This is a really good topic/discussion..i can see tintin40's point of view bascially being told what do to..he has a choice and his choice is not to wear a helmet.
In December last year get knocked of my bike by a bus. This resulted in me "kissing" the tarmac and i can remember my head bouncing twice onthe tarmac whilst looking at the rear of the offending bus coming to a stop
I have a family and if i had not had a helmet on who knows what damage could have been done. Bleed on the brain or some sort of brain damage.
If i had had brain damage lets say worse case senario..that then would have put major emotional and financial pressure on my family. I might have been bed ridden/feeding through a tube. I could never work again, cant pay the bills cant pay the mortgage..the extra work involved looking after me...its all part of the bigger picture.
I am not saying the helmet is a life saver, but its better than nothing at all.
Back in 2000 i worked in a community office. Part of my duties was school visits talking to the children about road safety.
One of the helmet manufacturers gave us small polystyrene type helmets in the shape of an egg. You would put an egg in this pretend helmet drop it from a height and then shell would not break. I have no doubt it was a marketing ploy but the idea behind it was for health and saftey. The children got the idea of what the helmet was for.
To show them what kind of damage could be done in a simple demonstration I then bought in a jelly and blamange and placed it in a "quality street tin".I went on to explain to the that your brain is protrected by head/skull and a likness to an egg shell and yoke .I then made the same reference to the tin and blamange. I dropped this from the same height. This of course made a right noise and when i showed the children the mess in the tin..In simple terms they understood.
People have options/choices..their actions and choices may have an effect which will change "others" lives for ever.
Ernie
