More cyclists on the road makes it safer for cyclists. Combined with risk compensation, this seems enough to make helmet laws a net negative. Well studied. Wear a helmet though, they work!
(I guess it doesn’t work if you don’t have public healthcare)
People who don't use helmets don't do it because they are too expensive. They do it because it's not convenient to carry, because it's not cool, because it messes your hair, because you need somewhere to store it. (Not) Free helmets solve zero of these problems, it's just a bad idea.
People who don't use helmets for whatever reason would be more inclined to do so if they could just go pick one up, and didn't have to pay for them in a store. Even if those reasons are not that they are expensive. It's a great idea.
All the cities maintaining a bunch of locations full of helmets for free pickup would just create more waste. I bet people would pick them up and just discard them when it wouldn't be convenient to use them. And nobody wants to pickup and wear a discarded helmet that is dirty and was in the elements so there would be huge waste. You can have a similar effect without any waste by just having a class that teaches children to ride bycicles at school and tells them the benefits of helmets and keeps helmets there for that one class. This memory would be with you for life, and you'd make your own decision.
If helmets were cost prohibitive I'd be with you, I believe in using tax money for that kind of stuff, but price is not the reason people don't use helmets.
1. Redesign a 2-lane (each direction) highway into a 4-lane highway at the cost of several hundred million tax dollars, over the course of a few years.
2. Leave the highway smaller. Re-zone a city to allow small shops within residential neighborhoods, and up-zone all residential land to allow up to 4-story townhomes and condos. Spend tens of millions of tax dollars building a robust cycling highway, and make it safe for people to accomplish basic errands within a close proximity to their home.
For #2, spending of tax dollars is less and people are healthier. You still have roads, but people need to drive on them much less often.
So when the next city proposes an $840M highway revamp [1], consider how you could spend 10% of that funding to increase mobility around the city for residents ($84M could build a lot of safe separated bike highways). While at the same time allowing private development to make natural improvements to neighborhoods by opening new corner stores and shops along bike routes
People do understand that with government programs, "free" means taxpayer funded. As in, almost everyone understands that. The comment isn't needed. Those comments are the reason I put things like "fare free public transport" - not because it is more realistic, but because arguing with these comments is exhausting.
Society is full of things other people helped pay for - and you most definitely use them. Your health insurance company pools money together to cover everyone's ills, for example. You don't pay individually for your infrastructure use - other people help you pay so that you can get electricity. And so on. You can't have modern society without this.
its a nice idea, but i think adults should pay for their own helmets
however, children... sure. give them one.