"I had cyclists telling me I was a disgrace for saying my helmet saved my life": Dan Walker recalls helmet backlash after being knocked off bike by driver

It is one year on from the collision caused by a driver that knocked Dan Walker off his bike and left him unconscious for 25 minutes, hospitalised with facial injuries and "glad to be alive". Unbeknown to the TV and radio presenter, his subsequent social media post thanking the helmet he was wearing that "saved my life" and advising others "if you're on a bike — get one on your head" would cause one of the great episodes in the well-trodden helmet safety debate path.

Now, 12 months on and looking back at the collision and aftermath, Walker explained to The Times newspaper how he did not ask the police to pursue charges against the driver as "we all make mistakes, don't we?"

Dan Walker hit by driver on multi lane roundabout "wear a helmet!" pic.twitter.com/TrQyqzGoky

— Hackney Cyclist (@Hackneycyclist) February 22, 2023

 "Within 24 hours I'd had drivers tell me that if it had been them, they'd have finished the job," Walker recalled. "I had cyclists telling me I was a disgrace for saying that my helmet saved my life. 'You're the reason people wear helmets'. There's a lobby, apparently, that says if you wear a helmet drivers think you're safer than you are, therefore they hit you.

The helmet I was wearing saved my life today so - if you’re on a bike - get one on your head.

Smashed my watch & phone, ruined my trousers, my bike is a mess but I’m still here 🙏🏻

Currently eating soup through a straw and being looked after by this gorgeous, tired nurse ❤️
3/3 pic.twitter.com/slELcbFJdL

— Dan Walker (@mrdanwalker) February 20, 2023

"So I got people angry on all sides and I thought, 'I don't want to enter this. I'm very happy that I'm still around'. There's a part of me that genuinely thought that was it."

Walker went on to explain how the collision felt like an out-of-body experience, he was knocked unconscious for 25 minutes by the impact, and passed out again once he had come round, waking up in the back of the ambulance that attended the scene at a Sheffield roundabout.

"In my mind I was cycling down a French boulevard, a tree-lined boulevard, which I think I'd been to before but not on a bike. Then all of a sudden I was watching myself on the floor, watching a screen, and then on that screen I saw these two heads appear. And then I jumped back into myself and I was on the floor and those two faces were the ambulance workers. I don't know. I don't know..."

> Why is Dan Walker's claim that a bike helmet saved his life so controversial?

Walker took up cycling in 2022 as "an eco thing" due to working in London where "taxis are a nightmare".

"I started to get around on the bike," he explained at the time. "I can go from Downing Street to St Pancras in about 15 minutes, and it's about 30 minutes in a taxi so although I feel like a bit of a geek sometimes, I'm very much enjoying it."

The BBC's reporting of the incident which left him hospitalised was criticised by many, BBC South East claiming Walker had suffered his injuries after "colliding with a car while cycling" despite him saying he had been "hit by a car [driver]".

In the aftermath Walker too was blamed for not using an underpass cycle lane and instead riding, perfectly legally, on the road. However, local cyclists defended the Classic FM presenter's choice to avoid using the subway, which was described by one as a "dank tunnel" and "filled with broken glass".

But it was Walker's line, "don't be a helmet, wear a helmet" that caused the most controversy as the former BBC Breakfast host seemingly innocently advised his large social media following to wear a helmet when cycling. A throwaway comment concerning the usefulness of his helmet?

The choice of focus on the personal protective equipment, rather than the main driving-related cause of the collision, irked some, while others took issue with the claim it had "saved his life".

Numerous days of social media debating and an at-length feature on why the claim was controversial by this website followed, Walker now rather wisely concluding he was left thinking: "I don't want to enter this"...