Originally Posted by chasm54

You'll have difficulty getting a discussion going on this without it simply degenerating into namecalling. I am, apparently, a jackass, airhead, ****-for-brains know-nothing with no common sense for suggesting that people read the evidence about helmet use before deciding whether they are in fact essential - and, for that matter, before deciding whether cycling is in fact as dangerous a pastime as some of them seem to believe. It isn't, by the way.

As to bicycle helmet design, you are correct. In order to make helmets both as light and as profitable as possible, most manufacturers turn out products that meet only the minimum statutory standards, which are pitifully low. And there is little or no useful correlation between the price of helmets and their usefulness in a crash. And neck injuries are not the biggest potential problem btw - it is rotation of the brain inside the skull, which may actually be exacerbated by wearing helmets as currently designed, that is the big issue if one is unlucky enough to have one's head connect with the ground or whatever....

I'm sure it would be possible to make a helmet that was both tolerable to wear and provided meaningful protection. But I'll bet it would be pricey. And the sort of cycling most people do is so low-risk as to not require any helmet at all.