A colleague sent me a link to a video the other day: tinyurl.com/invisiblehelmet. It shows a novel design for a cycle helmet that acts like a car air bag. The device stows in a thick collar and activates automatically in the event of a crash.

In the video, a crash test dummy flies straight over the handlebars in a simulated crash. The dummy lands on its head. Before landing, the collar inflates into a huge helmet shape and protects the head. It’s a great idea: all the benefits of a helmet without having to actually wear one on your head.

It is striking though that the crash dummy doesn’t move its arms to protect itself. Now, when I come off my bike, which is about once a year and almost always involves me flying over the front wheel, my arms always precede my head. I’m not saying that having arms is a substitute for a helmet, but that in over-the-handlebars incidents this is what happens. My colleague scoffed at the idea of me going over the handlebars once a year. It set me thinking – and I realised it was true.

The only serious one, where it was a good job I had a helmet on, was mountain biking in the Cotswolds. I hit a tree root on a steep downhill section and flew slowly, in an arc, headlong into a tree. I was shaken and it gave me a headache, but I was OK.

Two over-the-handlebars accidents have happened on the way home from the pub when I grabbed the front brake over-zealously: not clever. One involved ice, another misjudging the height of a kerb.

Once I was on a new a racing bike and tailgating a bus on Cowley Road. A car driver behind me honked for me to move over (quite unreasonably). I turned to remonstrate. When I looked to the front again the bus had stopped. I had perhaps 3-4 metres in which to stop. The brand new brake stopped the bike dead and over I went. The driver drove around me and carried on his way. Half a dozen drinkers in the Corridor pub ran out to pick me up. My helmeted head hit the road quite softly. I was shaken up but unharmed save a few scrapes. I was wearing fingerless mitts. I always wear gloves or mitts when cycling as in a crash, your reflex is to stretch out your arms to break the impact.

The oddest one was going fast down to the Plain end of Cowley Rd a few years back. I was rushing to get fitted for some clothes a few weeks before my wedding. A wasp got caught in a vent in my helmet. As I tried to extricate it with one hand the handlebars somehow flipped to right angles to the bike and over I went. The impact shredded the palms of my mitts and skinned the ends of a few fingers. My main concern was that the cuts and bruises would heal before the wedding (they did).

The most recent was when I was hurrying to a meeting a few months ago. I am always late for everything as I never seem to account for the time it takes to lock the back door, don gloves and helmet, unlock bike and stow lock, open gate (etc.).

I prepare to leave at the time I should be departing from outside the house, so I tend to be later in winter than in summer. It was just before the Iffley Road was closed for repairs. I was going fast and could see that nothing was coming around the Plain, so I barely slowed through the little cycle filter between the car lane and the pavement outside the pub. The car in the lane next to me, i.e. to my right in the lane for going over the Plain, turned left in front of me. Cue brake and over the handlebars I went. I landed on the car’s bonnet.

Bike and I were unscathed, though as usual gloves had saved me from grazes as I bounced from the car onto the road. The driver said he’d been indicating, but, as a left turn is banned there, I hadn’t been looking for a signal – plus drivers should be capable of looking in a mirror before turning especially when the turn is illegal.

The moral of these tales? Wear gloves or mitts.