Aaarghh!!! I just had a friend of a friend telling me on the way to the hospital about how I should wear a helmet in future and that helmeted people were always the better skiiers. I felt like throttling him, despite the fact that he was driving me there to have some stitches removed. You see, aside from the fact that wearing a helmet while skiing reduces the ability to hear and see, it also deludes people into thinking they are immune and that they are somehow safer skiiers(never mind the fact that the really expert skiiers such as advanced ski-teachers and mountain-guides are never seen even once wearing helmets around here) .
We see this also with car-accidents. In Austria, the driving-licence test is extremely difficult; so much so, that once they pass the test, new drivers are absolutely convinced that they are the best drivers in the known universe and therefore routinely take ridiculous risks, "knowing" that they`ll succeed. As a direct result, Austrians have one of the highest car-accident rates in the developed world.