Bicycling Risk
Aug. 10th, 2020 03:52 pmOne of the people who witnessed the rear-ending incident saw fit to Mansplain to me, shortly thereafter, about how, even though I had a fully functional taillight and a helmet bedazzled with reflective material, I should clearly add even more blinky red lights to my posterior so as to prevent drivers from glancing at the Dunkin Donuts and failing to notice me when I am stopped at a traffic light.
...back when we lived in the Greater Phoenix Suburb-o-Politan area,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scrottie and I knew of a bicyclist named Ben. Well, actually, we knew of at least 5 guys named Ben, who all rode bicycles, so we had to start issuing nicknames pretty quickly there. (Crazy Ben remains my absolute favorite of the Bens, although I totally lost contact with him after he went on a super awesome bike touring adventure. I probably shouldn't have a favorite, but he was just that kickass.)
But there's also Spaceship Ben. Spaceship Ben rode a recumbent, and he earned his nickname because he did, indeed, have an absolutely dazzling array of lights all over his bike, such that his bicycle looked like spacecraft.
He added all of the lights to his ensemble because he, too, got rear-ended, although in his case the driver was going 40 mph and so his injuries were much more extreme.
There's also Dreadfullvegan, who had a hot pink ensemble so that, as he put it, no one could ever get away with saying that they didn't see him.
...
Anytime I am sitting in a meeting with people who are super-anxious about Covid-19 or worked up about humanity's inability to wear a damn mask correctly (if at all), my thoughts turn to the decisions I make every single day to get on my bicycle and ride somewhere. I wonder what the chances are of dying in a car crash compared to dying from Covid (this is NOT the same metric as the current leading cause of death).
Cars coming up behind me are putting me more on edge now than they were prior to my own rear-ending. I might pull out the rearview mirror and start using it again, even. I'm not sure.
But I do know one thing: people who don't ride bikes all the time do NOT have business trying to tell people who DO ride bikes all the time what they should or shouldn't be doing for safety, unless they are somehow otherwise an expert on transportation safety or associated public health issues.
Also, I was in the local newspaper again yesterday, this time about bicycling, thankfully with a very minor cameo role. Not sure if this version is paywalled.
https://www.timesunion.com/7dayarchive/article/Black-Girls-Do-Bike-encourages-Capital-Region-15462071.php#photo-19775468
Time to go wash cricket dishes.
...back when we lived in the Greater Phoenix Suburb-o-Politan area,
scrottie and I knew of a bicyclist named Ben. Well, actually, we knew of at least 5 guys named Ben, who all rode bicycles, so we had to start issuing nicknames pretty quickly there. (Crazy Ben remains my absolute favorite of the Bens, although I totally lost contact with him after he went on a super awesome bike touring adventure. I probably shouldn't have a favorite, but he was just that kickass.)But there's also Spaceship Ben. Spaceship Ben rode a recumbent, and he earned his nickname because he did, indeed, have an absolutely dazzling array of lights all over his bike, such that his bicycle looked like spacecraft.
He added all of the lights to his ensemble because he, too, got rear-ended, although in his case the driver was going 40 mph and so his injuries were much more extreme.
There's also Dreadfullvegan, who had a hot pink ensemble so that, as he put it, no one could ever get away with saying that they didn't see him.
...
Anytime I am sitting in a meeting with people who are super-anxious about Covid-19 or worked up about humanity's inability to wear a damn mask correctly (if at all), my thoughts turn to the decisions I make every single day to get on my bicycle and ride somewhere. I wonder what the chances are of dying in a car crash compared to dying from Covid (this is NOT the same metric as the current leading cause of death).
Cars coming up behind me are putting me more on edge now than they were prior to my own rear-ending. I might pull out the rearview mirror and start using it again, even. I'm not sure.
But I do know one thing: people who don't ride bikes all the time do NOT have business trying to tell people who DO ride bikes all the time what they should or shouldn't be doing for safety, unless they are somehow otherwise an expert on transportation safety or associated public health issues.
Also, I was in the local newspaper again yesterday, this time about bicycling, thankfully with a very minor cameo role. Not sure if this version is paywalled.
https://www.timesunion.com/7dayarchive/article/Black-Girls-Do-Bike-encourages-Capital-Region-15462071.php#photo-19775468
Time to go wash cricket dishes.
