Wearing a helmet could so affect the outcome of a serious accident that the rider is left brain damaged rather than being fortunate enough to die. Wearing helmets may reduce the number of deaths but I doubt that it reduces the number of people left in a wheel chair.

Roger E., Cottingham, UK

It was during a cycle tour around the Western Isles in Scotland that I realised that my wearing a helmet on a hot scorching day whilst seeing only 2 cars per hour was not really sane. Any objective assessment of benefits against disadvantages leads one to the same conclusion as the Dutch.

Rod King, Lymm, Cheshire

I see a lot of comments here that appear to not understand wry humour.

John Blackley, Florida, USA

No helmet for fear of looking too unsexy to whistle at girls? Don't worry, the looks of a wolf whistler are not part of the equation for girls.

No seatbelt for fear of creasing a shirt? If is uncool to wear a seatbelt, how cool is it to worry about the ironing?

Interesting debate though.

Louise van Wingerden, Christchurch, Dorset

Cycle helmets simply do not protect you head from anything more than a graze. Even the manufacturers do not claim they will protect against serious head injury.

The only thing helmets do, is to discourage cycling.

Martin, Bristol, England

Helmets don't give cyclists the protection that people think. The facts & figures just don't support it. Cyclists wearing one may even be more likely to be in an accident. So it's not "just common sense" . There is tons of information on this - e.g. links on London Cycling Campaign website.

Rachel, London,

Mr.Coren,
I am concerned at your exhortation to eschew the use of sunscreen - here in Oz numerous people die needlessly from malignant melanoma and many tens of thousands are scarred for life by removal of basal cell carcinomas from their faces and bodies.
Many simply needed to use sunscreen!

Eddie Keane, Brisbane, Queensland Australia

Please come to Sheffield and visit a 10year old family friend of mine!

After “playing out” without a helmet one fine day last year, Jack has spent the last 12months learning to walk, talk, eat and every other normal activity you and I both take for granted!
He made the mistake of not wearing a helmet and unfortunately came into contact with a parked car. The end result was an airlift to hospital and a number of months in hospital!

Please venture up to Sheffield and advise his parent of your total lack of intelligence and respect for life with a view that in my mind should never see the light of day let alone print!

Steve Wood, Sheffield, England

Wearing a cycle helmet or safety belt is not a case of "fearing desperately for one’s life". Surely, it's just common sense?

And anyway, the idea of a Mayor who endorses the prospect of his own mortality seems disconcerting and illogical – how could he govern a large city six feet underground?

Craig Harris, Uckfield,

Quite right. The Queen would never wear a cycling helmet.

Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK

Cyclists should be separated from vehicle traffic. Governments (and Opposition leaders) that bleat about the desirable "greenness" of cycling should make a lot more exclusive cycle tracks. Bikes and cars (let alone trucks and buses) don't mix. Then helmets become irrelevant.

david, Ligneyrac, France

Our 19 year old son, cycling without a helmet, was knocked down by a fool driver in London and is now so brain damaged he cannot eat, he is tube fed, he cannot talk or communicate, is in a wheel chair and doubly incontinent. Well done Giles. Aren't you just hilarious.

Tim Letts, Cambridge,

Last time I fell off, I got up and walked the eight miles back home. If I'd been wearing a helmet, I'd never have been able to avoid hitting my much-expanded head on the rocks. Who knows, the torque might even have broken my neck.

Nick, West Devon,

Poor Adam, wearing a helmet out of fear of a type of injury it is not designed to pervent. Like the aluminium foil deflector beanie, the plastic hat is an illusory protection against a largely illusory risk. But don't ride up the left side of lorries or buses. Now *that* is dangerous!

Guy Chapman, Reading / London, UK

I asked a Dutch teacher why parties of their schoolchildren can be seen cycling supervised but not wearing helmets. She laughed at our naivety. "They think helmets are uncool," she said. "They'd stop cycling and end up fat, unhealthy and dying young like British kids."

PaulD, Essex, UK

Giles, I suggest you go to an average surgical ward and meet the brain damaged people who were not wearing a helmet and then meet some people who are only alive because they were wearing one. Most accidents are not caused by the person who was hurt, so how does not wearing a helmet stop them.

Mark, Grays, Essex

Whether you end up with a bust leg or brain damaged basically depends on what way up you land! I never used to wear a helmet (they're not cool!) until I met up with an old friend who works for a charity dealing with head injuries, many from cycling. I wouldn't want to put my family through that.

Gideon Moore, London,

Real men don't ride bikes! Rather a chauffeur driven gas guzzling Bristol or Bentley, with in-car entertainment (preferably also blonde) and communications gadgets to while away the time surveying one's manor - and an honest will to pay the congestion surcharge local tax like the rest of us!

Mike L, Chippenham, Wilts

Adam and Simon, you miss the point. The place with the lowest rate of cyclist head injuries is the Netherlands and the Dutch don't wear helmets. There is no evidence that helmets do anything to prevent severe head injuries and those sorts of accident are way beyond their meagre design limits.

Tony, Cambridge, UK

Reminds me that a coward dies a thousand times and a brave man only once ... also about being better to die on your feet than live on your knees... brave words and I wonder that I am not enough of a man to live up to them (like Boris) and think we take the short term, easy, compromising way out .

Trevor Hogg, Brighton and Hove,

You have missed the point, Giles. I wear a cycle helmet out of fear of non-fatal serious disablement, not death. Being disabled is a much more likely outcome, and possibly preventable.

Adam, Oxford, UK

I've never worn a cycling helmet either, despite cycling everywhere I go in London.

I got knocked off by a bus last year. I bust my leg, but my head was fine. How would a helmet have helped?

Case closed.

Redcliffe, london,

Ummm... so severe head injuries are cool then?

Simon Holly, London UK,

It's not the possibility of death that makes me to wear a helmet. It's the thought of spending the next 20 years drooling in a wheel chair.

Glen, Melbourne, Australia

Giles,

My complments, You get it. You can truly see.

"The times, they are a changing..."

Eric, Boston, USA

In Australia you have to wear a helmet - even if you're cycling on a designated cycle lane without a car in sight. Put me off cycling.

Brisbane, Brisbane, Australia