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But I'd argue that in those cases most people do take a risk aversion strategy that is comparable with wearing a helmet.
Wearing a seatbelt in a car/government regulations enforcing the installation of airbags for example. Not climbing the ladder in high winds.
If someone doesn't chose to wear a seat belt, surely they're being an idiot right? You do see articles highlighting the importance of wearing a seatbelt.
Most news outlets are very unfair towards cyclists, but to see this as a case against taking precautions is an odd way of looking at the world. Fortunately wearing a helmet isn't enforceable, and gives you a choice. Arguably using this choice to communicate that you value your own safety negates the voices that call cycling reckless.
Then the first response to a head injury in an car-on-cyclist traffic accident becomes: "holy shit we should make the road safer for cyclists" rather than "he wasn't even wearing a helmet."
draughts-
people do take a risk aversion strategy that is comparable with wearing a helmet.
They don't. They probably take risk minimisation strategy that minimises risk of falling from a ladder rather than a strategy that assumes they will fall (which would be putting on a helmet),
so they:
Ensure the ladder is on secure ground
Get a mate to hold it.
Wear non slip shoes
etc.PPE is (according to the health and safety executive) the thing of last resort.
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Seatbelts like many/any other part of a car are tested above and beyond the speeds they are expected to encounter during use. Even the barriers alongside motorways will be tested having cars on tow ropes crash into them at 100mph+ just to gague what happens and how they can improve the products. If you look at automotive safety and how it has advanced you will learn a great deal about how the products evolved based on testing and evidence. Even the steering wheel which must be collapsable in a crash has more research put into it than any bicycle helmet on the market.
If you liken this to bicycle helmets you will soon see that many announcing them as useful in a road traffic crash with a car assumed to be driven at 30mph+ have no evidence or testing to base supporting the product on. Bicycle helmets have a single test of a 12mph impact on the crown(dropping a weight from 3m onto the top of helmet) and that's it. There is no will to improve or evolve the testing as there is no conclusive evidence the helmets do anything reliably when involved in crashes. They anecdotally are saving lives and anecdotally are hampering surgeons or snapping necks by complicating crashes.
I can't see anywhere in life that you would purposefully buy/use a product far beyond it's designed use without the expectation that it would fail.
skydancer
Clockwise
In saying that head injuries have various causes, (seems falling down stairs is a major cause), that shit happens occasionally
yet in most other circumstances where people have such an incident in daily life, others don't victim-blame them for not wearing personal protective equipment.
You don't get newspapers reporting:
"Man fell off a ladder while adjusting a TV Arial, he was/wasn't wearing a helmet"
"Car passenger died of head injuries when her head hit the windscreen*, she wasn't wearing head protection"
*This is often a cause of car deaths according to a paramedic I know