Junction design in the Netherlands [video]

The obsession with helmets in many countries is born of an idea that violence on the roads is inevitable. It's a bit like responding to knife or gun crime by saying everyone should wear kevlar vests, problem solved! Rather than insisting that knives and guns are not used in public spaces.

Some people have real problems grasping this. Cars are seen as inherently dangerous, pedestrians and everyone else should (ideally) stay off the roads, and nobody should challenge our "right" to drive where and when we like. But driving is still a choice, albeit coerced since there are so few alternatives, and that choice has profound implications for others. Why should I wear protective clothing because you choose to drive a vehicle which puts me in danger? In the Netherlands, to respond to your point, they have largely eliminated motoring-related danger for cyclists.

If anyone is interested in the development of Dutch cycling infrastructure, this is an excellent video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o (How the Dutch got their cycle paths, 6m 29s)

David Hembrow has an informative blog about all things cycling in Holland:

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/

I disagree. I think that forcing people to wear helmets would result in less people cycling, defeating the purpose. Being able to hop on and hop of your bike while not carrying a helmet around is great. I don't think anyone would want helmets introduced. If you are doing high speed cycling on a racing bike then you need a helmet, but if you are going to the shops to get milk on a city bike with no gears I don't think it adds anything.

Of course safety is important. Not having lights on your bike in winter is very dangerous (drivers can't see you in their mirrors) and the police do frequent random stops and issue fines.

Anecdotally a friend of mine was in a very bad cycling accident (hit by a bus). She had no helmet and it wouldn't have helped. After months of rehab for her broken leg she is cycling again without a helmet. Of course she could have fallen differently and a helmet would have helped, but most of the damage was caused by the collision and not the fall.

Do you wear a helmet when you walk somewhere? If not, why not?

If you've decided that the risk of head injury when you walk somewhere is so little that you'll take the risk and not wear the helmet, you've made the exact same decision as the cyclists. In the Netherlands, because they have a sensible traffic system, the risk has been reduced so far that many, many people make that same decision that you do when you walk without wearing a helmet.

There are good reasons for not making helmets required. See e.g. this overview: Bicycle helmets and the law, http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3817.full

No, I don't wear a helmet when walking, but I do when cycling. That is because my speed is much higher when cycling, and because it is easier to fall.

And I've experienced that a cycling helmet is good to wear. There was this child that appeared from a bush to the bike path. I hit the brakes and went over the bar. A slight bumb in the head but no injury there; broke a radix bone though.