Question:
If you had read the paper you would have realised that the fall in head injuries far outstripped the increase in helmet wearing, demonstrating that the impact of helmets cannot be reliably determined using their methodology. By how much?Are you really think a flimsy bit of polystyrene (covering 1/3 of the head) would have protected child from a pick-up truck?

Answer: What we really should be doing is forcing drivers to take some responsibility for their own health so taxpaying cyclists like my don't have to subsidise all that treatment they require for diseases caused by living a sedentary car-bound lifestyle, including heart disease, diabetes, certain form of cancer and so on...

The best available figures show that regular cyclists benefit society as a whole by around Ј2,300 per year including the benefits arising from their reduced health care costs as a result of living an active lifestyle...

The BMA have calculated that the health benefits of regular cycling outweigh the possible costs arising from all injuries (not just those affecting the head) And all at least 78 of them completely fail to account for the no visible change in serious head injury rates in the wake of helmet wearing rates increasing substantially in many places.

The no visible change in head injury rates is what *has* happened across populations, which account for /all/ case/control study groups, it is not speculation.

Government level policy takes expert opinion collated by civil servants from expert medics and others, and despite having done this, including your at least 78 papers, they haven't found that cycle helmets give a substantial improvement in head injury rates. Probably something to do with populations having no change in serious head injury rates despite sharply increased helmet use demonstrating clearly and graphically that the predicted improvements from the case/control studies have been wrong.