Why tri bars should be unsafe? You have control of the steering, control of the brakes and your back is flat which increases comfort. Aerodynamically speaking your cross section is quite smaller.
Cycling has some dumb rules (e.g. sock length), but banning aerobars in mass start races is not among them.
There is a good answer to this question here:
https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/10231/why-dont-...