Originally Posted by Doohickie

Okay, okay, having watched the talk... I'm just not sold. I understand the tradeoff on a population-wide basis of urging/legislating helmet use versus scaring people off bikes. On a personal level, though, I wouldn't ride without one.

One statement he made, though, intrigues me. I think he said that helmet wearers are 50% more likely to crash. I wonder whether the low-speed cycling transport crowd, which is largely helmetless, skews the data, and that a large proportion of helmet wearers engage in sport cycling, to include high speed road riding and road racing, and also MTBers pushing themselves on challenging courses. Of course they crash more; they are pushing the limits, which is why they are wearing their helmets to begin with.

One thing I've considered was that for non-sport riders, once they get past a certain learning curve, their likelihood of crashing is greatly reduced. My personal experience seems to back that; I crashed once early on after starting to ride again, and nothing since then. But then our mayor recently went down, suffering a broken collar bone and concussion that is still affecting her vision (she had to get new lenses), even with a helmet.... her first fall in 25 years of riding.

Yeah, I prefer the look of a non-helmeted rider to a helmeted one, and that's kind of a draw when a good chunk of the appeal of cycling has to do with style (yeah, admit it). If others don't want to wear a helmet, they're adults; they can make their choices. It's none of my business. But I personally value my noggin enough to protect it.