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Since helmets don’t reduce the death rate of users, it might be better to focus on things proven to work e.g. encouraging safe use of the vehicles. It has been shown that people provided with ‘safety equipment’ take more chances and have more collisions. It’s better to prevent the collision than to ameliorate the effects, so publicity campaigns emphasising the risks and training are likely to be more effective than helmets.
There is a vast amount of research on helmets, some better than others, and I’d recommend cyclehelmets.org to start, even if it’s no longer updated.
The case of A pillars expanding is one of the clearest cases of unintended consequences in history.
A pillars were made structural members and made massively thicker to protect car passengers in a roll over collision, so they have saved some lives, and some A pillars incorporate air bags, making them even thicker. The unintended consequence is that drivers’ vision is obstructed, some road users are masked by the thicker A pillar, especially pedestrians, motorcyclists and pedal cyclists, and drivers collide with them more, frequently seriously injuring them or killing them. It is not clear whether passenger lives saved exceed vulnerable road users killed.
The EU has rules that limit the width of A pillars because they have belatedly recognised the problem, and some manufacturers have trialled transparent pillars, but this has not reached production models.
Like many schemes to increase safety for car passengers e.g. seat belts, safety for those outside the car is reduced.
Good article here https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-10/why-did-cars-get-so-hard-to-see-out-of-blame-the-a-pillars
