Cycling without a helmet or hi-vis clothing could soon become a criminal offence in Ireland, as the government appears to have added cyclists to an ongoing review of safety legislation concerning e-scooter users.

Earlier this month, Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Seán Canney, Ireland’s minister of state for road safety, announced that the government was planning an “aggressive” drive to tighten e-scooter laws, as well as improving enforcement of existing laws concerning speed and underage use, following a steep rise in collisions.

While there are no plans to introducing number plates or licences for e-scooter users, Martin and Canney, along with minister for transport Darragh O’Brien, said they will focus on making helmets and high-visibility clothing compulsory as part of the review.

It was understood initially that this review of safety legislation would only apply to e-scooters. However, last week in the Irish parliament, Canney appeared to indicate that cyclists and e-bike riders were also being considered as part of the plans, under the general umbrella of ‘micromobility’.

When asked by Fianna Fail TD Ryan O’Meara when the review on helmets and hi-vis will commence, Canney said: “Protective equipment is, as for bicycles and e-bikes, strongly advised but not mandatory in Ireland.

“The Road Safety Authority, which is responsible for public education and awareness, frequently undertakes campaigns to promote, among pedestrians, cyclists, and e-scooter users, the need for personal protective equipment and visibility on our roads. The safety benefits of reflective clothing and helmets are set out in detail in the Rules of the Road Booklet.

“The Department has begun examining this issue, with a view to considering mandating helmets for these and other vulnerable micromobility users, should the evidence support such a change, and I intend to bring forward proposals in this regard in the near future.”

high-vis cyclists 2.PNG
high-vis cyclists 2 (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

As IrishCycle.com outlined, the connection made by Canney between e-scooters, bikes, and e-bikes suggests that he was referring to cyclists when he mentioned “other vulnerable micromobility users” (with other forms of ‘micromobility’, such as Segways, outlawed on Irish roads, in any case).

The minister’s indication that cyclists could be subject to any new helmet and hi-vis law also represents an abrupt about-turn from a parliamentary answer published on 15 January, which stated that the Department of Transport was only considering “mandating helmets for e-scooter users if the evidence supports such a change”.

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And, unsurprisingly, the prospect of compulsory helmets and hi-vis for cyclists in Ireland – which would see the country follow in the footsteps of Australia by making the refusal to wear a helmet a criminal offence – has been heavily criticised by cycling campaigners.

Kevin Jennings, a spokesperson for the Irish Cycling Campaign, told IrishCycle.com that the group “supports evidence-based decision making rather than vibes or populism, especially on an issue as serious as road danger reduction. Sometimes the evidence supports nuanced conclusions.”

He continued: “A parent insisting that their child wear a helmet when learning to cycle is not a natural parallel to a state insisting on similar.

“It is a public good if people cycle, with benefits to the person cycling, to their community, to the shared environment and other road users, and most often overlooked by our health service.”

Warning of the dangers of discouraging cycling by making helmets and other equipment mandatory, compared to the negligent safety effects, Jennings added: “It is vital to be bright and to encourage riders to wear bright clothing and to be visible on the road. Some members would like to see hub dynamo lights included on all bikes, with the exception of sports performance bikes.

“We all need to look out for each other and to make ourselves seen. Mandating these things might be an over-reaction for very little gain; it’s a little bit like telling a person who is struggling with their heating bill to put on an extra jumper.”

Cyclist in London hi-vis with cargo bike
Cyclist in London hi-vis with cargo bike (Image Credit: Simon MacMichael)

Meanwhile, Ciaran Cannon, the president of Cycling Ireland, who was struck by a motorist himself while wearing a yellow top, described any attempt to introduce compulsory hi-vis and helmets as “performative policymaking”.

“There is no credible evidence that mandatory hi-vis significantly reduces collisions or fatalities. Jurisdictions with the safest roads have achieved their outcomes not by criminalising people for what they wear, but by managing speed, designing safer streets, and enforcing existing traffic laws,” he said.

“Mandating hi-vis for vulnerable road users shifts responsibility away from those operating the most dangerous vehicles and implies that injury results from a failure of visibility rather than from road design, driver behaviour or enforcement.

“It is a form of performative policymaking, a measure that creates the appearance of action while leaving the real sources of danger untouched, and it runs counter to the Vision Zero safe systems approach to road safety that Ireland claims to support.”

He continued: “In every other hazardous environment, particularly workplaces, we apply an internationally recognised hierarchy of controls: eliminating danger where possible, engineering risks out of the system and separating people from hazards.

“Only as a last resort do we rely on personal protective equipment. On our roads, we invert this logic entirely, skipping straight to: ‘Be visible’ and ‘Watch out’.”

“High-visibility clothing can be useful and should be encouraged. However, if we are serious about saving lives on Irish roads, we should focus relentlessly on speed, street design and enforcement, not penalise people for what they wear.”

That particular message, however, was ignored back in 2023 by a Dublin judge, who cut the damages awarded to a cyclist, injured after being struck by a hit-and-run lorry driver, by 20 per cent after claiming that she contributed to her own injuries by failing to wear a helmet.

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And when it comes to cycling’s ongoing ‘helmet debate’, Cannon and Jennings’ warnings about the potential impact of mandating helmets and hi-vis clothing were underlined by a recent study from Australia – where helmet wearing has been mandatory for over three decades – which found that an alarming number of motorists view cyclists wearing helmets and other safety gear as “less human”.

Of the 563 people surveyed for the study, conducted by Mark Limb of Queensland University of Technology and Sarah Collyer of Flinders University, 30 percent considered cyclists less than fully human, while cyclists with helmets were perceived as less human compared to those without, while cyclists with safety vests and no helmets were perceived as least human.

“Our findings add to this growing research, suggesting that cyclists wearing safety attire, particularly high-visibility vests, may be dehumanised more so than cyclists without safety attire,” the study concluded.

Cyclists at traffic lights, London
Cyclists at traffic lights, London (Image Credit: Simon MacMichael)

Of course, Ireland’s helmet debate isn’t new to these islands, where calls for legislation governing cyclists’ protective equipment pop up on a regular basis.

In June 2023, for example, Conservative MP Mark Pawsey introduced a compulsory cycle helmet bill into the House of Commons, arguing that if mandatory safety measures are acceptable for motorists, they “should surely be acceptable for cyclists”.

Addressing concerns that a mandatory bike helmet law would be difficult to enforce, Pawsey said: “While it would certainly create an additional burden on the police, it doesn’t strike me as being particularly difficult to enforce in comparison with other offences.

“If mandatory safety measures are acceptable for car drivers, they should surely be acceptable for cyclists. Now we know that cyclists are the most vulnerable road users.”

And in December 2022, the Department for Transport insisted that the then-Conservative government had “no intention” of making helmets mandatory, following a question from the Tory MP for Shropshire constituency The Wrekin, Mark Pritchard.

In response to the MP’s question, the minister of state for the department at the time, Jesse Norman, said the matter had been considered “at length” during the cycling and walking safety review in 2018.

Norman, himself the Tory MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, also added that while the Department for Transport “recommends that cyclists wear helmets”, the “safety benefits of mandating cycle helmets are likely to be outweighed by the fact that this would put some people off cycling”.