As asked before:
So my actual question is: "Why do people, usually the anti-helmet crowd, but not always, tend to conflate brain injury statistics with death statistics?"
For obvious reasons I left out:
With helmet, lived, no brain injury.
With out helmet, lived, no brain injury.
Neither necessitate a mishap condition. In fact, these 2 states would be the usual cycling norm.
I am not interested in a helmet vs no helmet thread. Like the theology/orthodoxy analogy above, it was properly noted there is little point in discussing further along those lines.
What I think may be a factor in the risk assessment is all the miles, all the hours in either condition (with or without) may lead to a selection bias towards one state or the other.
Combine that with the also true statement:
People tend to follow what ever "truth" that confirms their already held beliefs.
It's easy to discount data you don't like as being "insufficient" or "inconclusive" or whatever to marginalize it. The question & purpose of the thread is "why?"
Strictly emotion? Post-hoc rationalization? Group-think? All or none of the above?