Road safety Three out of five wear a helmet on their bike
The bicycle helmet is on the rise. In 2024, an average of 59% of cyclists wore one - a new record. However, there are differences in usage: people wear them most often in their leisure time, at 64%. When shopping, the figure is 30 percent.
29.10.2024, 10:59
SDA
This means that the proportion of people wearing them on shopping trips remained the same as in the previous year, as the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BFU) announced on Tuesday on the basis of its traffic survey. However, there was an increase of 13 percentage points for leisure activities.
The helmet wear rate on electric bikes was still higher than on conventional steel bikes. On fast e-bikes with pedal assistance up to 45 km/h, 86 percent wore a helmet. This means that 14 percent disregarded the mandatory requirement. On slower e-bikes up to 25 km/h and without the helmet requirement, 70 percent wore their head protection.
The BFU sees this as a positive development, but regrets that the bicycle helmet is not as commonplace as the ski helmet. Helmets reduce the risk of serious head injuries by up to 70 percent, it wrote.
In contrast to wearing a helmet, according to the BFU, there is a problem with the lights on e-bikes, which have been mandatory since 2022, even during the day. Almost one in three people on an e-bike did not switch on their lights.
In addition to the bicycle helmet rate, seat belt use in the back seat also reached a new high in 2024. 92 percent of passengers buckled up. In the previous year, the figure was 85 percent. In the front seats, 96% of drivers and 95% of front-seat passengers complied with the seat belt requirement.
The BFU collects the traffic data annually in a standardized manner according to defined sampling plans at various locations throughout Switzerland.
