Here's the thing...yes, wearing a helmet is less safe than having bike infrastructure. No doubt about it.

But I don't fucking HAVE safe bike infrastructure. Also, I am very involved in bike safety advocacy, so I'm not exactly just shirking all safety responsibility onto a silly hat and expecting things to be fine.

We can throw off the dualistic thinking for a second and acknowledge that, yes, helmets are a very imperfect solution that puts the onus of protection onto riders. Also, it'll save your goddamn life.

If I didn't wear a helmet, I never would have gotten married and my kiddo would never have been born. I'd have died on a sidewalk (or in an ambulance) on the side of a residential street on a multi-use path where a dumbass teenager was going 35mph the wrong way on an electric scooter at night.