This is fairly typical stuff from those who are advocates for helmets. Essentially, it amounts to this- you don't care what the evidence says, you are going to base your behaviour on your perception that you may be at risk, and your belief that a helmet will reduce that risk.

The trouble with this is that it overstates both the risks involved in cycling and the protection that a helmet affords. In the UK, where I live, the figures collected by the Department of Transport show that cyclists are no more likely to sustain severe injuries than pedestrians per mile travelled. That doesn't mean that walking is dangerous, it isn't: what it means is that both cycling and walking are very safe. Nobody that I know of accuses anyone of being stupid, or hopes they are an organ donor, because they don't don a helmet while crossing the street.

There is one cycling death here per two million miles cycled. Figures for the US are comparable. And those deaths include the incompetent kids, the drunks, those who ride at night without lights, those who don't know any better than to be on the inside of large vehicles at intersections. My own chances are much better than that, I have roughly a lottery-winners chance of being killed on my bike. Non-competitive cycling is remarkably safe.

However, it is true that the chance is greater than zero, and if I am killed or brain-damaged while riding, overwhelmingly the likeliest cause will be a collision with a motor vehicle. This is where overstating the protective effects of helmets comes in. Helmets are not specced to provide meaningful protection in such accidents, the forces involved simply overwhelm them. Helmets are tested to protect against a straightforward fall onto your head from seven feet at zero speed. Seriously, that is the standard they have to meet, you can look it up. Even their manufacturers will tell you that they are not made to protect against the sort of accident that is most likely to scramble your brains.

So, I am very unlikely to be involved in a seriously dangerous collision, and if I am, it is very unlikely that a helmet will help. And this conclusion is borne out by the data, which shows that increasing use of helmets has NOT correlated with a reduction in the already small numbers of serious injuries to cyclists.

Wear a helmet by all means, if you want to. It may protect you from superficial injuries in low-speed crashes. But please don't imagine that it will save your life or your senses, that is very very unlikely.