Volvo Cars, a leader in automotive safety, is teaming up with top Swedish sports and safety brand POC for a series of world-first crash tests of bike helmets against cars as part of a groundbreaking new research project that aims to further protect cyclists.

Accidents between bikes and vehicles can often lead to serious injury or death, which is why Volvo Cars has a clear strategy to avoid these types of accidents completely with the help of active safety technologies.

Cyclist detection with full auto brake uses the car’s cameras and radars to detect cyclists, warn the driver of an imminent collision and apply the brakes if further action is needed. It is a development of Volvo Cars’ automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection systems, in line with its safety vision.

The Volvo-POC research project consists of a number of specially designed crash tests at the famous Volvo Cars safety research facilities in Gothenburg, Sweden and is part of a wider research project to understand the types of long-term injuries sustained by cyclists.

During these tests, POC bike helmets are worn by crash dummy heads mounted on a testing rig, from where they are launched towards different areas of the hood of a static Volvo car, at different speeds and angles for various measurements.

The tests are based on existing regulatory test procedures for pedestrian head protection. This allows Volvo Cars and POC to make a direct comparison between wearing a helmet and not wearing a helmet.

Current bike helmet testing procedures are fairly rudimentary, involving helmets being dropped from different heights on either a flat or an angled surface, and do not take into account vehicle to bike accidents. The Volvo-POC project aims to further refine and advance such testing.

The learnings from the research project will help POC make its helmets safer and more protective in the event of a car-bike accident, while the tests will also provide valuable insights and learnings for Volvo Cars into these types of accidents for future development.

With over 60 international awards for safety, innovation and design, POC has built a reputation for challenging conventonial wisdom and looking at new research, science and innovation to bring forward new ways of thinking to reduce accidents.