I ride my bike with a very obvious helmet cam and I have observed that some drivers seem to drive safer around me
This is a great safety hack.
You have given me an idea for a research paper (which I will never do). You get two types of helmet cams, one that looks like a helmet cam, and one that doesn't. But if someone else puts the helmet cam on you, you can't tell which it is although anyone looking at you could. You then randomly assign which bicyclists wear which type of helmet cam and test how the type of cam effects nearby drivers.
A key question might be: How hard is it to convince a company who already manufactures helmets with visible cams to run such a study?
A 2006 study showed that “280,000 people in the U.S. receive a motor vehicle induced traumatic brain injury every year” so you would think that wearing a helmet while driving would be commonplace. Race car drivers wear helmets. But since almost no one wears a helmet while driving a regular car, you probably fear that if you wore one you would look silly, attract the notice of the police for driving while weird, or the attention of another driver who took your safety attire as a challenge. (Car drivers are more likely to hit bicyclists who wear helmets.)
The $30+shipping Crasche hat is designed for people who should wear a helmet but don’t. It looks like a ski cap, but contains concealed lightweight protective material. People who have signed up for cryonics, such as myself, would get an especially high expected benefit from using a driving helmet because we very much want our brains to “survive” even a “fatal” crash. I have been using a Crasche hat for about a week.