if i didn't care

I now ride with a helmet only on those longer, more far-flung rides, or during commute times, when the laws of probability should command the same respect as more natural laws, like gravity or inertia. However, for shorter or local rides, I go without. I do so with a modicum of guilt and in the face of images and stories of city cycling deaths; but I do hear this other, very rational (and in the U.S., scandalous) side of the argument more loudly than the guilt.

More here, framed in terms of livable cities, and the modern culture of fear, from a 2010 TED talk.