I'm honestly not looking for a fight. I originally posted a link the the debate on Wikipaedia. And whilst I accept that isn't a literature search, it sites many of the research papers and the points for and against. I was looking for a discussion of the pros and cons. I think if you take a look through some of the responses you will see that some of them are indeed sarcastic and patronising. I raised the point about horses because there the issue is also about the risk of head injury and hard hats.

Thank you to those of you who, although taking issue with the idea of not wearing helmets, offered a reasoned response not characterised by sarcasm.