We fly a scheduled helicopter airline route flying. We never have any complaints from passengers about why we fly with helmets, I guess everebody is just used to seeing all helicopter pilots wear a helmet in the country and its just common sense that the most important person on board the helicopter should not be knocked unconsious by bird-strike through the windshield, turbulence or bad vibrations due to blade failure or ice.
So why aren't fixed-wing pilots required to wear helmets? Many of them fly relatively low also, & the airliners come down to ground level to land & take off. Cropdusters certainly need them, because they crash pretty often
, but why should helicopter pilots need them more than other pilots?
I don't wear earplugs, because they're uncomfortable, & wearing them for hours every day causes a huge buildup of earwax in my ears. I do wear a custom-made headset, which has much more noise attenuation than off-the-shelf units. I really get irritated with pilots who wear earplugs & leave every volume control in the cockpit turned up to '11'. I try to remember to turn everything down before I turn on the battery, because it can be painful when 150dB of noise hits your ears inside the headset.
If you're going to wear earplugs, at least turn the volume down when you finish your flight.