I wonder if I might be better off that way? But then again, 20 or more miles on city streets every time I want to work out doesn’t seem wise. How big a city do you ride in, and how far do you go?
It’s a moderately-sized urban area, distance varies, depending on if I’m headed somewhere on my own, or taking the kids on an outing. For what it’s worth, biking is not my the only form excercise I take.
I imagine that bikers in bike only areas feel much safer and are more complacent than those who are used to riding in traffic or who use bikes as a mode of transportation. Probably a good place to test the waters though.
I’ve experienced a few lazy riders who either only say “Left!” or ramp it up “on your LEFT!” when passing a group of walkers. Invariably there will be someone in the group who will move left and turn around to see what’s going on.
Not necessarily more visible without a helmet, but still gets more passing clearance:
the test cyclists were given 8.5cm (3.3 inches) more clearance by cars if they were not wearing helmets.
When the researchers donned female wigs they got more clearance, 14cm (5.5 inches) more than apparent males in helmets. They did not report on what a skirt and helmet combination would do.
British Study on Passing Clearance and Helmets
This is before many localities have passed 3 ft to 1.5 meter passing laws, but sas the link notes, a difference of 15cm really isn’t that significant compared to other things a cyclist could do.
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Seattle cyclist here. Bike paths during the spring and summer are a lot more scary than streets with cars. Cars are generally predictable. Pedestrians and other cyclists are decidedly random in their actions. Honestly, I’m pretty sure that some parents are trying to collect insurance money on their unwanted kids by sending them onto the Burke-Gilman trail to weave left and right unpredictably until someone takes them out.
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As I said above, I don’t generally ride bike paths. But I have experienced a fair bit of unpredictible, careless and malevolent behavior from drivers in cars. I wouldn’t call them predictable, or unintimidating, especially if you are a 10 year old kid.
Seattle is pretty bike friendly, isn’t it? My city in the West is pretty dominated by motorists, in spite of the bike lanes and signs.
ETA: 10 year old kid refers to my kid, who has been dressed down by motorists for “not paying attention”.
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Austin is a “bike friendly” city… to some degree. There’s a lot of bike lanes and whatnot but the drivers here are fairly unpredictable and i haven’t worked up the courage to commute on a bike. Plus a lot of neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks and bike lanes and the thought of sharing narrow roads with the Austin drivers terrifies me.
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That one’s me. When the angry biker screams “ON YOUR LEFT” I probably yell back “you said LEFT so I went left!” and they give me the finger as they ride on in what I imagine to be seething outrage that someone dared take things literally.
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I don’t think i’d be surprised if there were someone renting out audio tours of Chicago’s architecture or something that you’re supposed to listen to while riding a bike. The willingness of people to profit off of stupidity is endless.
Natural selection, clearly.
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It’s true, 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 really are under attack half the time. I’m still tempted to say the people who most loudly predict having their rights taken away are (a) the people with the shittiest reasons for needing those rights, and (b) not the people with reason to worry.
Like, if you did a survey of tweets, I feel like you’d see more “first amendment” outrage from Milo Yiannopoulos fans than over Turmp threatening the press; and more “states’ rights” posturing from slavery apologists than from pot businesses harassed by the feds; etc.
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I’ve also had other cyclists and pedestrians (on mixed-use paths) yell at me for ringing my bell or saying “on your left” when I pass them – as I am required to do by by-law.
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Admittedly I’m considerably over 10 years old. I would not send a 10-year-old out on Rainier Avenue on a bike. Not even a really annoying 10 year old. 
When I say cars are predictable, perhaps I should clarify that I mean they are predictably going to try to kill me at every opportunity because, like the article says, most drivers don’t even notice I’m there in the road. I assume every car that wants to take a left turn from the opposite lane across my path is going to do so, for instance. But at least most of them can at least drive straight and spend most of their time in their own lanes. And you can easily spot the ones who can’t manage even that and try your hardest to stay well the fuck away from them.
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I’ve always felt that bike paths (particularly in touristy, bike rental areas) should have some instructional signage. Many folks don’t even know that they should stick to the right, like driving, let alone what “On Yer Left!” means.
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It does, absolutely - but the number one cause of accidents is being hit by cars. In countries with good bike infrastructure, like the Netherlands, people generally don’t wear helmets and it’s not really an issue. The study I saw indicated that the presence/absence of a helmet caused a pretty significant difference in passing distances, etc. But of course, we come back to the subject of this post - drivers who aren’t “seeing” bicyclists, helmets or not (which in turn is the number one cause of auto-bike collisions).
Oh? Ages ago I was told that the rule was walk left, ride right. (So that you can see oncoming stuff.)
Disclosure, when i did bike to work regularly i never woke a helmet. But i also lived somewhere that had roomy sidewalks and i never felt the need to get a helmet. Where i currently live i don’t own a bike but i have thought of getting one, if i did do so i more than likely would get it because of the bad drivers in the area, the narrow roads and lack of sidewalks.
I can’t say if wearing a helmet will cause drivers to be less attentive, i’ll leave that for researchers that have better insight on data. But i do know that there will be incidents where wearing additional protection will not safe-guard you from a more severe hit… but your chances of living are definitely better with gear on than without.
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So what yer sayin’ is, you wanna take away my guns?!?
I mean, I’ve always worn a helmet, even though I carefully choose my routes to be as traffic-free as possible, but I’m also clumsy. I forget where the study was done, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t necessarily hold true everywhere (perhaps it was done where there was more of a bike culture), and of course it only applies if the drivers see the bikes.
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Agree about bike paths… but maybe worth saying, this has borne out to be the unsafe position when sharing roads in cities, where if a bicyclist does not have a dedicated lane, it is safest to take the center of the lane which affords greater visibility and forces other vehicles to pass properly. This is misunderstood by drivers and law enforcement and there are plenty of gopro videos of arguments and misapplication of the law to attest to it. In California the Dept of Transportation supports taking the lane unless it is wide enough to share side by side with a 3 foot clearance (so really, enough room for a car to safely travel PLUS another 7+ feet in width: 3+3 for either side of the bike, and a foot or so for the width of the rider).
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