Originally Posted by Cyclosaurus

By using the word "if" to indicate it was a hypothetical argument. It seems implausible that zero people who die from hitting their head in a car crash would not die if they had a helmet. It is also implausible that 100% of people who due from hitting their head in a car crash would live if they wore a helmet. So 20% seems like a reasonable enough figure to use for argument's sake. Maybe you don't think so. But it ain't 0%, and even in single digits, it's more than total number of cyclists who die each year.

The point is that it seems strange to me that many people take helmet wearing as Obviously The Right Thing To Do on a bike but patently absurd for being in a car, when there's a pool of 13,000 people out there who might actually not die if they did have one (not to mention the tens of thousands of serious head injuries). That fact that I often wear a helmet when biking makes me wonder why I don't do it when I'm in a car, other than People Just Don't Do That Of Course.

I'm not arguing pro helmet or pro bare head. But the more I consider the issue, the more irrational all the arguments for or against it seem.