The Invisible Bicycle Helmet | Fredrik Gertten from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.
For bicycle enthusiasts, choosing a suitable and well-designed bicycle helmet is a worthwhile task that takes time and some effort. For someone to get the most out of a helmet, the design and fit must be good motivators for the owner to wear it all the time. However, there is not much variation when it comes to the different types of helmets that are offered.
For bicyclists hoping to have a helmet that is unique in design but with the same functionality, you have now another option to consider. Would you like to wear a bicycle helmet that no one can see and would be visible only when the need arises?
Two design students identified as Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin of Sweden came up with an innovative design for a bicycle helmet that they hope every bicyclist would love to wear. The duo describes the traditional bicycle helmet as “uncomfortable” and “feels like a hard mushroom on your head”. Basically all bicycle helmets look the same and they thought of designing something “invisible” that people would like to wear and be able to travel safely while wearing it.
Their worked started seven years to come up with the unique design. To be able to do this, they read and studied bike accident reports, consult a head trauma specialist, staged bicycle accidents to collect movement patterns and compare it with normal biking activity. This nearly impossible task of creating a functional and safe bike helmet that no one can see comes after Sweden’s mandatory legal requirement for children up to 15 years old must wear a safety bicycle helmet. This mandatory helmet law is being debated to extend to adults. Seeing the potential, the two ladies started working on their project.
The design for the “invisible bicycle helmet” is considered by the designers as a symbol of the “impossible”. Motivated by the desire to save the world, the two worked hard on conceptualizing and making the invisible helmet a reality. They consider the bicycle as a tool to change the world. This is a welcome chance to contribute to the solution for global warming problem and health problems. Perhaps if safety among bikers can be greatly improved, more people will use the bike for work and for leisure, thus, carbon emissions can be reduced significantly. Not only that, bikers can get the added benefit of the daily exercise that cyclists enjoy.
The invisible bicycle helmet is called “Hövding”. It is a collar worn around the neck that contains an airbag helmet which inflates only if there is an accident. The first invisible bike helmet is available in select stores in Europe. Nevertheless the public is assured they will be “seeing” more of Hövding in the near future.
Christensen & Hymas is happy with the innovative spirits of these two designers. We welcome innovative designs that improve safety and increases the comfort of wearing helmets so more people will choose to do so. Bikers need all the protection they could get. Making a helmet available that protects the rider during a collision is already a big boost for the biking community. We hope more technological innovations will be made available to the public so that more people will use their bikes to help save the environment and promote fitness.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia