[photojosh]

> "Cyclists without helmets triple their chance of death by head injury"

Nope. The correct interpretation is 'cyclists without helmets who get into a serious crash triple their chance of death by head injury'. The study doesn't look at cyclists who don't crash. This is important, because you can't assume that all cyclists have an equally likely chance of having a serious crash. I'm going to be riding with a helmet on regardless of the law, but by making helmets mandatory, you kill off so much transport and utility cycling which was at low risk levels.

> The study also cites Victoria, Australia, as an example of successful legislation. Helmet use in the city increased from 31 per cent to 75 per cent after the introduction of mandatory helmet legislation, and cycling fatalities decreased by 48 per cent.

Yes, but a major reason for those reductions are because people stopped cycling after the introduction of those laws. See http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1194.html - "In 1985-6, 3.4 per cent of trips in Melbourne were by bicycle. In 2004 this was only 2.0 per cent, suggesting that cycling was still much reduced compared with before the helmet law". Trauma surgeons are happy, public health experts are not.