To wear or not to wear: Korea in dilemma over mandatory bike helmet use

Helmets are stored while bicycles are all being used at a bike-sharing station on Yeouido, southern Seoul. The Seoul Metropolitan Government is currently test-operating a free helmet rental service in the area but not many people use the helmets. / Yonhap

By Kang Seung-woo

A plan to mandate bike helmets still seems to face a bumpy ride as cyclists are avoiding the protective gear, especially for public bikes.

Some question how effective the approach will be, citing hygiene and loss or damage of the public helmets as concerns, while others claim the government is ignoring more important safety measures and only requiring bikers to wear helmets.

Wearing a bike helmet will become mandatory from Sept. 28 after a revision of the traffic law in March. The government believes that headgear will reduce the risk of serious head and face injuries. No penalty is set yet for violators.

According to the Korea Road Traffic Authority, the number of bike accidents in 2013 was 4,249, but it increased to 5,659 last year. In addition, head injuries were the most common among bike accidents between 2012 and 2016, accounting for 38 percent, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

In that respect, the Seoul Metropolitan Government launched a month-long trial of a helmet "rental" service for those who use its bike-sharing system, or Ttareungyi, July 20, with 1,030 helmets placed at bike stations in the Yeouido area. Riders can use them without additional fees when they borrow a bike.

The biggest sticking point in requiring all cyclists to wear helmets, among others, is that many users are concerned about potential hygiene issues with multiple people using the same helmets.

"It is not pleasant to put on a sweaty and stinky headgear that some stranger has just taken off," said Yu Jin-hee, a frequent Ttareungyi user.

According to the revised law, all cyclists should wear head protection, regardless of distance traveled.

"It is nonsense that I have to carry bulky headgear even if I'm only going to a nearby store. To me, it sounds like telling me not to use the bike," said a company employee surnamed Jin, who commutes by Ttareungyi to his office at Gwanghwamun from his home near Ttukseom in eastern Seoul.

"Mandating helmets is a typical bureaucratic administration holding each rider responsible for bike accidents," he said.

In response to hygiene complaints, the city plans to sterilize the helmets three times a week, and separately sanitize those with serious hygiene problems -- despite still failing to ease the concerns.

During the first five days of the helmet rental service, 55 went missing. Similarly, when the Daejeon Metropolitan Government implemented a helmet-sharing service in 2014, it saw 90 percent of its helmets disappear two months after the program began.

Along with the loss issue, damaged helmets will be another problem to deal with. There is a liability risk for broken helmets as they could fail to prevent a head injury to the next wearer.

"All Ttareungyi-related safety accidents involve the head, arms or legs. Although there are lingering concerns about losses, we also cannot ignore the safety of citizens," an official of the Seoul Facilities Corp. said.

To prevent potential helmet loss, the organization once considered equipping helmets with GPS, but dropped the plan due to high costs.

Given the situation, eight cyclist groups nationwide held a press conference in Seoul, Saturday, urging the government to scrap the compulsory helmet plan.

"The use of helmets does not lead to fewer accidents," the groups said. "Rather than requiring all cyclists to wear helmets, the government needs to expand bike infrastructure."

They also said the mandatory helmet use will discourage people from using bikes, as evidenced by an Australian case, in which the number of cyclists decreased by up to 36 percent after the country adopted a helmet law in 1990.

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