Oh FFS.
Dear Mr David K, Tigger and any and all others querying why there are interminable threads about helmets -- so many, indeed that we need an entire sub-forum to deal with them.
WE, THE MEMBERS OF THIS FORUM WHO DO NOT WEAR HELMETS, DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU DO OR DO NOT PUT ON YOUR HEAD. YOU CAN KEEP YOUR HELMET. WE WILL NOT TAKE IT AWAY FROM YOU.
WE WILL NOT TELL YOU THAT YOU SHOULD NOT WEAR ONE.
Please pay careful attention to that last part. We will not say you are stupid for choosing to don a plastic hat. We will not tell you to take it off you plonker. There are many, many things we will not do, all of which are designed to let you exercise your freedom of choice to cycle in your headgear of choice, whether that be a buff, a lid, a sedated cat or half a watermelon.
However. If you should feel the need or urge to tell us that we should wear one, that we would be better off wearing one, that we are morons for not wearing one, that our decision not to wear one results from having been dropped on the head as a baby or having already suffered brain damage through cycle-related head-injury; if you tell us that any accident resulting in persistent vegetative state when no helmet was worn will be our own damn fault; if you tell us that we owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to protect ourselves by taking any and all precautions possible because cycling is dangerous; should you inform us that only people who wear helmets should be taken seriously or that helmets are the BEST THINGS EVER ZOMGFFSSBBQ!!!eleventy!!!...
Then, oh then. Then we shall turn around and say, in rather more words than this:
prove it. And yes, it is up to you to do so. You are the ones informing us that we are wrong in our decision. All we are doing is asking you to justify that assertion.
In the rational world it is a case of disproving the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is that helmets are of little to no benefit at all. This hypothesis has not been disproven. If you decide to wear one anyway, then good for you. Yay and rah and waving of the little congratulatory flag. Do not, however, by outright statement or implication, suggest that we who decide differently are wrong, idiotic or asking for it.
Because we're not. We have simply come to a different result in our calculation of the risk:benefit ratio and, oddly enough, the population-level studies largely indicate that we're in the right ballpark. If you wish to justify your decision to wear a helmet, then we'd expect a similar level of evidence, not, as has been provided so far
because I feel I'm right and I trust my feelings more than some poncy scientist who just does sums, innit.
Sam