>>1919105Wearing a helmet signals to drivers, both as individuals and as a political interest, that riding a bicycle is a thrill-seeker activity for adrenaline junkies who want to intrude on someone else's property (the road) exchanging their personal safety in exchange for thrills.
It encourages them to pass more closely and take more risks with your safety. It enables them to excuse themselves of responsibility when they run you down and kill you. "Not even the helmet could save him! Just goes to show you they belong on the sidewalk! They shoulda been in the bike lane!!!" There are studies that show this.
It encourages them to see you as a non-human "thing" rather than as a fellow human being deserving of the same care that a "real person" would (or should) be granted. There are studies that prove this.
it encourages them to think cyclist safety is someone else's problem (not theirs). Like a shop keeper who leaves a pool of oil on the floor with a sign, "careful, slippery!" instead of cleaning the floor.
Helmet culture is a tragedy of the commons situation. As an individual, you may (though this is questionable) be protecting yourself very very slightly, by having a piece of gear that mitigates the damage in the event that you have a very, very specific kind of crash. That assumes that it doesn't encourage you to take greater risks, or a driver to take greater risks, which, as was mentioned before, will probably happen, thus canceling the negligible benefit.
But as a group, that is, people who have an interest in being able to safely use roads on a bicycle, helmets are just about the worst thing possible for safety. By allowing the agenda to be a very particular aspect of cyclist behavior, not general cyclist behavior let alone driver behavior, enforcement, etc, you allow your very limited political capital to be expended arguing about something of questionable (and if real, trivial) benefit.
