🚀 go-pugleaf

cam@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) wrote:
>In article <827255530snz@tmsl.demon.co.uk> Paul@tmsl.demon.co.uk writes:
>
>>Let's look at it another way. Roads are not dangerous, cars are not
>>dangerous. It is the motorists who are dangerous. Cyclists are killed
>>by motorists. The road and car merely provide the place and
>>instrument of execution. Once you realise this, you will see that
>>even with your head surrounded by polystyrene, you are still no
>>match for the motorist surrounded by a ton of steel.
>
>No match only if if you regard it as a collision-surviving contest. This
>is of course the way many car-drivers and safety "experts" think. There
>is, however, another route to staying alive on the roads on a
>bicycle. It is most unorthodox, heretical, and involves using your brain
>to *avoid* collisions instead of parcelling it up to survive them.
>
>Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh         +44 (0)131 650 3085

Whilst I would agree that you shouldn't switch the grey matter off
when riding, I don't really think that cyclists don't try and avoid
collisions. Very few people actually set out to be involved in an
accident - with hindsight, of course, most accidents seem 'avoidable'.
The fact that such avoidance measures didn't cross the participants'
minds at the time is the problem here - human beings - bad design.

No one seems to be claiming that you're more likely to be injured
whilst wearing a helmet than cycling au naturel, as it were, so
it seems to me to provide additional insurance against the unexpected.
Sure, bunny hop kerbs, dart and weave meandering volvos, shout and
scream if you want to, but I don't see how wearing a helmet would stop
you doing any of these things...

Ralph Moorhouse            R.Moorhouse@educ.hull.ac.uk