I'm not going to come out publically and advocate AGAINST helmet use. And nobody here will either, I suspect. A helmet MAY save your life (or keep your brain from being scrambled like eggs). It also, may not - but very few of those accidents are ones you would have survived without one. I'd feel really horrible if somebody died because I told them they didn't need a lid. Plus, I'm paranoid as hell that making assertations like that will only hasten my ever-approaching comeuppance (*knock on wood*). I've bounced my head a few times sans-helmet, and damn, that ain't pleasant.

That said, I almost never wear one. And have no time for mandantory helmet laws.

What really bugs me about the helmet thing, though, is the amount of blaming-the-victim that it generates. There's nothing worse than leaving a big bloody skid mark down the road, walking into the ER with road rash from your knees to your chin, and then getting asked (in a very accusatory tone, many times over) if you were wearing a helmet? Yes, I was, thanks, and no, it didn't do a f***in' thing 'cept add to my lift coefficient, thank you. The second a cyclist gets hit without a helmet on he becomes the recipient of no end of scorn, no matter how safely he was behaving, or how irresponsible the driver was.

For too many people, especially politicians, it's just way easier to blame "irresponsible" cyclists for not wearing helmets than to question the larger questions of automobile culture and the corresponding spectacular failures in urban design.