Bikeuser shared blog

I said I was over helmet debates but…

If you fix my cycling style, and skills, then some ways you can increase my safety are (1) increasing the population of cyclists (2) reducing the population of motorists (3) reducing the intelligence of other cyclists (4) increasing the intelligence of the motorists.

1 & 3 work because they lead to 4 (or at least increases the alertness/wariness of the motorists).

So to improve my safety, the best thing I can do is encourage bums on bikes, and discourage bums in cars.

If I decide that I can’t do much about everyone else, but I’d like to be a safer cyclist then some things I can do are

(1) avoid getting squished

- make myself more visible:
– cycle in the appropriate bits of the road and don’t lurk in drivers’ blind spots
– wear hi-vis
– have good lights

- make myself more predictable:
– obey the rules of the road
– indicate what I’m about to do, don’t stop suddenly, keep in lane

(2) avoid getting hurt if I am squished

- roll when I fall
- wear a helmet
- …

(3) avoid squishing things

- look out for pedestrians, especially dog walkers. slow down for them. ring my bell. use lights.

What category does:

- don’t wear flares that get caught in the chain and cause me to fall off

come in?

Okay, so let’s start again.

Fix everyone else’s behaviour, and I can improve my safety by dressing appropriately and keeping my bike in order and cycling better. Fix my behaviour and I can improve my safety by getting bums on bikes.

Now, if everyone who’s got on a bike also tries to improve their safety by wearing hi-vis and wearing helmets and keeping in lane, then cars will become less wary, so average safety might actually go down. We’d hope, I think, that that would keep absolutely in line with the numpty-ness, so that the accident rate stays the same.

But - cyclists would then look like a bunch of anoraks, in cycling clips and yellow jackets and helmets and with panniers and lights swinging from their wrists. Which would totally put kids off cycling because it’s “not cool”. So the population of cyclists goes down, reducing my safety.

What nobody really knows is how the numbers balance. And yeah, I didn’t even mention cycle lanes.

I am *so* modelling this for the next stage of my phd.