[a1369209993]

> You'd never know it from the clickbait headline.

What headline are you seeing? At the time of this comment, the clickbait headline is:

> > Mandatory helmet laws make cyclists less safe

Which is clearly relevant for:

> a voter or a politician trying to decide whether mandatory helmet laws will help to make your city a safe place for cyclists.

and not clearly relevant for individual people making individual decisions, whether about biking at all, or about wearing a helmet when they do. (It's obviously possible (even likely) that relevant information might show up, but the clickbait headline isn't actually claiming that.)

[pdonis]

It's easy to interpret the headline as telling you what the article is actually saying...if you already know what the article is actually saying.

But my initial reaction on reading the headline was: "Huh? They're saying wearing a helmet makes you less safe? That doesn't make sense! A helmet protects your head." I suspect I'm not alone (at least one other poster in this discussion has called the headline "deliberately deceptive clickbait", which is an even stronger claim than just "clickbait").

[JAlexoid]

What would be the correct article title, that wouldn't be like a paper abstract?

[pdonis]

How about "Public policy on helmet laws has unintended consequences"?