valid, in America the tests are made according to SNELL as well as FMVSS 218. In all test procedures the protruding stability, the form stability of the carrier device and the shock absorption is tested. This study investigate impact situations in real accidents. The impact situation of 598 analysed crash helmets reveals that only 57.5% of all impact points are situated within the protection region of helmets defined by ECE, 14.1% in the marginal region and 28.2% clearly outside this protected region. The highest percentage of impacts occurres in the chin region, which is not taken into consideration in test definitions ECE as well as FMVSS. The so-called ‘double-impact’, which is a base of test procedures and induce therefore, is not confirmed in accident reality.