I think this shows a difference between ways of thinking. A helmet helps to mitigate your injuries during a serious accident, but tacitly accepts that such ser

I think this shows a difference between ways of thinking. A helmet helps to mitigate your injuries during a serious accident, but tacitly accepts that such serious accidents still happen. The Dutch government feels that serious accidents are not acceptable in the first place, and seeks to eliminate them (almost) entirely. There is more to it than merely safety rules. It's making separate roads for bicycles, making different intersections, taking care of tiny little details like the exact shape of the curb (to minimize damage and injury if hit). It's a systematic, integrated, systems thinking approach; backed by (in total) billions of Euros of infrastructure investment and research over several decades. It's not that a helmet doesn't give more protection (it does), it's just that for normal A-to-B cycling, one should make things so the helmet is no longer needed.