Yes the author is a proponent of not wearing a helmet around town.
"Before I go any further, let me state emphatically that I am not out to dissuade anyone from wearing a bike helmet. Although I am about to express my perception that the facts about helmets often are misinterpreted, I believe that helmets confer some obvious safety benefits and that there’s a certain wisdom to wearing one."
This does not sound like someone telling you not to wear a helmet, around town or otherwise.
Folks who don't know better may read his opinion (a former Bicycling editor even) and presume that a helmet is unnecessary because of a few isolated, unproven studies.
They might... if they have poor reading comprehension skills or only read the title.
Frankly I found his argument mainly being that: bicycle safety is really outside the control of cyclists and because drivers are the root cause, there's no reason to wear a helmet.
That was not my takeaway at all. He discussed how important it is for cyclists to be aware of their surroundings because their own safety is very much within their control; primarily in the form of avoiding accidents through awareness and visibility. I thought the main argument was that the available data does not provide the definitive answers that some people think it does and that the statistical risk of not wearing a helmet put into perspective with the risks we face everyday is not as terrifying as some people think.
His 'statistics' are amazingly isolated. I'm shocked folks would take single casual 'studies' as any kind of proof, particularly with zero causation established.
I mean one guy riding a bike with no helmet, helmet, and a wig is a controlled experiment?!?
Agreed. I don't put a lot of weight into the some of the studies cited. Abe did a great job of analyzing some of these studies and I wish the author had gone into some of that detail. But in the author's defense, he never presented these studies as "proof" of anything.
I don't like the article because its trying to conflate disparate considerations/challenges all the while presuming causation.
Yes, infrastructure often needs improvement. So does driver education, behavior, and awareness.
Neither of those issues conclude that one should or shouldn't wear a helmet. Unfortunately, a young reader might take away the point (intended or not) that a helmet is useless...or even worse for you. That's a huge disservice.
Regardless of drivers, defects, obstructions and debris occur on all roads at random times. Not sure why that 'holds no water'. I'm sure you could look up what the statistics of these occurrences are. And I would wager they are not an exceedingly rare occurrence. Again, ignoring driver impact, a helmet can affect how much damage is transferred to your skull should you crash as a result of NOT making contact with a driver. Why would you choose to not wear one? Because a driver will now hit you??
It holds no water because you took an argument based on statistics and refuted it with "surprises happen". Regardless of whether the data you're making assumptions about here exists and regardless of whether or not it says what you would wager it to say, "surprises happen" is not helpful. Unfortunately, it is how our brains make decisions when it comes to things like safety.
