Originally Posted by
hagen2456
The perhaps most interesting about the available statistics about bike helmets is that the newer they are, the less advantage there seems to be in wearing a helmet. It also seems that with refined methods, it's possible to tell that, yes, some groups do benefit from wearing a helmet, namely children and elderly. Not the 85% found by the much-quoted paper, but still a slight benefit.
I'm not sure if there will ever be enough data to tell. The events are rare and data about them is poorly collected. It's this basic thing that makes being overly certain about what studies support (one way or the other) suspect.