Here are a few examples from cyclehelmets.org:


Bicycle helmets and public health in Australia
Curnow WJ. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 2008 Apr;19(1):10-15
After helmet legislation was introduced, rates of cycling declined sharply with loss of benefits for health, but the risk of casualty increased. Compulsion to wear a bicycle helmet is detrimental to public health in Australia.

Making Vision Zero real: Preventing pedestrian accidents and making them less severe
Erke A, Elvik R. TOI, Norwegian Centre for Transport Research report 889, 2007
There is evidence of increased accident risk per cycling-km for cyclists wearing a helmet. Meta analyses of helmet benefit are very likely affected by publication bias and methodological flaws. Increasing the amount of cycling would decrease accident risk.

Serious injury due to land transport accidents, Australia, 2003-04
Berry JG, Harrison JE. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Inj Res & Stat Series No.38, 2007
Helmeted cyclists have about the same percentage of head injuries (27.4%) as unhelmeted car occupants and pedestrians (28.5%). Wearing a helmet seems to have no discernible impact on the risk of head injury.


Bicycle helmet legislation for the uptake of helmet use and prevention of head injuries (Cochrane Review)
Macpherson A, Spinks A. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2007 issue 2 Art. No. CD005401.
Unable to show that reductions in head injuries after helmet laws were result of helmets rather than decline in cycling.

Bicycle helmet legislation: Can we reach a consensus?
Robinson DL. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2007;39(1):86-93.
Suggestions for data and methodology to resolve conflict between case-control studies and trends.

Bicycle helmets and brain injury
Curnow WJ. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2007 May;39(3):433-6.
Further response on the inadequacy of the Cochrane Review to provide evidence that helmets protect against brain injury.

Trends in helmet use and head injuries in San Diego County: The effect of bicycle helmet legislation
Ming J, Gilchick RA, Bender SJ. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2006;38(1):128–134
No significant reduction in serious head injury over study period. Serious head injuries rose as helmet use grew fastest. Although one of the most popular areas for cycling in the USA, the incidence of serious head injury was low.

Cycling and children and young people: a review
Gill T. National Children's Bureau, 2005. ISBN 1-904787-62-2
"Those ... who cycle should be under no illusion that helmets offer reliable protection in crash situations where our lives may be in danger. Neither should we believe that widespread adoption of helmet wearing would see many fewer cyclists killed or permanently disabled. The evidence so far suggests otherwise."

Extent and severity of cycle accident casualties
Scottish Executive Social Research, 2005.
Fewer head and face injuries with helmets, but no effect on injuries serious enough to require hospital admission or other ongoing treatment.

Cycle helmets and road casualties in the UK
Hewson PJ. Traffic Injury Prevention, 2005;6(2):127-134
There is no evidence that cycle helmets reduce the overall cyclist injury burden at the population level in the UK when data on road casualties is examined.

Investigating population level trends in head injuries amongst child cyclists in the UK
Hewson PJ. Accident Analysis & Prevention. 2005;37(5):807-815.
Head injuries are declining for child cyclists and pedestrians, but this is not related to helmet wearing data.

Heads up - the science of helmets
Walker B. Cycle, June/July 2005.
Helmets offer only limited protection in simple low-speed falls with no other vehicle involved. Helmet standards have declined greatly in recent years yet most helmets do not meet the standards to which they are accredited. The courts remain to be convinced that helmets can be relied upon to provide useful protection in most crashes.

A rational approach to pedal cyclist head protection
Depreitere B. Catholic University of Leuven. 2004.
Bicycle helmets could not offer sufficient protection to the temporal area against lateral blows. There was no unequivocal beneficial effect of the helmets on the rotational acceleration of the head and on the vibration of the skull base.

Specific patterns of bicycle accident injuries - an analysis of correlation between level of head trauma and trauma mechanism
Möllman FT, Rieger B, Wassmann H. DGNC Köln, 2004.
No significant difference concerning the level of head-trauma due to bicycle accident between cyclists wearing a helmet and others.

Head Injuries and Helmet Laws in Australia and New Zealand
Robinson DL. 2004
An assessment of the helmet laws.
There is little benefit to either cyclists or the community from passing laws forcing cyclists to wear helmets. Rather than encouraging cyclists to wear helmets, the laws appear to have discouraged cycling, resulting in reduced health and fitness, but very little change in the head injury rate. Indeed, risks per cyclist seem to have increased, compared to what would have been expected without the law

The efficacy of bicycle helmets against brain injury
Curnow WJ. Accident Analysis & Prevention. 2003,35:287-292
The meta-analysis of case-control studies does not provide scientific evidence that such helmets reduce serious injury to the brain as it does not distinguish injuries caused through fracture of the skull and by angular acceleration.

Hats off (or not?) to helmet legislation
Chipman ML. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2002;166(5): 602 Although the proportion of cyclists wearing helmets increased in Nova Scotia following helmet legislation and the number of head injuries fell, the main effect of the law was a large decrease in the number of people cycling.

Changes in head injury with the New Zealand bicycle helmet law
Robinson DL. Accident Analysis & Prevention: 2001 Sep;33(5):687-91
The large increase in helmet wearing as a result of the NZ helmet law has not led to any obvious change in head injuries over and above existing trends.

Cycling: your health, the public’s health and the planet’s health
Bloomfield A. Making Cycling Viable Symposium, New Zealand, July 2000.
Opinion from neurosurgeon that helmets had made some head injuries worse. Need to reconsider issue as legislation has not delivered benefits predicted.

Trends in cycle injury in New Zealand under voluntary helmet use
Scuffham PA, Langley JD. Accident Analysis & Prevention: 1997;29(1):1-9
In the 12 months prior to the introduction of a helmet law, helmet wearing in New Zealand rose to 84% for primary school children, 62% for secondary school children and 39% for adults. However, there was no evidence that increased helmet use had resulted in fewer serious head injuries.

Cycle helmets: the case for and against
Hillman M. Policy Studies Institute, 1993. ISBN 0-85374-602-8.
At best, helmets only marginally reduce a cyclist's chance of being fatally or serious injured. The balance of evidence does not suggest that a helmet law would reduce the level of head injuries. Similarly, encouraging voluntary helmet use is unlikely to reduce the risk of head injury. The primary means of reducing serious head injury is to create an environment in which crashes are less likely to occur.

Do cycle helmets prevent serious head injury?
McCarthy M, Illingworth C. 1992. BMJ: 1992 v305 p881-3
Cycling is safe, green and healthy. The main study supporting cycle helmet use is useless as policy guidance as it compared quite different groups of cyclists. Cycle helmets do not improve safety and place responsibility for injury protection on the victim.

Reducing bicycle accidents: a re-evaluation of the impacts of the CPSC bicycle standard and helmet use
Rodgers GB. Journal of Products Liability: 1988 ,11:307-317
The largest ever cycling casualty study involving over 8 million cases of injury and death to cyclists in the USA over 15 years. It concluded that there was no evidence that hard shell helmets had reduced the head injury and fatality rates. Moreover, there was a significant positive correlation between fatalities and helmet use (i.e. helmeted riders were more likely to be killed).