Honestly, I think you're .... oh, I don't want to be harsh .... being a bit wishful by saying that you would have been badly injured had you not been wearing yo

Honestly, I think you're .... oh, I don't want to be harsh .... being a bit wishful by saying that you would have been badly injured had you not been wearing your helmet. At least, there's no evidence in your post that shows it. Probably, you have no idea. Without a helmet, your effective head is "smaller", I know that in an accident of mine - where everyone said "thank god for your helmet" am I certain that the part of the helmet hanging out the back hit the ground, and without the helmet, my head probably wouldn't have touched. As a long-term bicycist and a long-term motorcyclist (serious crashes in each), I am increasingly skeptical about the technology in current bicycle helmets, especially compared to the technology in my current motorcycle helmets. Bicycle helmets are simply not tested to the same standards. They use very hard shells. They extend the "impact radius" --- basically, your head becomes bigger --- with only some decrease in crash absorbancy. Reading the literature, it seems that the current bicycle designs are based on voodoo more than good science. The designs look like what bicycle racers used 30 years ago (little leather padded strips). Compare this to the motorcycle helmet industry. There are plenty of crashes to analyze, mostly of motorcycle racers. There are numerous standards (like SNELL) which measure levels of transient G force within the brain on a simulated head. We deserve better bicycle helmets, and people are willing to pay for good science and proof of protection. I pay a LOT of money for my motorcycle helmet, and glad to do so. I would pay 4x the price of a current bicycle helmet to buy one with solid, verified science and an international standard behind it. In my suspicion, the lack of good bicycle helmet science is why the upper level numbers are bad: helmets don't decrease injuries or deaths, except that they cause people not to ride. Really, we deserve better helmets.