I know a lot of you find the whole helmets thing — whether they “help” or “work” or not — tiresome and unimportant. Well tough. Bicycle helmets are a medical intervention — a special kind of medical intervention — and whether or not medical interventions work and are worthwhile is always a fascinating subject. More importantly, a large proportion of the general public and of journalists assume that helmets work, and the British Medical Association campaigns for compulsory bicycle helmet laws. What the BMA does matters. If the BMA endorses a medical intervention, we can’t dismiss arguments about it as tiresome and unimportant.
