Remember kids... always wear a helmet. (The almighty bikeradar helmet thread)

I genuinely can't be fucked with this thread- but I've tried to respond to the thread so many times in the past hour that I feel I must write something:
Will- you're right to pick me apart for the inaccurate use of stats.

Charlie- you've misunderstood the basics of the trials. These are unblindable, rather like the famous Doll and Hill doctors study, however, any medical statistician will tell you that to remove bias (or innacuracy or whatever you wish to term it) in an acceptable way is simple, using randomisation of the sample as one method. I haven't got the time to go read the cochrane study, but i'd be surprised if every attempt to remove bias wasn't made.
Also the most recent meta analysis I could find easily- ie first page of google- was from 2005, also under the 'Cochrane' title.

Ed- I apologise if I came across as harsh- I still think that cycle training will never be sufficient > helmets for a novice rider for a few reasons I'll hash out now:

1. immediacy of effect. Training takes time, till then the possibility of the cyclist to have a fall within the parameters (only taking the EU guidelines- 12.1 mph) that a helmet will prevent a head injury is good enough reason to me for a helmet to be the first purchase of any novice.
   
2. As mentioned above the speed of the average recreational/ novice commuter is deemed to be somewhere from 10-15 miles an hour- hence 12.1 was chosen as a near modal point, thus, even charlie would agree that the tests carried out by the licensing authorities, to specify protection levels- will prevent head trauma.
   
   

also @ ed- just noticed you'd asked me if I'd had cycle training, and yes- I have both in the states and through merton council.

and @ tiswas- yep, most of my ire about this comes from speaking to a neurologist who's specialty is the type of brain injury that can occur from the minor falls off a bike, or in my case from an accident when not wearing a helmet (which he says was pure luck that it wasn't worse) who, having read more literature than anyone on this thread (I suspect- since he'd had a 20year career) on brain trauma from these type of accidents, would never cycle without one (being a commuter and an amateur racer himself), and he said that all the problems I had from a minor injury could have been simply prevented.

Anyway this timewaste of a thread is now on ignore.