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

Must do work... but in the meantime I'd love people to address the point that I was trying to make.

(1) When risk compensation = 'I have a helmet therefore I can cut down the inside of lorries at junctions" it is a very bad thing.

(2) When risk compensation = 'I do not have a helmet with me today therefore I will cycle a little more carefully than I do normally" it is not a bad thing at all.

MDCC (especially) seems to think helmets are bad because risk compensation is bad because people who wear helmets think like (1). I think this is utter bullshit.

Wether you do or don't wear a helmet is immaterial, bad decisions are still bad decisions. If you go down the inside of a bus/lorry at a junction, that's clearly a bad decision.
Wether you do or don't have a helmet is immaterial again, as you ride as carefully as you can day to day, some days will be better than others as we're only human. But you ride carefully nonetheless.

It's the seemingly bad decisions some people make that make things bad.