Crush? Maybe temporarily until people realize that under most circumstances, helmet use is no more troubling than seat belt use in a car. Adequate helmets can be had very inexpensively. Helmets can easily be locked up with the same cable lock as the parked bike is locked up with (I personally never do - nobody steals a helmet around here).
Circumstances where helmet use is an issue: Very cold weather where you may have enough warm stuff on your head that the helmet rides too high (I wear it anyway) and fancy hairdos that would be crushed by a helmet - not an issue in my country since the sporty set that rides has little overlap with the fancy hairdo set - may be different in which bike commuting is more encultured.
> Maybe temporarily until people realize that under most circumstances, helmet use is no more troubling
You might think so, especially if you are someone who is comfortable wearing a bicycle helmet; but in practice, sensible or not, helmet mandates do have a long-term impact on ridership rates.
In Seattle, where I live, the county board of health recently repealed the helmet law, because thirty years of experience showed that it did more harm than good.
As an individual, you should of course choose to improve your safety by wearing a helmet; as a society, however, safety in numbers has much more of an effect than helmet-wearing behavior, and the safest policy choices are therefore those which eliminate barriers and encourage the greatest number of people to ride bicycles, as often as possible.
Circumstances where helmet use is an issue: Very cold weather where you may have enough warm stuff on your head that the helmet rides too high (I wear it anyway) and fancy hairdos that would be crushed by a helmet - not an issue in my country since the sporty set that rides has little overlap with the fancy hairdo set - may be different in which bike commuting is more encultured.