Few of us on the 'anti helmet' side of this discussion are genuinely anti-helmet. The point we are trying to make is that what seems obvious on the surface - that cycling safety helmets prevent head injuries - is a very much more complex issue than it first appears.
We would all agree I think, that the wearing of PPE is a personal choice arrived at through an individual's own personal risk assessments. No one is trying to tell anyone else not to wear a helmet.
But we reserve the right to question someone's information, their logic and their motives, when they start to promote the wearing of bicycle safety helmets. Decisions about the wearing of helmets should be made from an informed position - but it seems that many people base such decisions on emotion, on ungrounded fear and on misinformation.
The 'facts' are hard to pin down, but the fact is that simply there is no concrete evidence that bicycle helmets reduce head injuries. It's counter inituitive - safety helmets aid safety surely? Well, if it's so obvious where is the proof?
A truly informed decision about whether or not to wear a helmet must take into account many parameters: risk compensation, variables in helmet standards and testing, the influence of vested interests etc. And, for me at least, what the wearing of a helmet conveys to others.
And the reason we get so het up about it? The vague but ever present threat of compulsion. Those of us who love cycling and want to see it accepted by the general population as a safe, fun, healthful, life-affirming activity and a valid, environmentally benign mode of transport know what compulsion will do.
It would be the worst thing to ever happen to cycling, because it would decimate our numbers.
Which is why, if you are going to extol the virtues of helmet wearing on a public forum, you should be prepared to stand up for your beliefs.
The main reason I oppose helmets is this: Cycling is a safe activity - not cycling is more dangerous than cycling. Any danger inherent in the act of pedaling a bicycle comes not from the activity itself but from other road users. The expectation that cyclists should wear helmets to protect them from the danger posed to them by others is perverse and grossly unfair. You fire a bullet in my direction and expect me to don a vest? The danger posed by motorists isn't aimed at cyclists any more than anyone else - pedestrians and other road users are victims of it too. It's the system that's at fault. And it's the system which needs fixing. Plonking a lump of polystyrene on your head is a sticking plaster on a war wound.