Personally, though I ride a road bike, I wear a fairly standard MTB helmet. Really, I like the visor more than anything, but I do think it has better protection all-around.
I also use MTB (Shimano SPD) pedals: they're easy to clip in and out of, and I can wear normal-looking shoes that I can actually walk normally in.
The racing stuff is just ridiculous: it gets you a tiny improvement in performance at a huge penalty in usefulness. If you're not actually racing, it's pointless.
This could be a new market. Presently, there's no motorsport rated bike helmet. You can buy a motorcycle helmet, but it's a heavy, cumbersome beast. Or a bike helmet that comes with virtually no useful rating system except for the Virginia Tech rating program.
Helmets in cars aren't without issue, though. They restrict your vision and situational awareness via hearing. I was a rally driver for about 10 years, and the MSA (UK Motorsport body) banned drivers on road sections from wearing helmets - both because it was a PR nightmare, but also because of the issues with vision (in full face helmets) and hearing (although I appreciate many people have loud music on in cars, or wear headphones, etc).
Also, you really -want- to have a helmet on in a race car - you'll typically have an unpadded roll cage right by your head, and the FIA-approved padding for roll cages is designed to work well with helmets, not with heads. I used to dread long road sections on rallies as I knew that an accident would be a real mess if there was any contact with the cage. There's more room in a road car, and there's padding / airbags etc to cushion you from impact on hard structures.
I wear one when rock climbing, kayaking, snowboarding, skiing, motorcycle, bicycle, skateboard, football, etc. Pretty much any time I go over 8mph. I even considered one in aussie rules football but they were hard to find in the states.
I found that helmets for winter sports are better than hats. They don't soak up sweat like a hat does so do better in cold and are better vented than a hat as well. They also really help with the trees.
It's also interesting that they used to be "nerdy" on ski slopes in the US, then several major states required everyone under 18 to wear them. Now 80% (feels like) of kids wear them all the time, so you actually look wierd if you don't wear a helmet.
I definitely wear them on bikes and have needed them (and bounced off of them) many times. I tend to tuck when I go off the bike so I bounce the back of my helmet. There's a heart warming sensation of relief when you hear that hollow thunk sound of the helmet taking the blow on the pavement, tree, hardpack, rock, etc, with no bad effects on you.
Also on my commute I tend to hit 45 mph multiple times in the first 2 miles (I drop 500 ft in 2 miles and I feel it's safer to do 35 like the cars on the nicely paved winding suburban road than to sit in the bike lane).
Finally... I made this guy (who hates helmets) put one on after the kite pulled him up into the goal posts on a previous run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PGKG5ZFMQg He thanked me a year later.
Not to mention that if I were riding in the summer there is no way I would want something wrapped around my neck as it would decrease my ability to cool myself down. Sure, having something on your head is not much better but helmets these days have quite good ventilation.
Motorsport doesn't use airbags and has a steel tubular cage exposed directly to the occupants, the helmet is mostly for protecting from impact with the cage AIUI.
All those grease monkeys driving around with aftermarket cages in their cars and not wearing helmets are actually less safe for it. The last drag strip I was at wouldn't even let you run if you had a cage and no helmet to accompany it.
Airbags and no steel tubes next to your head change the calculus completely.
So you replace a bike helmet with something you wear around your neck instead. That seems less comfortable and more annoying that just wearing a normal helmet. Plus you could get a very comfortable helmet for much less than $600.
This is a dumb helmet, and if you survive a crash with it, you still won't look pretty.
However, it isn't much worse than the brain buckets Harley riders wear. Ironically, the loudest of the "loud pipes save lives" crowd tends to love riding without any protective equipment.
That being said, it's their problem. I wear full gear, they don't. They choose the risk they are willing to accept. Sure, tax dollars pay for their accidents, but in a world of smokers, heavy drinkers, cyclists running red lights and programmers never exercising, what's another person living dangerously?
Here in Australia, where they're mandatory, us 'hipster' types get around this by wearing helmets that look like the sort of 'crash hat' that skateboarders wear: very dome-like, skull-shaped things rather than the traditional swept-back-vents-all-over helmets that your racing cyclist would wear.
Hotter in summer, but they look cooler. ;-)
FWIW, I thought it was weird at first having to wear a helmet. I'm from the UK. Now, though, it just seems bizarre that I wouldn't. It's my skull! My brain is in there. It only takes one idiot, and knocking my head off concrete from 6ft up at even 10km/h sounds like a terrible idea. Anything that cushions the blow, even if that blow is unlikely, now seems like the most obvious idea in the world.
Humans have evolved reactions to protect their head when they fall at running speeds. For example, you instinctively throw out your arms to break the fall. It's when you are biking faster than a fast human can run that helmets become really necessary.
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