Ye ole lid

[Dizerens5]

Riding a pedal cycle scares me much more than riding a motorcycle. I'm much more likely to get rammed from behind. Or just mown down by some car driver with bad eyesight.

[k_enn]

Riding a pedal cycle scares me much more than riding a motorcycle. I'm much more likely to get rammed from behind. Or just mown down by some car driver with bad eyesight.

I agree completely.  At least with an engine powered cycle you can get out in a lane and hold your own place with traffic.  With a pedal cycle around here you are on the edge of the road with tons of road trash you need to avoid and cars wizzing past you at 50 mph.  Not a good situation.

Also, my worst crash was back in my college days when I was riding a pedal cycle.  No helmet back in those days (yes, I am old), I was knocked out for a while, the bike was bent like a pretzel, and I still have a significant scar from that accident.  The lady in the cage never saw me and turned right in front of me.  

I'll take the higher visibility of an engine powered cycle, a helmet, and riding gear anytime over sneakers, shorts and a T-shirt on a pedal cycle.  

k_enn

[Barry]

I have both a full face helmet and an open face. Although I would absolutely not allow a passenger to wear one I much prefer to ride with the open face because it's quieter and I just feel less isolated. When I ride with the open face it scares me into riding very carefully and I've noticed that as a general theme. The more protective and Hi Vis gear gear I put on the less careful I am. It worries me more that the SUV drivers with ABS and a trillion air bags have the same feeling.

With or without an open face helmet I agree Pedal cycles are at a much higher risk than me on the daily commute. I had an uncle run over and killed by a truck on his pedal cycle.

[Air4Life]

You guys hit the nail on the head.  I feel safer on the motorcycle than the bicycle -most of the time.  

Barry:  your experiences I bet are pretty universal.  I have been fighting that sensation as of late.  Just because I'm geared up doesn't give me license to be reckless.  But I somehow feel ridiculously safer.  Okay, up to a point, but...  

Ditto on the automobiles.  The brilliant engineers made the damn things so safe that the drivers walk away from all but the most serious.  There's no sense of responsibility...  Even one of the insurance companies (State Farm I think) had made an advertisement to the effect that they won't hold accidents against you...

[Dizerens5]

Air4Life, Barry and k_enn, you are totally right. I have to admit that despite smashing my face (it's fixed long ago) I usually use an open face helmet. A couple of full face left me feeling claustrophic and bothered by inability to do quick side glance before overtaking. And need to bend head down t read the speedo!
Really good points of over-reliance on technology. Does US tv have the documentary on the crash of Air France 447 in the Atlantic? It's terrifying, worth watching. Most instruments, central-control by computer, failed intermittently. One pilot thought they were flying too fast and wanted to deploy flaps. Another thought flying too slow! The stall alarm screamed about 70 times (you can hear it on the black box recording) but all three pilots ignored it, did not even mention it. Ground proximity alarm also howled, no effect on the crew. I'm pretty sure if they had been provided with the old flight panel of six independent instruments, it would never have happened. The aircraft was nose-up with airspeed about 70 kt throughout the fall and nobody realised. Nearly 300 dead.

[Dizerens5]

And just to add something - a few years ago I was guest on the bridge of a Channel ferry from France. I watched the radar screen as we approached Dover port, it was wonderful, like watching a large-scale map come to life in front of my eyes. But the third officer confirmed, it's hard to resist staring at it, when you should look out the window too! And so ships crash into rowboats or semi-sunk junk.

[raypond]

I can't remember the name of the American bloke who studied 1000s of motorbike crashes from the 1970s onwards (I think). He found that wearing a helmet so vastly improved your chances of surviving an accident, as compared to not wearing a helmet, that there was absolutely no question as to their effectiveness. But he found that once you were wearing a helmet it's cost made no discernible difference.

For what it's worth: he also found that the single most useful thing that you can do in traffic to help avoid accidents is to 'cover your front brake', i.e. keep your fingers on the brake lever.

[k_enn]

I believe you are referring to the Hurt Report.  Here is a link to a breif discussion of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurt_Report


If you have the time and interest, here is the full 435 page report:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/MOTORCYCLE_ACCIDENT_CAUSE_FACTORS_AND_IDENTIFICATION_OF_COUNTERMEASURES_VOLUME_I-_TECHNICAL_REPORT.pdf

The report itself is interesting.

k_enn