1) Everybody SHOULD, for their own benefit, wear a helmet.
2) Nobody should be REQUIRED BY LAW to wear a helmet
There is no paradox, unless you assume that every good thing thing should be mandated by law and every bad thing regulated. I was actually surprised to read this article and discover the arguments against the helmet law mandates. Usually the argument is something like: "yes mandates save lives, but freedom is more import." But this argument was different -- do to complex system interactions removing the mandate saves lives on net. So, with or without laws most regular riders are going to wear helmets. However, just one example from the article, with the laws there are fewer people riding which makes the roads less safe for bikers. Lots of bikers promotes awareness of bikers by drivers, and encourages infrastructure investment, and prevents thus prevents accidents. We have data that shows this happens in practice. It also encourages both helmet and non-helmet wearing bikeshare adoptees, which in-turn also creates ridership, and a culture of bikeriders, which in turn reduces accidents. So even while you have more non-helmet wearing riders (which is a small fraction of riders) it reduces the _conditions_ that cause accidents sufficiently that there are on-net fewer accidents.
1) Everybody SHOULD, for their own benefit, wear a helmet.
2) Nobody should be REQUIRED BY LAW to wear a helmet
There is no paradox, unless you assume that every good thing thing should be mandated by law and every bad thing regulated. I was actually surprised to read this article and discover the arguments against the helmet law mandates. Usually the argument is something like: "yes mandates save lives, but freedom is more import." But this argument was different -- do to complex system interactions removing the mandate saves lives on net. So, with or without laws most regular riders are going to wear helmets. However, just one example from the article, with the laws there are fewer people riding which makes the roads less safe for bikers. Lots of bikers promotes awareness of bikers by drivers, and encourages infrastructure investment, and prevents thus prevents accidents. We have data that shows this happens in practice. It also encourages both helmet and non-helmet wearing bikeshare adoptees, which in-turn also creates ridership, and a culture of bikeriders, which in turn reduces accidents. So even while you have more non-helmet wearing riders (which is a small fraction of riders) it reduces the _conditions_ that cause accidents sufficiently that there are on-net fewer accidents.