[jules]

Do you wear a helmet when you walk? When you're in a car?

I ride a bike every day and I have never hit a car. Heck, I've never seen a biker hit a car, even though I see a hundred bikers or so each day. Nobody wears helmets in the Netherlands. If you see somebody with a helmet you can be sure that it's a foreigner, somebody under the age of four, or somebody on a racing bike.

Now suppose you do get hit and lets even suppose that you get hit on the head. What's the probability that you get hit on the helmet? Small: only the top of your head is protected. For racing bikers it can help. Due to the way you sit on those bikes it's much more likely you'll land on the top of your head.

It makes more sense to wear gloves than to wear a helmet. Nine out of ten times your hands will get injured. And in my experience you do think about how you fall in the split second you're in the air. When you're not wearing gloves you'll be less inclined to grind your hands over the asphalt.