A man tried to kill me this morning...

[paaiyan]

This is why I installed a convex mirror on each side-view mirror on my Jeep. A guy in this tiny little import car was riding right in my mirror's blind spot, combined with the sun when I looked over my shoulder, preventing me from seeing him. I almost ran him clean over. I installed those mirrors and I can now see pretty much everything. I can see cars coming up behind me in the two lanes on each side in those mirrors all the way until I can see their front windshields directly out my windows, so my blind spots are gone.

Helmets are good for bikers.

Dome mirrors are good for everyone.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[SC Tiger]

Glad you are okay. Now WEAR A D$%M HELMET!!!!

And quit skipping church.

[Thunder71]

Just have to disagree with the title of the thread, he didn't TRY to kill you.

That said, a bike doing 20mph is hard to see - what time was this at, was it light out? If not, do you have lights on your bike?

[ArkhmAsylm]

Glad you are okay. Now WEAR A D$%M HELMET!!!!

Isn't that what the pancake is for??

[paaiyan]

No no Arkham, I'm the one with the pancakes.

[retsupt99]

Glad you're O.K.!
I know those moments from time on my Harley.

[Tala]

Two thing to consider when riding a bike or a motorcyle...

One...assume that you are invisible and no one can see you...
Two...those that can see you are purposely trying to kill you...

Those two things kept me alive more than once when on my motorcycle.

This applies if you're walking too. I can't even begin to remember all the pedestrians or bikers at night wearing dark clothes walking or riding down the middle of the dang road just ASSUMING that I can see them or will go around them. No lights, no reflectors, nothing to help me out.
I walk my dog at night too, we don't wear lights or anything either, but I always work on the assumption that NO ONE CAN SEE ME. No problems, works for me. I wish everyone else would do that too.

[atctimmy]

For the record this happened about 10:30 in the morning.

[Maltz]

That's not going to help on any crash which is > 14mph and the rider hits his head. Typically the worst injuries come from torquing headstrikes, which a helmet may increase, due to the plastic grabbing the pavement, whereas hair or scalp will promote a pivoting out of the torque.

So, people wearing helmets have injuries that are often made worse by helmets? That's not really a surprise. People wearing seat belts have seat belt-related injuries, too. It's still a LOT better than the type of injuries people who are not wearing seat belts (or helmets, for that matter) sustain.

[nedrgr21]

So, let me get this straight - a slick hard material with curved edges is going to grab onto concrete. Not! Hair and scalp promote pivoting out of the torque - really, where do you get this crap? Skin is very good at grabbing pavement, that's why people get road rash. If a rider's neck can't safely absorb the force of twisting from contacting the pavement, his skull darn sure isn't going to absorb the force of the initial impact without damage. Have an uncle that fell off his bike at a slow speed and hit his head on the pavement - he can't work, can't remember if he's bathed/brushed teeth/etc, orders stuff from TV that he already has sitting in his house, etc.

Also, if people pay attention and don't rush through stop signs/lights, etc bicycles and motorcycles are not near as difficult to see as people claim. The people who are least likely to be in an accident with cyclists are people that ride themselves or have riders in their family. It's not b/c they have better eyesight, but b/c they are acutely aware of the possibility of riders being present. Motorcyclists and bicyclists have just as much right to the road as cars and trucks - respect their space. And yes, slower vehicles (bicycles) should pull over as far as safely possible to let faster vehicles by. I also get pissed at bicyclists riding 2 or 3 across on a winding road - it's dangerous for everyone.

[atctimmy]

So, let me get this straight - a slick hard material with curved edges is going to grab onto concrete. Not! Hair and scalp promote pivoting out of the torque - really, where do you get this crap? Skin is very good at grabbing pavement, that's why people get road rash. If a rider's neck can't safely absorb the force of twisting from contacting the pavement, his skull darn sure isn't going to absorb the force of the initial impact without damage. Have an uncle that fell off his bike at a slow speed and hit his head on the pavement - he can't work, can't remember if he's bathed/brushed teeth/etc, orders stuff from TV that he already has sitting in his house, etc.

Also, if people pay attention and don't rush through stop signs/lights, etc bicycles and motorcycles are not near as difficult to see as people claim. The people who are least likely to be in an accident with cyclists are people that ride themselves or have riders in their family. It's not b/c they have better eyesight, but b/c they are acutely aware of the possibility of riders being present. Motorcyclists and bicyclists have just as much right to the road as cars and trucks - respect their space. And yes, slower vehicles (bicycles) should pull over as far as safely possible to let faster vehicles by. I also get pissed at bicyclists riding 2 or 3 across on a winding road - it's dangerous for everyone.

A couple of points here. Skin doesn't grab asphalt, asphalt grabs skin and it erodes it pretty quickly. Sort of like a cheese grater.
Second, bicycle helmets are made out of pretty flimsy stuff, they're not the same as a motor cycle helmet that are made for much higher speed impacts. The material in a bike helmet is Styrofoam and is doesn't skid over pavement like a hard shelled motor cycle helmet.

[aznav]

Jogging across a narrow road with a stop sign, a guy in a big car was making a right. It never occurred to him to look right since he was going in that direction. I saw it coming and stopped mid stride. His wife was also looking to the left. His back tire missed my toes by a foot (no pun intended). They never saw me. After telling myself what bleeping idiots they were I did the same thing six months later with another jogger. What can I say?

[nedrgr21]

Doesn't really matter what grabs what - the result is the same and I was trying to stay with the perspective of the original statement. I've got a bike helmet in front of me with a plastic shell (which is very slick) over the Styrofoam, which is the trademark name belonging to Dow Chemical for extruded polystyrene, which in turn is what the "EPS" in EPS liner in motorcycle helmets stands for and bicycle helmets as well. The hard shell in a m/c helmet is designed to manage the initial, high crash energy and then the Styrofoam/EPS takes over to help slow the deceleration of a person's head. A bicyclist doesn't need (most of them, anyway) the initial energy management of the hard shell. The median motorcycle crash speed is about 21 mph (Hurt Report) which is not that much faster than the average speed on a road bike so the specs on the EPS btwn the two types of helmets could be very similar.