The Korean government plans to make it compulsory for all people riding a bicycle to wear helmets from September 2018. A helmet law has the intention to make cycling safer but the reality proves that it’s very counterproductive and a move into the wrong direction.

Mandatory Bicycle Helmet Law

The law is already passed and it will go into effect on 22 September 2018. There isn’t yet any information on how high the fine will be. Looking at motorcycles, the fine for not wearing a helmet is 20,000 KRW (around 18 USD). So it will be probably around that level as well.

Countries with Bicycle Helmet laws

Usually you would expect that you look at Let’s take a look at which countries have regulations on bicycle helmets for all cyclists:

Countries with fines are Australia, Israel, Namibia, New Zealand and parts of Canada/USA. You can see that countries, such as Netherlands and Denmark, which are often praised as the best bicycle countries, don’t have any legal restrictions.

Why mandatory helmet laws can be very counterproductive

Making a helmet a necessary item will, first of all, hinder people who don’t have an helmet to cycle. Second, it will make cycling less attractive for casual cyclists. People who use a bicycle to get to the subway on the way to work or school don’t want to carry a helmet around. Another issue are bikesharing systems: Spontaneous use of such services will decrease or each bicycle will have to provide a helmet. Seoul’s bikesharing service Ttareungyi is currently investigating their options to react to the bicycle helmet laws. Actually, on their website you can see that a use of helmets is recommended (picture on the right).

Instead of discussing arguments for and against mandatory bicycle helmet laws, I recommend you to take a look at the following video:

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It summarizes very well the issue with compulsory bicycle helmet laws. Especially in a country like Korea, where cycling trips still account for a very small number of journeys.

What can be done against it?

You can sign this petition on the Goverment’s official petition portal to show that you are unsatisfied with this development. The petition ends on 23 July. The portal allows a quick and easy registration through Twitter, Facebook or Naver (no need for an ARC or anything else). Signing the petition will help to raise attention and can lead to a reassessment of the law. For further updates on this activity, you can join the Korean Facebook page “맨머리유니언 – No Compulsory Helmets”.

What has to be done instead in Korea

Korea records an increase in cycling. Articles describe the “cycling population” has passed 13 million. 6.01% of road traffic fatalities in 2016 (in 2012: 5.35%; in 2014: 5.94%) are people on bicycles. Articles about the mandatory bicycle law mention that 38.4% of bicycle accidents involve head injuries.

However, the articles don’t mention that 98.5% of all bicycle accidents and 98.8% of cycling fatalities in Korea happen on normal roads without any bicycle infrastructure. So clearly, we don’t need another victim-blaming policy that makes an efficient, sustainable way of moving around worse, we need adequate bicycle infrastructure for everyday bicycle use. In other words: Dedicated, physically separated and protected bicycle lanes and other infrastructure elements which make it safe and convenient for people of all ages, gender and physical ability to ride a bicycle anywhere they want.