As a keen cyclist (I'm building http://www.cyclinganalytics.com/), I wish we didn't have mandatory helmet laws, but there are a lot of points on both sides of the argument worth pondering.
* Making helmets mandatory makes cycling look dangerous. What other things do you wear a helmet while doing? Between this, ruining peoples' hair, not looking as chic, and the inconvenience of it, helmets discourage people from cycling.
* Although it is possible to get seriously injured on a bicycle, the research that I've seen suggests that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risk of injury considerably (even when not wearing helmets), so, from a public health point of view, it makes sense to encourage cycling, and even cycling without wearing a helmet.
* Therefore, it seems that helmets directly save lives (in crashes, although, for my own anecdotal evidence, they haven't helped me in any of the crashes I've had), but they cost lives indirectly by discouraging people from cycling in the first place. This makes it harder to sell.
* Laws are not about making things as safe as humanly possible. It would save more lives to have people in cars wearing helmets, but we don't do that (yes, I know more people travel by car). For that matter, it's legal to drive cars that would be considered death-traps by modern safety standards. Even if helmet laws did save lives, that doesn't automatically mean they should become laws.
* The drivers in different countries have different attitudes towards cyclists. In Australia (and probably America), we have a strong driving culture, and a very "us vs. them" view of the whole thing. Earlier this year, Shane Warne (one of the most famous Australian sportsmen of the last decade) had an altercation with a cyclist on a busy Melbourne road which led him to comment on Twitter about how cyclists should pay registration and show license plates. Views like that are very common amongst the general public, and often stem from the view that "bikes are okay for a gentle Sunday ride with the family to the park, but they shouldn't be used as serious transportation devices". Compare that with the attitude of the average driver in many European countries (from what I've heard), and you might be able to make a case that we aren't ready for scrapping mandatory helmet laws, because cycling really is more dangerous.
I have a hard time seeing how you made the leap from "car drivers lack the personal qualities to responsibly operate a very heavy, very large machine with 40kW+ of power" to "we need to keep mandatory helmet laws".
Knowing humans, it would be nigh impossible to model any significant part of them to be more responsible without invading on their personal freedom, so the only option is to reduce the occourence of catastrophy stemming from said irresponsibility. That means we need to physically seperate car drivers and cyclists.
* Making helmets mandatory makes cycling look dangerous. What other things do you wear a helmet while doing? Between this, ruining peoples' hair, not looking as chic, and the inconvenience of it, helmets discourage people from cycling.
* Although it is possible to get seriously injured on a bicycle, the research that I've seen suggests that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risk of injury considerably (even when not wearing helmets), so, from a public health point of view, it makes sense to encourage cycling, and even cycling without wearing a helmet.
* Therefore, it seems that helmets directly save lives (in crashes, although, for my own anecdotal evidence, they haven't helped me in any of the crashes I've had), but they cost lives indirectly by discouraging people from cycling in the first place. This makes it harder to sell.
* Laws are not about making things as safe as humanly possible. It would save more lives to have people in cars wearing helmets, but we don't do that (yes, I know more people travel by car). For that matter, it's legal to drive cars that would be considered death-traps by modern safety standards. Even if helmet laws did save lives, that doesn't automatically mean they should become laws.
* The drivers in different countries have different attitudes towards cyclists. In Australia (and probably America), we have a strong driving culture, and a very "us vs. them" view of the whole thing. Earlier this year, Shane Warne (one of the most famous Australian sportsmen of the last decade) had an altercation with a cyclist on a busy Melbourne road which led him to comment on Twitter about how cyclists should pay registration and show license plates. Views like that are very common amongst the general public, and often stem from the view that "bikes are okay for a gentle Sunday ride with the family to the park, but they shouldn't be used as serious transportation devices". Compare that with the attitude of the average driver in many European countries (from what I've heard), and you might be able to make a case that we aren't ready for scrapping mandatory helmet laws, because cycling really is more dangerous.