Rain protection and ice princesses: The art of choosing a helmet

While on family vacation in Germany, it turned out that my daughter had outgrown her bicycle helmet. Since the bike tours were an integral part of our vacation planning, we decided to visit a specialist store. My main criteria was that the new helmet was safe, meaning it had to fit well and be visible from a distance. Consequently, it should be equipped with a taillight and be finished in a fluorescent color. My daughter’s criteria was: “pink and best with ice princess”. In fact, a selection that met our criteria was found relatively quickly.

So my daughter was allowed to choose a helmet, which she did quickly. I was pleasantly surprised because I had imagined a whole range of problems in advance, from “No, I don’t want that” to “we don’t have that size”. But my enthusiasm was quickly dampened.

What followed was an interesting suggestion from the seller: We should think about whether we wanted rain protection. He has some suitable models for the helmet in stock. I agreed and he presented several overcoats, all in dull, dark colors. The entire range of non-reflective and therefore dangerous colorings in traffic were included. Some overcoats even covered the taillight.

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When I asked him whether he had something bright and reflective, the answer was prompt: “No, nobody buys something like that.” I pointed out that the helmet loses one of its safety functions if it has a dark cover. He replied that the reflective color was unfortunately mandatory for children’s helmets. This is precisely why the “discreet” overcoats are very popular. “Our customers don’t want to attract attention.” I couldn’t help but spontaneously ask the not-so-friendly question: “Are your customers stupid?”