I work in the health industry, and while many (including one of our stupidest - and that's saying something - ex-governors) say wearing a helmet should be an "individual choice," it has society-wide consequences, especially for us tax payers.
Almost anyone with a severe closed head injury is going to require many years of medical attention, running into the millions of $. Even with insurance, there is frequently a cap, and for these types of injuries that cap is reached very quickly. Then what happens? The person who made the "personal choice" not to wear a helmet must apply for government sponsored health insurance: Medicaid, which will pay forever.
So it may be an "individual right" not to wear a helmet in some places, but in this case, there is a greater social good that easily triumphs such a silly "right."
A frequently heard, but profoundly silly and extremely authoritarian argument. Incidentally, I have spent most of my life in the health industry, and you are absolutely wrong.
In the first place, your argument is essentially that anyone who indulges in risk-taking behaviour that might cause them injury and impose an unnecessary burden on the health system should be stopped, so that we don't have to pay for them through our taxes. OK. But as you will know, by far the greatest portion of healthcare expenditure goes on long-term degenerative diseases - cancers, cardiovascular disease and so on. Very many of these diseases are lifestyle related. Eating too much, especially too much of the wrong things, puts one at very high risk of many of these diseases. Are we going to stop caring for anyone who has failed to protect themselves against obesity? Or anyone who has ever indulged in the undoubtedly risky activity of smoking? Maybe the children of fat people should be taken into care for their own protection so their diet can be controlled?
You'll say these are fanciful comparisons, but the only reason you could think that is if you vastly overestimate the dangers associated with cycling. A smoker is much, much more likely to die of their habit than a cyclist. Severe head injuries to cyclists are very rare - the incidence is about the same, per mile travelled, as for pedestrians. By your logic, therefore, there is a "social good" that would justify our insisting on pedestrians donning helmets before they were allowed to cross the street. And the biggest cause of severe head injury to cyclists is the same as for pedestrians - namely, being hit by a car. Even the helmet manufacturers don't pretend that cycle helmets are designed to offer protection against the extreme forces encountered in such accidents. And, in fact, the only countries in which reliable statistics are available - Australia and New Zealand - have been unable to demonstrate any reduction in the prevalence of head injuries to cyclists since they introduced mandatory helmet laws a decade ago.
So, insisting on helmets does not appear, on the basis of experience elsewhere, to make cyclists safer. head injuries to cyclists, helmeted or unhelmeted, are very rare. If you're worried about how your tax dollar is spent on healthcare, this is the least of your problems. And, of course, cyclists, being fitter than average, are in fact less likely to consume healthcare resources than the rest of the general population. All things considered, you don't have a case.