All you need to know about helmet safety

1. Why wear a bicycle helmet?

Before exploring the specifics of helmet testing procedures, it’s essential to understand why helmet use is so encouraged.

The main reason every cyclist should wear a helmet is the significant protection it provides against head injuries. Multiple studies show the protective gear can significantly reduce head and brain injuries.

The most thorough study to date, by Olivier and Creighton¹, reviewed 40 studies including thousands of injured cyclists. It concluded that helmets reduce:

☑️ Head injuries by 51%

☑️ Serious head injuries by 69%

☑️ Fatal head injuries by 65%

Similar results are concluded in a detailed investigation of 71 fatal bicycle accidents² where they found that most of the cyclists were not wearing helmets (65%). The analysis suggests that more than half of these cyclists might have survived if they had been wearing a helmet.

Multiple alternative studies can be references to show evidence of the usefulness of bicycle helmets as this is sometimes questioned within mass media or by consumers.

2. Understanding bike helmet safety certifications.

Choosing the right bicycle helmet isn’t just about style or comfort, it’s about safety. Around the world, different regions have developed their own certifications to ensure helmets meet strict protection standards. While all aim to protect riders, the testing methods and criteria can vary significantly.

Listed below are the most popular certifications, what they mean and why they are important.

CPSC

In the United States, every bicycle helmet sold must meet the standards set by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). This mandatory certification guarantees that helmets are built to endure substantial impact forces, feature reliable retention systems, and maintain a resilient outer shell.

Helmets with the CPSC mark, underwent extensive testing to verify their ability to protect cyclists effectively. Compared to EN 1078, CPSC subjects its helmets to slightly greater impacts.

 
CE EN 1078:2012

In Europe, helmets are typically certified under the EN standards, with EN 1078 being the most relevant for cycling. This certification includes tests for shock absorption, retention system performance, and field of vision. Helmets that meet EN 1078 requirements comply with strict European safety regulations and are designed to offer good protection for riders.

ASTM

This helmet standard, often used for downhill mountain biking, is more rigorous than most. It tests helmets with harder impacts and higher drop heights to make sure they offer strong protection. This standard also features a lower test line on the sides and back of the helmet than most. While chin bars are not required to pass this test, if a helmet does feature a chin bar, the bar must pass a deflection test as well.

NTA

The NTA-8776 is a safety standard outlined in the Dutch Technical Agreement (NTA) 8776. An NTA  certified helmet is designed to offer enhanced protection against higher impact speeds, covering a larger portion of the head. E-bikes, especially those with higher speeds, can result in more severe impacts during crashes. NTA-8776 helmets are designed to reduce the risks associated with these higher speeds.

Identify certified helmets

Safety starts at the top, literally. Look for the mark of approval, typically found on the inside of the helmet, packaging or in the manual. These markings confirm that the helmet has passed essential safety tests and is built to protect you in real-world riding conditions.

3. A quick lesson in rotational impact.

It doesn’t stop there. Some helmet manufacturers go above and beyond the standard certification. To understand how, we first need to look at the different types of impact.  

There are two main ways a helmet can collide with hard surfaces during a collision – direct impact and rotational impact.

Linear impact, also known as direct impact, occurs when a cyclist falls straight onto a hard surface, for example, imagine you’ve stopped (safely) on mountainous singletrack. A small rock above the trail dislodges and heads your way. Linear impact protection would protect you if the rock was to hit your head and you’d also be very unlucky for this to happen. Linear impact protection is reducing high impact forces that might lead to direct brain impact or even skull fracture.

Rotational impact occurs when a cyclist falls onto a road, pavement or other hard surface while moving. This type of impact results in higher rates of more severe head injuries such as concussion due to the brain rotating inside the skull on impact.

Rotational impact can happen to any rider, whether they’re racing down a mountain pass in the Alps, leaping table-top jumps on their mountain bike on remote woodland trails or leisurely cycling along a canal towpath on a Sunday afternoon.

Linear protection is the base for any helmets to protect your brains. For the best possible safety, a combination of both linear and rotational protection will improve the overall level of impact absorption.

4. A new standard on rotational impact: EN 1078:2025.

Europe’s core bicycle‑helmet standard is being upgraded to include rotational impact testing alongside the familiar straight‑down linear impacts. That means helmets will now be assessed in lab conditions that better mimic the real‑world hits that twist the head and raise brain‑injury risk.

What’s changing in the new EN 1078:2025 certification compared to the old EN 1078:2012?

1️⃣ Rotational impact becomes part of the test. In addition to the long‑standing linear shock tests, the new standard introduces rotational shock assessment. These metrics are designed to cap how quickly the head spins during an oblique hit.

2️⃣ A test method and headform built for rotation. Rotational tests use a 45° angled steel anvil and a new more realistic headform. Four realistic impact locations on the helmet are assessed. Additionally, a chin-guard rigidity test is added for full‑face helmets.

3️⃣ The standard continues to cover cyclists and users of equipment with similar hazards (e.g., skateboards, scooters).  

 
How do labs decide a pass or a fail?

The headline thresholds are:

☑️ Peak linear acceleration ≤ 250 g (unchanged requirement)

☑️ Peak rotational velocity ≤ 35 rad/s at each impact location, and ≤ 30 rad/s on average across four locations.

These are laboratory pass/fail criteria designed to reduce risk and help manage impact energy in standardized tests. Real world outcomes vary with crash specifics; no helmet (or test) can guarantee injury prevention. This new standard is being assessed by all major experts in the cycling industry and is expected to become implemented in 2026.

 
Why Lazer backs EN 1078:2025 

We choose EN 1078:2025 as our primary safety reference because it’s scientifically grounded, transparent, and reproducible across accredited labs—so results can be independently checked by test houses and the media. We believe progress comes from embracing stronger, evidence‑based methods and iterating our designs accordingly. This new standard is the most meaningful step forward for European bicycle helmet testing in decades. It assesses how helmets handle the oblique impacts riders actually face. Change may be uncomfortable; protecting cyclists is worth it.

 
How does this shape Lazer helmets?

We design to protect against rotational impact. Our KinetiCore impact technology gives designers tools to manage tangential loads as well as direct hits—aimed at meeting the rotational criteria while keeping weight, ventilation and fit in balance.

Learn more about KinetiCore impact technology ⬇️ 

5. What is KinetiCore and how does it make a helmet safer?

Around 10 years ago, as awareness of rotational-impact injuries began to advance and other technologies developed, we at Lazer started developing our own innovative proprietary (rotational)-impact technology that was built into the helmet rather than added on as an extra. To do that, the design team had to tear up helmet design and start completely from scratch.

The first step is assessing how different types of impact affect cyclists. Using advanced simulations to examine what happens to riders’ skulls and brains in the event of direct and rotational impacts, they created thousands of templates in their quest for the new tech.

The breakthrough moment came when the team examined cars’ crumple zones. This inspired them to build cone-like crumple zones on the inside of the helmet, designed to break under impact and dissipate energy away from the cyclist’s skull.

The result is KinetiCore’s Controlled Crumple Zones – a unique set of EPS foam blocks built into the helmet designed to buckle in the event of direct and rotational impact, redirecting energy away from the brain.

To draw on a familiar analogy and namesake: in modern cars you have crumple zones. These are areas that are specifically designed to break around you to absorb impact if you crash. Our controlled crumple zones work in a very similar way to protect your head. They are individual but work together synchronously to cushion your head from impact and re-direct energy away.

6. Confidence begins with clarity

Bicycle‑helmet safety is complex, and today no single test method in any laboratory can perfectly capture real‑world protection. Around the world, leading academic labs such as UNISTRA in France, KTH in Sweden, and VTECH in the United States, have each developed their own impact‑testing approaches, using different velocities, impact locations and different test heads with different friction coefficients. Already a lot of different variables, but most critically these labs feed impact testing data into a brain model that interprets crash data differently from one brain model to another.

Given that several different brain models are in use, it’s been proven that similar test data being fed into different brain models generate different safety evaluations. So while these labs’ expertise is unquestioned, the different labs with different brain models generate inconsistent safety evaluations, which is in the end creating confusion for both manufacturers and cyclists.

The EN1078:2025 offers a unified method that measures peak linear acceleration and rotational velocity without relying on a brain model. It provides a clear and objective benchmark. At Lazer, we believe riders deserve transparency grounded in reliable, reproducible data. Because confidence begins with clarity.

^{[1] Olivier, J., Creighton, P., 2016. Bicycle injuries and helmet use: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int. J. Epidemiol. 46, 278–292.}

^{[2] Statens vegvesen, 2014. Temaanalyse av sykkelulykker. Statens vegvesens rapporter nr. 294.}