>>1034053>memeThere is considerable debate on that subject. Most helmet research suffers from a now well known flaw; helmet users are a distinct group of cyclists that can't be directly compared to the non-helmet group of cyclists. Doing so shows a great helmet effectiveness - even against non-head trauma such as broken legs and arms.This is of course improbable.
Statistically correcting for helmet users tendency to suffer more lenient injuries over-all gives number that indicate that they are completely useless or even harmful. This is also improbable, with the exception for an exacerbation of rotary neck injuries found in some studies that at least seem plausible.
The overall is that we just don't know how effective they are in the real world. We have a good idea that they at least lessen some low to moderate force-injuries under lab conditions, but these lab conditions do not seem to occur in the real world with a high enough frequency that they show a clear benefit. Which leads us to:
Bicycling is a very safe activity. Particularly from a head injury perspective. Per unit of distance travelled it is on par with walking, and per trip it's on par with driving. You're free to wear a helmet during either of those activities, but most people chose not do.
Shaming people to wear helmets, while cycling, falsely paints the activity as more dangerous than it really is, which has negative effects on cycling numbers and health that far, far outweigh any benefit that even total helmet use could stand to give.
So yes. Helmets probably work. For a very small subset of already very rare injuries. There is a very high cost to pay for very a marginal safety gain.
