Can They Make You Wear A Ski Helmet?

BBC article:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12415801

Audio interviews about this subject:
news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8600000/8600462.stm

I wear a helmet, I like it, but I don't care if others wear one or not. I often do NOT wear a ski helmet on warm spring days or while climbing 261. I almost NEVER wear a helmet when skinning or spring/summer skiing at Timberline.
I have noticed that MOST "pros" and "locals" do NOT wear a ski helmet, they wear cool KNIT CAPS.
At Alpental we get huge tree-bombs and tight tree skiing because of the low elevation. I wear a helmet because of those trees, they can really bite you!
I will say though, that in a (very rare) catastrophic fall at high speed, the ski helmet comes in mighty handy!
Oh yeah, the helmet also protects from dumb humans that LOWER THE CHAIRLIFT FOOTREST without warning. Because I am tall, I ALWAYS get "brained" by the weapon some call a footrest. This footrest has to be LOWERED once you get on the chair and it swings down over your head.
In fact I just had a guy use the footrest (not an accident) as a weapon on me, my ski helmet saved me from this nut-ball. This is NOT the first time this footrest has clobbered me or my crew and our helmets "saved" us from some idiot lowering it without warning. Generally we do NOT USE THE FOOTREST at Alpental.
This terrible and deadly "footrest" is only on Chair 1, The Armstrong Express at Alpental.
Regards,
BillyTheMountain

The ocean is the ultimate solution. - Frank Zappa

But since studies show that helmet use is higher in more skilled skiers, the researchers conclude that, "the use of a helmet is not necessarily associated with a higher level of risk-taking but primarily with a higher level of skill."
Really? Maybe because this study was done in Europe they got that data? Look at a group of kids in lessons: they all have helmets.

Sure they can make you wear a ski helmet and in ten years you'll probably have to. Then they will make you wear a ski vest like the hiway workers and those that don't adhere to the mandate will be ski outlaws and considered as such and patrolers who will then be armed and wearing badges will taze such outlaws into submission.

I rode for almost 20 yrs before getting a helmet.  First season I wore one, I was knocked out while wearing it.  I never ride without one now.

Maybe my logic is flawed since I never lost conciousness before getting it.

$100 to preserve 100% of my remaining brain capacity seems like a good value.

I rode skateboards, bikes (mountain & road), and motorcycles (dirt & street) for years without one, I don't do that anymore either.

A bad head injury is (arguably) worse than death and frighteningly easy to suffer. As a trauma nurse I deal with them every day at work. They profoundly change lives, not just of the person who suffers them, but their family and loved ones as well. In my personal opinion, if you have dependents you owe it to them to wear a helmet. What we do is dangerous enough, why not minimize consequences wherever possible? I'm not above wearing the helmet for the drive up and back if the conditions are squirrely enough, but then, I'm also a dork... 

As a side note, if you are on coumadin or other anti-coagulant, you could suffer a severe brain injury from impacts that non-anti-coagulated individuals could shake off. If you're on blood thinners, you should really wear a helmet all the time, not just skiing. I'm not exaggerating, much. Good ol' ground-level falls cause a frightening number of debilitating head injuries among the anti-coagulated.

Helmets seem to have a pretty compelling return for a minimal cost.

I skied for close to 40 years without a helmet.  In my view helmets were for ski racers.  While working in the city (not skiing) I fell 8 feet off a ladder and smacked my skull on a cement walkway.  The result was a Traumatic Brain Injury.

I was lucky enough that after 16 months I could return to skiing.  In the months prior to snowfall I thought about the terrain I liked to ski.  Trees and rocks/cliffs were usually part of skiing.  I bought a helmet in the summer and I've used it ever since then.  Primarily for descent, but sometimes on the uptrack.

I don't know about laws, but even short falls can cause some very serious problems.  You do not want to go through the long recovery process post TBI patients have to. Never skiing again was one possible outcome I avoided.