>>>The study in your link does not answer (that I saw) the question I had: how common are bicycle accidents that cause head injuries in the first place? My guess / assumption is not very. No question that if it should happen you would be better off wearing a helmet. I just don't think the chances of it happening are enough to worry about.
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>>Answer to your question: Not so common any more now that kids are wearing helmets.
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>But they may exercise less caution, now that they feel falsely secure. Also, the helmet completely screws up your hearing; the styrofoam right above your ears is creating false echoes and the sound comes all distorted and disorienting (yep, I wore one early on, thinking I could get in trouble if I didn't). And believe me, my ears mean more to my safety than any piece of plastic on my head.

Sorry, I don't buy it. I've worn helmets before and never had an issue with my hearing - not even with a football helmet which is a lot more enclosing than a bicycle helmet.

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>Glad to announce a happy event: today I got on the bike and went to buy printer ink :). That makes it a total of four times this year when I got on the bike to do something useful, apart from burning calories and Joules (which also deserve a chance - some of my food is actually metric).

Yeah. I buy green beans by the centimetre. ;)