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

Your last sentence is basically saying "90% of commuters in london should be wearing a helmet because they are riding like they are racing"!

Does it? Where? How? I meant it to say that you shouldn't take someone else wearing a helmet as encouraging you to do the same, because it is their decision, made in the context of their ride and their skills, which may be very different from yours.

...wearing helmets normalises therefore encourages, therefore if you are anti-encouragement you are anti-helmet wearing. IMHO.
No (and, incidentally, your O isn't coming over as particularly H at the moment). I wear a helmet, because I want to for my own reasons. This is in no way an encouragement for you to do anything and I think it's quite disengenuous for you to equate my personal decision, that inherently affects nobody else, with the explicit verbal encouragement of someone else to wear one. Wearing a helmet is a million miles from actually saying "I encourage you to wear a helmet." I am anti-encouragement because of the reasons I put forward before (and the additional reason that it puts people off cycling); I am not anti-helmet, I leave that decision entirely up to the discretion of the other person (assuming they're a competent adult).