Question:
What I'm saying is what Forester has printed in his book "Effective Cycling" -- that the most experienced riders have the fewest and the least serious accidents. This means that most accidents could be prevented through education of the bicyclist alone. If you added some education on bicyclists rights to drivers education you'd make a major change in auto/bike interactions as well. Education has been shown in at least one study to prevent as much as 36% OF ALL ACCIDENTS. Helmets as have been noted above, have been shown to prevent injury in essentially none. What is your choice if the government is going to get involved?

Answer: Let me say that I am not a proponent of helmet laws, that wasn't my point. my point was to argue your (still) arbitrary statement that helmets dont' help at all. Your statements below support than they don't help fatalities, and they do help minor injuries - but you have failed to address the thousands of brain injuries in between. In addition, your lack of presentation of a formal study also makes all of your statements, statistics merely opinion, and its obvious your opinion doesnt' agree with mine. Subdural haematoma is a severe injury. It is rare. It occurs in only about 25% of fatal head injuries caused by collisions with speeding vehicles and very few of the lesser accidents. To suggest that people who fall down and whack their heads would commonly have such an injury or even commonly enough to even mention it is a stretch. Casseres and Richard Kaufman have been trying to pass off bicycling as a dangerous avocation for years.