MY CYCLE HELMET is metallic blue, resembles some sort of space-age colander, and is, like nearly all cycle helmets, guaranteed to make its wearer look (to borrow one of the great Ken Dodd’s favourite phrases) “a proper twozzer”. I had no idea, however, that it was a death trap.

I do now, though, thanks to Ian Walker, from the University of Bath, a “traffic psychologist” (job title of the week), who has devoted himself to cycling around, both helmeted and unhelmeted, in the name of science.

A sensor attached to his bike measured the distance of passing traffic. When he was bareheaded, cars gave him, on average, an extra 3.3in to play with — presuming, Dr Walker concluded, from the lack of proper kit a general amateurism that might lead to wobbling, abrupt turns without hand signals, unannounced wheelies or other random and inconsiderate behaviour.

By contrast, motorists were twice as likely to pass “very close” to a helmeted cyclist, drawing some faith in his riderly competence from the mere presence of the helmet. Twice, in fact, they passed so close to the helmeted cyclist that was Dr Walker that they hit him. One of the motorists was in a truck and the other was in a bus. That’s commitment to the frontiers of knowledge for you.

Dr Walker also cycled about with a long black wig on, to see if drivers made greater allowance for a woman. He discovered that they did. Of course, they might just have been giving a wide berth to a man in a woman’s wig. Even so, one takes the point.

And the point is one with huge implications for the entire rationale behind helmet wearing. It had never occurred to me that it might matter to drivers what a cyclist wore. Indeed, I had always assumed the central issue for cyclists was being seen by drivers at all, and that, to this end, strapping a day-glo tortoise shell to your head could only be an unequivocally good idea, quite apart from the capacity of that tortoise shell to spare you in any unfortunate head-to-tarmac coincidences.

But no. It appears that the helmet is tantamount to a possibly false declaration of its owner’s cycling proficiency, that it might as well have a target painted on it, and that we would all do better to go around in a wig. It could hardly be less dignified than the helmet, I suppose. It would lack the additional safety benefits, though. Unless it was a really big wig.

All in all, this is turning into an uncommonly bothersome week for cyclists. Even as Dr Walker was publishing his alarming findings regarding the perilous nature of safety hats, Stephen Ladyman, the Transport Minister, suggested pushing ahead with legislation that would make a bell necessary on a bicycle. Ladyman is said to be thinking solely of the interests of the pedestrian here, though surely the truth is that a colleague has bet him he can’t be the first man to convert an ancient knock-knock joke into government policy. (Who’s there? Isabelle, etc.)

But then, for cyclists, bothersome is the rule rather than the exception. It doesn’t matter who is out there — scientists or ministers on a dare: the cyclist’s world is permanently political by default. Like many people who have access to both a bike and a car, I find that I am indignantly pro-cyclist when I cycle and profanely, horn-honkingly anti-cyclist when I drive. And when I walk, I’m against cyclists and drivers. If these cross-purposed factions cannot reliably be reconciled within the same person, what hope is there for reconciling them in society at large?

Of course, the dangers of road sharing, at least between bikes and motors, could be eliminated at a stroke, if all cyclists were legally obliged to wear a car. But that’s not an argument you should attempt to mount anywhere near a cyclist, bell-carrying, wig-using or otherwise.

• THE DISCOVERY of a link between weightlifting and eye disease — the effort, often described as eye-popping, triggers a surge in eyeball pressure, apparently, which can predispose the frequent lifter to glaucoma — though inevitably disquieting, does have its consolations. I always knew, deep down, that my antipathy to lifting things — weights, yes, but, equally significantly, items of furniture, such as wardrobes or chairs, and boxes containing china and groceries — had, at its core, not merely indolence but an intuitive fear of important long-term consequences. And I was right.

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