BIKE: Re: not-fatal accident on 360

[Patrick Goetz]

Lane Wimberley wrote:
> 
> tomorrow after visiting a specialist. Jay related how he didn't hear 
> the car coming and only realized something was wrong when everything 
> went slow motion as he was flying through the air."
> 

With some trepidations, I've actually been wearing a bicycle helmet for 
recreational road biking, however, this accident points clearly to one 
of the problems with helmet usage:  I can no longer hear cars coming up 
behind me since I've started wearing a helmet  It's quite unsettling to 
be biking down a quiet rural road and suddenly have a giant, noisy 
pickup blast by completely unanticipated.  There's something about how 
the wind passes through the air vents that greatly attenuates sounds 
from the rear (and perhaps otherwise).

Note that my helmet usage is for road biking only!  Bicycle helmet usage 
in an urban context are dangerous, unwarranted, and very likely directly 
responsible for the order of magnitue higher bicycle fatality rates we 
have in this country compared to those places where no one wears a 
helmet; but that's a whole other post.