Can somebody please point me to PROOF! of an incident where a person actually died, or was more seriously injured through wearing a helmet.
Many thanks for your help in this one.
Its about as difficult to prove that a helmet caused a death as to prove that one saved a life. Modelling the forces involved is impossibly difficult to do to the level of proof. Accurately repeating an accident with and without a foam hat is likewise impossible and probably unethical.
Luckily some governments have performed nationwide experiments in putting cyclists into helmets and collecting the results of these large scale trials. Using the figures collected by these not noticeably anti helmet governments, it is not possible to show any benefit from polystyrene wearing. The only reason for any decrease in injuries in these trials is a decrease in cycling.
Case studies have claimed that helmets could save 85% of injuries. If this were so it ought to be very easy to detect the benefits of helmets in these large scale trials. That no beneficial effect can be detected shows that the small scale case studies must have serious flaws.
If, in some accidents, helmets do decrease the severity of injuries, as seems possible, or even likely, then there must be a similar number of cases in which the helmet increased the severity of injury.
You ignore the factor which many helmet deniers believe is crucial to many interventions by the road safety lobby, that is, risk homeostasis.
To further your knowledge I recommend..
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/
To be fair I should also point you at a pro helmet site, but I don't know of one anywhere near as comprehensive as this. You could try
http://www.bhit.org/. Its unimpressive. Perhaps a helmeteer can provide a better site address.