>>>>I wonder what would that sport look like if they were allowed to wear helmets.
>>>
>>>Against a tennis ball? Jeez!
>>
>>On just a bicycle? (hey, don't go all religious on me now)
>
>I think those of us who think helmets are the right choice are far more concerned about people riding bikes in traffic than those riding on dirt paths or their own driveways. IOW, the concern is strongest over the chance of getting hit by a car.
>
>I think riding on a bicycle or a motorcycle in traffic without a helmet is just incredibly stupid. Ditto for riding in a car without a seat belt. (Front page story in my local paper today--23-year-old new father died in a one-car accident; he wasn't wearing a seat belt.)

There's something I wrote about Belgraders upstream in this thread. The huge difference, now that I think it over, is in the culture.

In our flatlander cities, everybody rides a bike, at least for a while. They may go high on their money later and refuse any other wheels but a four-wheel-drive, but they all remember the experience. So the drivers generally (exceptions exist, of course) know how bikers behave, and bikers generally understand how traffic works (even the kids - learn that from parents, in schools), so there's some sort of consensus, and my bet is that there are more pedestrian than bicycling accidents. Simply because bikers are aware they're partaking in traffic, while pedestrians may easily forget that.

That being said, once you get out of town, on an open road, if you're on a bicycle, you seriously train your ears and take care to drive very closely to the right edge when there's a car coming from behind. If there's anything larger, an eighteen-wheeler perhaps, you brace for the wind and noise. Go to shoulder if needed. In any case, take care not to surprise anything much heavier and faster than yourself. People may misreact when surprised.

But that's so in my plains (i.e. north Serbia, north and east Romania, almost all of Hungary, northwest Croatia), where there's about third generation of bicycle riders, and there's a bikers' culture. Here, where bicycle is a sports item and not a means of transportation (though that's changing now), such a culture has yet to grow. So while I will not wear a helmet myself (impedes my 3d hearing, as I said), I'd recommend it to anybody, at least during their first few years on the streets. I've bought a different piece of hardware that I needed: a rear view mirror. Helps more than you can imagine.