Making helmets a reality for all: white paper

We are halfway through the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030, yet road deaths and injuries remain alarmingly high. Urgent, evidence-based interventions are needed to meet global road safety targets.

We have identified Priority Interventions within our Accountability Toolkit—based on global best practices, in consultation with Alliance member NGOs, and backed by an expert panel—that offer significant value for governments seeking to fulfill their responsibility to save lives on the road. Ensuring safe motorcycle helmets through appropriate laws, enforcement, and promotion is among these.

This white paper enhances the global evidence gathered for the helmet Priority Intervention, setting out key messages and key asks to make it more specific and actionable. Read the white paper HERE.

To develop this white paper, we went through a comprehensive process involving:

1. Desk Research
2. Consultations with recognized global experts in helmet safety;
3. Key informant interviews with NGOs;
4. Community consultations;
5. Workshop on two-wheelers safety;
6. Workshop on ensuring safe helmets for all;
7. Workshop on motorcycle and helmet safety.

Desk research

We sought data and information from global road safety publications (e.g. WHO Global Status Report on Road Safety 2023^[1]), scientific journal articles, and digital media stories on: motorcycle use, deaths and trends; countries that have motorcycle helmet standards; and availability, use, prices and decision-making factors of standard helmets vs nonstandard helmets. The key literature we found include:

• A study across nine countries showed that 54% of observed helmets lacked certification and 49% were deemed non-standard and noted that despite some of these countries having laws against non-standard helmets, enforcement was minimal.^[2]
• A study across twelve countries reported that despite 83% of motorcyclists wearing helmets, nearly half used non-standard ones and highlighted that while helmet laws increase helmet use, they do not guarantee compliance with helmet standards and stronger enforcement is needed.^[3]
• Data from 98,021 two-wheeler users at 15 locations revealed that although overall helmet use was 92%, only 24% wore standard helmets, with 26% of riders and 20% of pillions using non-standard “cap helmets.”^[4]
• Online media articles revealed that helmets with counterfeit labelling and branding are easily available, especially on online shopping platforms^[5], making it nearly impossible for riders to easily distinguish safe from unsafe helmets.
• A study across nine countries estimated nonstandard helmets to be 2–3 times cheaper than standard helmets.^[6]
• A study in Lebanon found 64% of helmets inspected lacked certification and indicated that riders who spent less than $15 on helmets were more likely to wear non-certified helmets, suggesting a correlation between lower cost and poor helmet quality^[7].
• Of the surveyed retail outlets in Ghana between March and April 2021, 13.3% sold both standard and non-standard helmets and 8.6% sold only non-standard helmets and standard helmets were typically between 8.50 to 17.00 USD while non-standard helmets were below 8.50 USD^[8].
• Discomfort was often found across different studies as a reason for not wearing helmets, including those that meet UN Regulation No.22^[9].

In combination with other information gathered through our investigation, we concluded that:  nonstandard helmets are found even in countries with helmet standards due to minimal enforcement of the helmet standards; not all helmets sold to motorcycle riders can be trusted to be protective; prices of nonstandard helmets are generally lower than standard helmets, creating an unnecessary price attraction for nonstandard helmets; different factors influence riders to wear helmets and their purchase decisions such as comfort levels, price, design appeal and enforcement.

Consultations with recognized global experts in helmet safety

We spoke with experts around the world including UNECE, WHO, foundations, private sector entities, and NGOs who work with governments on motorcycle helmets to understand the primary issues in motorcycle helmet safety, the global resources available to assist governments in implementing helmet standards, and implementation barriers, including what has already been tried and what needs to be tried to overcome these barriers. Some of the global resources they provided were also used in desk research.

Across the consultations, the following key issues emerged:

• Without a legal mandate of a motorcycle helmet standard in place, effective implementation of safe helmets nationwide is limited.
• There are many standards available around the world which a country can adapt to meet their local contexts, striking a balance between head protection in the event of a crash, being affordable for the country’s population, and comfortable for the country’s climate conditions.
• Countries must strive to strengthen helmet standards over time with the aim to achieve 100% compliance with wearing of helmets that meet a standard.
• Many national standards are based on the UN Regulation No.22 which rely on the country’s self and reciprocal regulation.
• Rigorous testing and certification requirements are important parts of a helmet standard. Helmets that meet a standard are manufactured in a limited number of countries, and many countries import helmets to meet the domestic demand for motorcycle helmets. Testing, import and distribution add to the cost of helmets, which are often passed onto the consumers. Domestic manufacturing and testing labs can reduce costs and provide enforcement capacity for the country.
• Helmet manufacturers, importers and retailers are often free to produce, import, and sell helmets that are cheap but not protective and the cheapest helmets available in a country tend to not meet a standard.
• Fake brand helmets that do not meet a standard appearing to look exactly like the well-known branded helmets that meet a standard, helmets with fake certification labels, and toy helmets which people may choose to wear as motorcycle helmets are becoming increasingly available, especially through online shopping such as Amazon. These are often attractive to consumers because they are cheaper and appear no different from helmets that genuinely meet a standard.
• Cross-collaboration of different government agencies (e.g. transport agencies, standard bureau, international trade authorities, revenue agency, enforcement agencies, consumer protection) is needed to streamline: motorcycle helmet wearing law that includes a helmet standard requirement; production, import and sale of motorcycle helmets that meet a standard; and random independent testing of motorcycle helmets at production, import entry points and retail settings with fines and confiscation.
• Regulate the private sector to legally mandate all their employees and contractors to wear helmets that meet a standard.
• NGOs play an important role in influencing governments to improve actions for combating nonstandard helmets.

Key informant interviews with NGOs

We mapped out NGOs known to have strong experience in helmet advocacy and conducted key informant interviews with 7 NGOs from 7 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America region. We conducted semi-structured interviews with these NGOs based on pre-designed questions to help us to ascertain challenges in achieving safe helmet access and insights from each country’s efforts to implement safe helmet interventions. The following emerged as common themes:

• All the interviewed countries have a motorcycle helmet law but two of them (Rwanda and Nepal) do not refer to or specify a standard.
• Helmets, manufactured or imported, do not necessarily meet standards because enforcement is weak and/or inconsistent.
• Domestic helmet testing laboratories are needed to effectively enforce helmet standards.
• Key informants shared their experiences in observing how difficult it is for people, including police officers, to distinguish between standard and non-standard helmets.
• People tend to use price as a guide to decide if a helmet is really a standard helmet and make the assumption that real standard helmet prices are unreachable, so choose the helmet with the lowest price.
• Noting the lack of official data, key informants shared their own investigations of local helmets and found some had certification labels but based on the low prices that these helmets were sold at, they could not be certified helmets with legitimate labels.
• Advocacy targeting policy reform through early government engagement is needed rather than relying on rider awareness campaigns alone.
• Diagnosing problems with data is crucial for effective advocacy and NGOs can play a useful role in collecting local data.
• National helmet coalitions involving different stakeholders and engaging media can help strengthen advocacy.

Community consultations

Five Alliance member NGOs from five countries experienced in motorcycle helmet work and community consultations gathered information from local everyday riders about their helmet choices. The Alliance developed a set of questions and a guide and conducted a briefing session for NGOs to ensure consistency in gathering information. These NGOs went out to local streets where motorcycle riders are commonly found and spoke with a range of motorcycle riders, including male and female, commuters, delivery riders, moto-taxi riders, and leisure riders (see Table 1 for rider characteristics and Table 2 for locations of community consultations). A total of 63 participants were asked about the reasons for selecting their helmet, whether they displayed brand and certification labels, the importance of recognized safety standards, the ease of finding helmets that meet these standards, the balance between price and safety when making a purchase, and financing helmets. While the findings should be interpreted with an understanding of their limitations, including a relatively small sample size and potential biases stemming from the convenience sampling method and self-reported data from riders, they provided insights into aspects where official data appeared to be lacking.

The results of each question are summarized by country in the charts below. They suggest that:

• Riders look to certification labels when choosing helmets, but not all of the helmets they were wearing had these labels.
• Riders try to judge quality by certification labels, brand, look and feel, or price, believing a higher price equals better quality.
• Apart from safety, certification, and brand, riders consider price, comfort, aesthetics, and functionality when choosing helmets. Safety is an appeal, but it’s not enough.
• Riders put greater importance on the safety quality of helmets than price and emphasized the importance of helmets meeting safety standards, recognizing their potential to save lives. In Kenya, however, riders were not familiar with ‘safety standards’ to rate their importance.
• When asked about helmet prices, there was a wide range in prices considered to be reasonable. More riders told us they did not struggle to pay for their helmets, except in Kenya, where more riders told us they experienced some difficulty.

Table 1: Characteristics of riders assessed during community consultations

Rider characteristics	Argentina n (%)	Kenya n (%)	Nepal n (%)	Mexico n (%)	India n (%)
Approximate age
Below 20	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	2 (13%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
20-29	5 (29%)	4 (36%)	4 (27%)	8 (80%)	2 (20%)
30-39	3 (18%)	4 (36%)	5 (33%)	2 (20%)	2 (20%)
40-49	2 (12%)	2 (18%)	1 (7%)	0 (0%)	4 (40%)
50-59	7 (41%)	1 (9%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	2 (20%)
60 and up	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	3 (20%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Total	17 (100%)	11 (100%)	15 (100%)	10 (100%)	10 (100%)
Gender of rider
Male	13 (76%)	11 (100%)	13 (87%)	8 (80%)	8 (80%)
Female	4 (24%)	0 (0%)	2 (13%)	2 (20%)	2 (20%)
Total	17 (100%)	11 (100%)	15 (100%)	10 (100%)	10 (100%)
Type of rider
Delivery driver	4 (24%)	0 (0%)	1 (7%)	6 (60%)	0 (0%)
Driver (private)	12 (71%)	11 (100%)	9 (60%)	3 (30%)	9 (90%)
Passenger (private)	1 (6%)	0 (0%)	1 (7%)	1 (10%)	0 (0%)
Para Bike Rider	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	2 (13%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Moto Vlogger	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (7%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Moto-taxi driver	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (7%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Police	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (10%)
Total	17 (100%)	11 (100%)	15 (100%)	10 (100%)	10 (100%)
Type of helmet
Full-face helmet	11 (65%)	7 (64%)	7 (47%)	4 (40%)	3 (30%)
Modular helmet	1 (6%)	0 (0%)	2 (13%)	5 (50%)	0 (0%)
Half coverage helmet	4 (24%)	3 (27%)	1 (7%)	0 (0%)	6 (60%)
Open face helmet	1 (6%)	1 (9%)	4 (27%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Dirt Helmet	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (7%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Tropical helmet	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (10%)	0 (0%)
Not an official motorcycle helmet	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (10%)
Total	17 (100%)	11 (100%)	15 (100%)	10 (100%)	10 (100%)

Table 2: Locations of community consultations

Country	Locations of community consultations (n)
Argentina	Restaurant (7), On the street (2), Home (4), Office (3), Motorcycle shop (1)
Kenya	Miritini (2), Petrol station (5), Boda boda rank (3), Dealer shop (1)
Nepal	Hotel (2), Business school/college (5), Sports center (3), Bus stop (2), Exhibition hall (1), Temple (1), Petrol station (1)
Mexico	Shop (7), Cultural center (2), On the street (1)
India	Biju Patnaik Colony (4), Market (6)

Responses to community consultations

Workshops

We designed and ran workshops at international forums to further explore the primary issues, realities and solutions and highlight common themes across countries.

Leaving No One Behind—Powered Two-Wheelers Safety in the Sustainable Development

On Saturday 31 August 2024 in Delhi, India, Alliance led a panel discussion in an all-day workshop hosted by the Asian Development Bank and the Asia Pacific Road Safety Observatory as part of the Safety 2024 pre-conference program. The discussion revealed that while many low and middle-income countries (e.g. Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Kenya, Mexico, Jamaica) have a motorcycle helmet standard in place, we are not seeing that being translated to every rider wearing a helmet that is safe. There are many loopholes to address at importing, manufacturing, retail points that are not being regulated or enforced, making nonstandard helmets available. This creates confusion for consumers. Nonstandard helmets are also sold at a lower price than standard helmets and this is possible because they do not have the quality material, quality construction that are well-tested that standard helmets do. This creates unnecessary price competitions between standard and nonstandard helmets.

Ensuring Safe Helmets for All

On Sunday 1 September 2024 in Delhi, India, the Alliance held a “walkshop” with support from Uber, as part of the Safety 2024 pre-conference program. The session incorporated a community consultation, similar to the community consultations conducted by Alliance member NGOs in five countries, where motorcycle riders were asked about their helmet and why they chose it.

Santosh (not his real name) spent a little more than the average to make sure it was a good one. It has served him well, including in a crash. Experts at the session checked his helmet. It was good quality but its age and that it had been in a crash meant it was time for a new one. He was gifted a new, safe, standard helmet in the session.

Similarly, Shailesh (not his real name) uses his motorcycle for commuting every day and knows that a safe helmet will protect him. Like Santosh, he spent a little more on his helmet to make sure it was safer. Santosh’s wife, Pooja (not her real name), however, only rides occasionally with her husband. As a result, the couple had bought her a cheaper helmet, but still expecting that it would protect her in a crash. Experts at the session checked Pooja’s helmet and confirmed it was a non-standard helmet. She was gifted a new, safe, standard helmet in the session.

Workshop participants also had the chance to touch and feel real helmets from India, Rwanda and Vietnam, learning that non-standard helmets can be difficult to distinguish from safe, standard ones. Participants also shared their ideas and experiences from their countries to inform advocacy messages in the white paper.

Motorcycle and helmet safety

This was one of the workshops held during the First Regional Meeting for Latin America of the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety was held 5–7 November 2024 in Mexico. This involved a panel discussion on the challenges faced by motorcycle users and lessons learned from Latin America. Key discussion points included the following:

• The increasing use of motorcycles as both a means of transport due to the lack of reliable public transport alternatives and a source of income presents significant opportunities for saving lives through mandatory use of certified helmets and ensuring  retailers only sell certified helmets.
• The responsibility cannot rest solely on the motorcyclist; authorities must ensure access to only certified helmets through customs controls and regulations on manufacturers, sellers, and importers.
• In the region helmets are neither affordable nor certified, and there are no certified helmets available for children
• Collaboration among industry, government, and civil society is key to reducing fatalities and helmet coalitions can be helpful to bring together decision-makers to regulate the helmet market.
• To reduce reliance on motorcycles, it is essential to invest in and improve public and school transportation alternatives in the region.

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^[1] World Health Organization. (2023). Global Status Report on Road Safety 2023. Geneva. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

^[2] Ackaah, W, et al. (2013). The use of non-standard motorcycle helmets in low- and middle-income countries: A multicentre study. Injury Prevention, 19(3), 158–163. https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2012-040348.

^[3] Singh, P., Li, Q., & Bachani, A. (2024). 436 The determinants of non-standard motorcycle helmet use: A multi-country ecological study. Injury Prevention, 30, A90–A91.

^[4] Sukumar, G. M. (2022). Data-driven advocacy to strengthen implementation of standard helmet use in Bengaluru, India. Injury Prevention, 28(A54-A55).

^[5]“Special investigation: Lookalike fake helmets have never been more dangerous”: Motor Cycle News (motorcyclenews.com).

“CPSC: Xinerter and SQM brand helmets fail to meet federal safety standards”: | Bicycle Retailer and Industry News (bicycleretailer.com).

“Real vs Fake Motorcycle Helmets” | Spotting a Fake:  | Devitt (devittinsurance.com).

“Call for action on ‘’shocking’’ trade in fake crash helmets – ITV News Investigation”: |  ITV News (itv.com/news)

^[6] Ackaah, W, et al. (2013). The use of non-standard motorcycle helmets in low- and middle-income countries: A multicentre study. Injury Prevention, 19(3), 158–163. https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2012-040348.

^[7] Akl, Z., Akl, M., Eriksson, C., Gifford, M., & Koustuv, D. (2018). Evaluating helmet use among motorcycle drivers in Lebanon. The Open Public Health Journal, 11, 393–400. https://doi.org/10.2174/1874944501811010393

^[8] Adjei, B.N., Nakua, E.K., Donkor, P. et al. Determinants of motorcycle helmet availability and cost in retail outlets: outcomes of a market survey in northern Ghana. BMC Public Health 23, 771 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15695-8

^[9] Cuong, P. V., Ngan, T. T., Cotter, D., Craft, G., My, H., Huynh, Z., Linh, N. Q., Sidik, M., Trang, T. T. N., Won, B., Le, N. H., & Minh, V. N. (2020). An Investigation of Motorcycle Helmet Quality , Use , and Influencing Factors in Viet Nam.; Mohammadi, E., Azadnajafabad, S., Keykhaei, M., Shakiba, A., Ebrahimi Meimand, S., Hosseini Shabanan, S., Mahdavi Sharif, P., Asgardoon, M. H., Shafieian, M., Ghodsi, Z., Heydari, S. T., Atlasi, R., Ansari-Moghaddam, A., Sharif-Alhoseini, M., O’Reilly, G. M., & Rahimi-Movagh; Bachani, A. M., Hung, Y. W., Mogere, S., Akunga, D., Nyamari, J., & Hyder, A. A. (2017). Helmet wearing in Kenya: prevalence, knowledge, attitude, practice and implications.; Moseti, L., Oduor, V., Juma, L., Kerubo, H., Waweru, S., Muasya, T., Achila, W., Sagwe, G., Muli, J., Musau, R., Karuga, M., Mwende, F., Mutuku, K., & Mwangi, S. (2024). A Fare Price: an Investigation Into the Health Costs of Motorcycle Taxi Crashes in Kenya.