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Your first point is a strange one. Are you saying that cycling is not dangerous enough to warrant wearing a helmet? If so, then the other points are moot, and you could have simplified your argument to just "there's no need to wear a helmet".

If on the other hand, you believe that cycling is dangerous enough to wear a helmet, then you're effectively saying that people shouldn't wear them in order to 'lure' other potential cyclists into cycling. That's just ludicrous!



Its sort of a mixed bag:

So if they can help reduce injury, shouldn’t they be mandatory, just like motorbike helmets? Australia tried it in the early 90s and the result was a 15 to 20 per cent drop in the number of hospital admissions for head injuries. That would have been great, but it also reduced the number of cyclists by around 35 per cent.

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A recent study in the British Medical Journal showed that cycling has a positive health impact around 77 times larger than the potential for serious injury; essentially, there’s a small chance that you’ll come a cropper, but a very large chance that you’ll reduce your likelihood of suffering mental illness, heart disease and obesity. That means the laws were hugely counterproductive

[Personally, I wear a helmet, though.]


actually, it has been shown in the Netherlands that wearing the helmet is yes safer, but laws requiring helmets discourages some people from riding out of a variety of reasons. In aggregate, the GP is stating that looking at the cycling system in light of greater participation is a more effective/better solution than requiring helmets.

http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/Irresistible.pdf




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