[reinout]

The benefit? You're not sending out the message that biking is dangerous. Would you send your kid out cycling if everyone is wearing helmets? When cyclists are called "road warriors"?

A helmet is necessary when road racing where there is a distinct risk of dropping over your handlebar: remember, a helmet only protects against hits directly on the top of your head.

Normal commuting? In the city? Biggest risk is getting hit in your soft side by a car or tipping over and hitting the road with your legs or hand or so. Where does the helmet help there?

Best protection: more cyclists on the road. Nobody in the Netherlands wears a helmet (apart from road racers) and you don't get 2000 killed cyclists per day :-)

[snowwrestler]

Not sure where you get your info, but it is flat out wrong. It's not at all uncommon for bicycle commuters to hit an opening door or pulling out car, go over the handlebars, and smack their head on a very hard window or body panel--right where a helmet would protect them.

Ask any ER physician in a city (I know several) about head injuries from bike commuting and they will no doubt have stories.

As for sending the message that biking is dangerous: biking is dangerous. The correct message for kids to learn is that most things in life worth doing are dangerous, and the key to a successful life is learning to properly manage risk. Wearing a helmet is part of properly managing the risk of riding a bike.

[reinout]

Depend on the country, or more likely on the amount of cyclists. In the Netherlands, they consider the 1000kg steel cars to be the real dangerous threat, not the cyclists. It may sound like a play of words, but it isn't. Everyone cycles, so when you hit a junior cylist, you've pretty much potentially hit everyone's kid. People have been known to get a veritable witch hunt on their asses by local newspapers that way.

The car driver gets the blame, not the cyclist that forgot to wear a helmet.

So the key to safe biking is lots of bikes. Sadly, dressing up like for an execution ("I will get hit by a car door and the car owner can just say sorry and move on so I'll wear body armor") won't get society nowhere.

Note that it might very well be an individual's best choice in some countries, probably also in yours... But it is a sad best choice.

[snowwrestler]

It's not about blame, it's about preventable injury. It's about reducing the chance you'll get a call from the hospital saying "your kid has had a bike accident and she is in a coma." I've had friends who work in ERs have to make those calls. In many cases if the kid had been wearing a helmet they would have had a mild concussion. Instead their life as they knew it is over.

If you don't want to wear a helmet, that is of course your decision. I just object--strongly--to your contention that helmets aren't necessary in commuting. That statement is just not based on any measurable facts.

[maxerickson]

A modern helmet protects more than 'directly on the top of your head', it absorbs energy any time it hits the ground before your skull.