Hey there, hipster. No bike helmet, huh? Well, we all have our excuses. There are the vanity-driven ones that — let’s be honest — explain why the majority of our brain cages sit collecting dust in the dark corners of the garage. Squashed hair, unflattering chin straps, general discomfort, etc.
Then there are the more nuanced arguments tied to piles of conflicting data about how effective helmets actually are (including one small, if suggesting that drivers tend to pass helmeted riders at closer distances than their nonhelmeted counterparts).
But what if there were a helmet that answered both categories of complaint? One that respected your brain and your coiffure?
Enter Hovding, the “invisible” helmet, brainchild of Swedish design duo Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin.
“Vanity might sound a bit stupid to talk about,” Alstin says, “but if that is the cause of people not protecting their heads in traffic, it is a real issue that you need to address.”
And, thus, what started out as a thesis project is now something that could revolutionize biking safety.
So how does it work? In a nutshell, it’s not a shell for your nut. It’s an air bag — one that’s tucked away in a collar that cyclists fastened around their neck. When the collar’s internal sensors detect a specific combination of jerks and jags signifying “ACCIDENT HAPPENING,” the air bag deploys, sending out a head-hugging, air-cushion hood in a tenth of a second…
Continue reading at NPR.org
