Riding w/o a helmet

[PamNY]

In the OP's situation, I probably would have made exactly the same choice. As others have pointed out, that's not entirely logical -- you can certainly have a serious crash without cars around. But it "seems" safer to be away from cars.

I occasionally take off my helmet if I'm cycling very slowly in a park and looking for birds, but other than that I always wear one. I keep the helmet on the bike, so forgetting it is less likely.

I see a lot of people cycling without helmets; it would never occur to me to say something to them. Recently I saw someone cycling with a helmet-less (and very young) infant in a backpack. I found that shocking and upsetting. I hope they weren't going very far, and I hope they got there safely.