Another 'blame the victim' iPod story.

[Hadron Quark]

Mark Thompson <pleasegivegenerously@warmmail*_turn_up_the_heat_to_reply*.com> writes:

>>>> Wearing any form of ear/headphone on a bike is simply stupid. It is
>>>> ridiculous in the extreme to rid yourself of, or diminish, such a
>>>> useful sense as hearing when on a bike. It is always, on a bike as
>>>> in a car, important to know what might be coming up behind you. A
>>>> small speaker on the handlebars, maybe since it is not directly
>>>> blocking audio waves from approaching cars.
>>>
>>> Right on. I've disconnected the car stereo and removed the windows
>>> for the same reason.
>>
>> Did you remove your rear view mirror?
>
> Your point is? Ah, car drivers don't need hearing 'cos they can see what's
> behind them by using the mirror. Was that it?
>
> Cyclists can do that just by turning their head, or using a mirror. Idiot
> cyclists that are careless in the extreme might rely on their sense of
> hearing to tell it's safe to do the manouvre.

You shock me. I'm a cyclist and never really found a mirror soution that
was any good. As for turning, hard to do at speed in traffic sometimes.

Are you arguing that wearing ear plugs is not detrimental to situation
awareness? If so then you're a troll.

Driving a car is not the same thing at all : you have a minimum of a 3
mirror view of behind you. You are generally going at such a speed that
people dont shunt up your backside when actually cruising because they
havent seen you.

 

[davek]

Michael Press wrote:
> As I explained the deaf know they are deaf; therefore they
> have worked at compensatory mechanisms 7 days a week, year
> after year.

So which is the more dangerous cyclist: the one who suddenly lost his
hearing last week after standing too close to the speakers at a death
metal gig, or the one who has been riding with headphones on every day
since the Walkman was first invented c.25 years ago?

d.

 

[Hadron Quark]

[email protected] writes:

> Tony Raven wrote:
>
>> jtaylor wrote on 19/06/2006 13:26 +0100:
>> >
>> > It's clear that cyclists who diminish their capacity to be aware of their
>> > surroundings, and to make themselves visible (and ovbious) to other users of
>> > the highways, are being careless in the extreme.
>> >
>>
>> An archaic view that the victim is responsible for the crimes committed
>> against them.
>>
>> Its a long time since we've blamed victims of rape or racial attacks for
>> the clothing they were wearing and its time we stopped blaming cyclists
>> for not wearing special protective clothing. Do you blame car drivers
>> in accidents for not driving fluorescent yellow cars?
>
> As a cyclist, if you're hit by a car, you are going to come off worse,
> and that is never going to change.
>
> You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to cycle defensively.
>
> Listening to music through headphones simeltaneously distracts you and
> removes one of your sensory channels, thus reducing your ability to
> avoid problems on the road. It's a stupid idea. A 5-year-old child
> could see that it's a stupid idea.

You would think so wouldnt you. There are certain posters here who see
any suggestion as counterprductive to "free cycling". The mind boggles.

I live in a city where cycle paths are very common : and bells are
compulsory on bikes. People with headphones on are always causing bike
accidents because they dont hear oncoming cyclists around the corner and
so forth.

Anyone who defends wearing earphones while cycling is, IMO, quite simply
a bloody idiot.

 

[davek]

Hadron Quark wrote:
> Anyone who defends wearing earphones while cycling is, IMO, quite simply
> a bloody idiot.

Anyone who tries to manoeuvre their way through traffic without looking
behind them to check it's clear, and uses the excuse that "it's
difficult to do at speed", is, IMO, quite simply a bloody idiot.

Think of the children!

d.

 

[Ambrose Nankivell]

Hadron Quark wrote:
> Mark Thompson
> <pleasegivegenerously@warmmail*_turn_up_the_heat_to_reply*.com>
> writes:
>
>>>>> Wearing any form of ear/headphone on a bike is simply stupid. It
>>>>> is ridiculous in the extreme to rid yourself of, or diminish,
>>>>> such a useful sense as hearing when on a bike. It is always, on a
>>>>> bike as in a car, important to know what might be coming up
>>>>> behind you. A small speaker on the handlebars, maybe since it is
>>>>> not directly blocking audio waves from approaching cars.
>>>>
>>>> Right on. I've disconnected the car stereo and removed the windows
>>>> for the same reason.
>>>
>>> Did you remove your rear view mirror?
>>
>> Your point is? Ah, car drivers don't need hearing 'cos they can see
>> what's behind them by using the mirror. Was that it?
>>
>> Cyclists can do that just by turning their head, or using a mirror.
>> Idiot cyclists that are careless in the extreme might rely on their
>> sense of hearing to tell it's safe to do the manouvre.
>
> You shock me. I'm a cyclist and never really found a mirror soution
> that
> was any good. As for turning, hard to do at speed in traffic
> sometimes.
>
> Are you arguing that wearing ear plugs is not detrimental to situation
> awareness? If so then you're a troll.
>
> Driving a car is not the same thing at all : you have a minimum of a 3
> mirror view of behind you. You are generally going at such a speed
> that
> people dont shunt up your backside when actually cruising because they
> havent seen you.

However, that's not a generally common cause of collisions.

A

followups set.

 

[Mark Thompson]

> You shock me. I'm a cyclist and never really found a mirror soution
> that was any good. As for turning, hard to do at speed in traffic
> sometimes.

You shock me. If I need to look behind but it is too hard to do at
speed in traffic I slow down to a speed that makes it easy (don't use a
mirror). You seem tobe saying that you just **trust your hearing and not
look**?

> Are you arguing that wearing ear plugs is not detrimental to situation
> awareness? If so then you're a troll.

There're a couple of things:

- The headphones I use do not block out sound to any appreciable degree.
- The volume is set to a degree that still enables me to hear my
surroundings. - Hearing is useful for knowing when there is a car behind
you. At no point does your hearing enable you to do a manouvre without
properly checking over your shoulder first. - Not being able to hear so
well forces you to check over your shoulder properly; without 'phones
I'm often tempted assume that because nothing can be heard it's clear. -
Being struck from behind is
a) Pretty much unavoidable unless you dive onto the pavement any
time you're overtaken
b) One of the least likely scenarios (it's being T-boned at
junctions that do it)
- Even being completely deaf would add only an insignificant amount of
risk, and may make me safer (no sloppy shoulder checking).

> Driving a car is not the same thing at all : you have a minimum of a 3
> mirror view of behind you. You are generally going at such a speed
> that people dont shunt up your backside when actually cruising because
> they havent seen you.

Being struck from behind is pretty much unavoidable unless you dive onto
the pavement any time you're overtaken, and being run down from behind
is very, very unlikely compared to the other icky scenarios.

In the car you have two blind spots. The car stereo or the windows
being up means you HAVE to check your blind spot because the sound of
other trafic is drowned out so much. Blind spot mirrors are a good aid,
but shouldn't be relied upon (can you see the chap on the m/b? Is there
still a small blind spot he can sneak into? Are the blind spot mirrors
so pathetically small that it's hard to miss things in them? etc).

The biggest difference between car and bike is that if you **** it up in
a car you are very well protected i.e. the risk is borne primarily by
other people.

 

[Mark Thompson]

> I live in a city where cycle paths are very common : and bells are
> compulsory on bikes. People with headphones on are always causing bike
> accidents because they dont hear oncoming cyclists around the corner
> and so forth.

(IMHO) ****THAT IS 100% THE IDIOT CYCLISTS' FAULT!****

Anyone cyclist who relies on someone else hearing a bell and taking
avoiding action, rather than cycling at a speed that will enable them to
stop in time, is quite simply a bloody idiot. Ring the bell, but also be
prepared to stop.

 

[davek]

Mark Thompson wrote:
> Anyone cyclist who relies on someone else hearing a bell and taking
> avoiding action, rather than cycling at a speed that will enable them to
> stop in time, is quite simply a bloody idiot. Ring the bell, but also be
> prepared to stop.

Indeed. Cyclists are quick enough to complain when motorists beep the
horn and expect them to get out of their way.

/Some/ skaters are a bloody menace and seem intent on swerving into my
path at the last possible moment (just what is so wrong with moving in
a straight line, eh?) - this happens frequently as I go through Hyde
Park on my way back to the station in the evening. But thanks to
superior bike-handling skills, including Advanced Use of Brake Levers,
I have not hit one of the sods yet.

d.

 

[Andy Leighton]

On Mon, 19 Jun 2006 16:22:51 +0200, Hadron Quark <[email protected]> wrote:
> I live in a city where cycle paths are very common : and bells are
> compulsory on bikes.

I'm sorry, I thought you lived in the UK. I was obviously wrong.

--
Andy Leighton => [email protected]
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_

 

[Sorni]

Tony Raven wrote:
> Paul Boyd wrote on 19/06/2006 12:27 +0100:
>> Tony Raven said the following on 18/06/2006 08:44:
>>>
>>> When did Lancashire become a US state?
>>
>> Someone's cross-posted this thread to a US group, for some unknown
>> reason.
>
> That someone being jtaylor. Perhaps he could explain his motives.

He doesn't answer simple, direct questions.

HTH.

 

[Sorni]

Hadron Quark wrote:
> [email protected] writes:
>
>> Rick wrote:
>>> There is a large
>>> continuum in the realm of hearing impairment.
>>
>> There is also a large continuum of volunary auditory distraction -
>> from sealed headphones cranked up loud, through open air head phones,
>> through earbuds played quietly, and radios mounted on handlebars,
>> down to whistling a tune while riding, or just talking to a fellow
>> rider.
>>
>> Having tried earbuds a few times on quiet roads, I think the "No
>> earphones" proclamation is unnecessarily strict.
>
>
> Wearing any form of ear/headphone on a bike is simply stupid. It is
> ridiculous in the extreme to rid yourself of, or diminish, such a
> useful sense as hearing when on a bike. It is always, on a bike as in
> a car, important to know what might be coming up behind you. A small
> speaker on the handlebars, maybe since it is not directly blocking
> audio waves from approaching cars.

So just because you can't walk and talk at the same time (forget chewing
gum; it's probably DANGEROUS), that means that the rest of us are reckless
to do so?

Ear Nazi.

 

[Sorni]

Hadron Quark wrote:

> Are you arguing that wearing ear plugs is not detrimental to situation
> awareness? If so then you're a troll.

He trolled.

 

[Sorni]

jtaylor wrote:

> The greatest danger to cyclists by far is bad driving by those in
> motorized users of the highways; in a collision with one of them, a
> cyclist is at great risk of severe injury or death. While this risk
> is, in absolute terms, small, it is practically indefensible. No
> helmet, body armour, etcetera, will do anything to protect a cyclist
> should he or she be struck in a manner sufficient to cause such
> injury.

So stay in bed quivering under the covers.

Problem solved.

BS

 

[Sorni]

[email protected] wrote:
> Tony Raven wrote:
>
>> jtaylor wrote on 19/06/2006 13:26 +0100:
>>>
>>> It's clear that cyclists who diminish their capacity to be aware of
>>> their surroundings, and to make themselves visible (and ovbious) to
>>> other users of the highways, are being careless in the extreme.
>>>
>>
>> An archaic view that the victim is responsible for the crimes
>> committed against them.
>>
>> Its a long time since we've blamed victims of rape or racial attacks
>> for the clothing they were wearing and its time we stopped blaming
>> cyclists for not wearing special protective clothing. Do you blame
>> car drivers in accidents for not driving fluorescent yellow cars?
>
> As a cyclist, if you're hit by a car, you are going to come off worse,
> and that is never going to change.
>
> You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to cycle defensively.
>
> Listening to music through headphones simeltaneously distracts you and
> removes one of your sensory channels, thus reducing your ability to
> avoid problems on the road. It's a stupid idea. A 5-year-old child
> could see that it's a stupid idea.
>
> For those who choose to ignore this reality, remember that the moral
> high ground is not much good to you or those who survive you when
> you're dead.

Do sock puppets even HAVE ears?

 

[Sniper8052(L96A1)]

Rick wrote:
> Sniper8052(L96A1) wrote:
>
>>Rick wrote:
>>
>>>Sniper8052(L96A1) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>jtaylor wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>"p.k." <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>>>>news:[email protected]...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>wearing an i-pod and allowing it to distract you is an unwise thing to do
>>>>>
>>>>>on
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>a bike
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Wearing anything that uses headphones while cycling is careless by
>>>>>definition.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Let us not forget there are deaf drivers and cyclists who use he roads
>>>>every day, are they careless by definition?
>>>
>>>
>>>But the hearing impaired are used to the nuances of living without, or
>>>with fewer, aural inputs. Those who are not hearing impaired usually
>>>are less used to compensating with other senses. I lost a good deal
>>>of my hearing in SE Asia in the early 70's, and it took me quite a
>>>while after returning to train my mind and body to use what hearing I
>>>had left along with other senses to get along. There is simply NO
>>>comparison between someone who lives with impaired hearing and someone
>>>who temporarily blocks their hearing.
>>>
>>>- rick
>>>
>>
>>
>>Dependent on what? I agree that in general terms a hearing impaired
>>person will have greater visual skills. I do not agree that the
>>difference is so marked as to sufficiently impair the normal
>>observational information of a hearing person using an I-Pod since
>>auditory information has the least input into the 'driving/observation'
>>panorama.
>
>
> But you cannot know. Having been on both sides of the fence (excellent
> hearing going down to seriously impaired, I can say that there is a lot
> of information being gathered via auditory inputs ... far more than you
> suspect. Without having learned how to compensate for that loss, the
> person who temporarily blocks/lessens their hearing is at a
> disadvantage.
>
> - rick
>

So, you think that I will be able to hear a vehicle approaching me from
behind whilst travelling at 20mph on my bicycle? IME I receive
virtually no warning of vehicles approaching from behind until they are
so close that they are passing me. As speed increases up to my max of
35mph wind noise makes it impossible to hear any thing other than well,
wind noise.
My ears are designed to locate noises mainly from in front of me where I
gather my visual information from. I appreciate your position on this
but I cannot agree with your conclusions despite your being an 'expert
witness'.

Sniper8052

 

[Sorni]

Hadron Quark wrote:

> Anyone who defends wearing earphones while cycling is, IMO, quite
> simply a bloody idiot.

Since you added "IMO", unlike many other "fact staters" around here, there's
no quarrel with your comment. (It's bloody wrong-minded, /IMO/, but you're
free to be mistaken. :-D )

 

[Sorni]

Michael Press wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Andrew Price <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 18 Jun 2006 19:35:54 GMT, Michael Press <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Audio cues are too important to ignore.
>>
>> So how do the deaf manage?
>
> As I explained the deaf know they are deaf; therefore they
> have worked at compensatory mechanisms 7 days a week, year
> after year. Some yahoo straps an audio field distorter
> over himself and trundles on obliviously.

Ear bud users know they have ear buds in their ear(s); therefore they have
developed "compensatory mechanisms". (IOW, they're used to it.)

> Do you know exactly what my remark was addressed to? It
> was to the suggestion that other cues are more important
> than auditory cues, and (implicitly) therefore
> unimportant.

Once more, with clarity?

 

[Hadron Quark]

Mark Thompson <pleasegivegenerously@warmmail*_turn_up_the_heat_to_reply*.com> writes:

>> You shock me. I'm a cyclist and never really found a mirror soution
>> that was any good. As for turning, hard to do at speed in traffic
>> sometimes.
>
> You shock me. If I need to look behind but it is too hard to do at
> speed in traffic I slow down to a speed that makes it easy (don't use a
> mirror). You seem tobe saying that you just **trust your hearing and not
> look**?

No I didnt seem to be saying that at all : I am saying that wearing
earphones on a bike is a bloody stupid thing to do as it affects your
peripheral vision/awareness.

>
>> Are you arguing that wearing ear plugs is not detrimental to situation
>> awareness? If so then you're a troll.
>
> There're a couple of things:
>
> - The headphones I use do not block out sound to any appreciable
> degree.

Yes they do. If the music is on. Sorry.

> - The volume is set to a degree that still enables me to hear my
> surroundings. - Hearing is useful for knowing when there is a car behind
> you. At no point does your hearing enable you to do a manouvre without
> properly checking over your shoulder first. - Not being able to hear
> so

Agreed.

> well forces you to check over your shoulder properly; without 'phones
> I'm often tempted assume that because nothing can be heard it's clear. -
> Being struck from behind is
> a) Pretty much unavoidable unless you dive onto the pavement any
> time you're overtaken
> b) One of the least likely scenarios (it's being T-boned at
> junctions that do it)
> - Even being completely deaf would add only an insignificant amount of
> risk, and may make me safer (no sloppy shoulder checking).
>
>> Driving a car is not the same thing at all : you have a minimum of a 3
>> mirror view of behind you. You are generally going at such a speed
>> that people dont shunt up your backside when actually cruising because
>> they havent seen you.
>
> Being struck from behind is pretty much unavoidable unless you dive onto
> the pavement any time you're overtaken, and being run down from behind
> is very, very unlikely compared to the other icky scenarios.

Turning to make eye contact gets you noticed. Even without eye contact
you register on the tired drivers consciousness.

>
> In the car you have two blind spots. The car stereo or the windows
> being up means you HAVE to check your blind spot because the sound of
> other trafic is drowned out so much. Blind spot mirrors are a good
> aid,

You have to check your blind sport regardless of sound. But a blind spot
isnt the issue when just cruising : you need to keep an eye in mirror - a
good driver *always* knows whats behind him.

> but shouldn't be relied upon (can you see the chap on the m/b? Is there
> still a small blind spot he can sneak into? Are the blind spot mirrors
> so pathetically small that it's hard to miss things in them? etc).
>
> The biggest difference between car and bike is that if you **** it up in
> a car you are very well protected i.e. the risk is borne primarily by
> other people.

I see you chose to snip relevant examples of why earphones were a stupid
idea.

 

[davek]

Hadron Quark wrote:
> I see you chose to snip relevant examples of why earphones were a stupid
> idea.

He kept in the best ones.

d.

 

[Hadron Quark]

Mark Thompson <pleasegivegenerously@warmmail*_turn_up_the_heat_to_reply*.com> writes:

>> I live in a city where cycle paths are very common : and bells are
>> compulsory on bikes. People with headphones on are always causing bike
>> accidents because they dont hear oncoming cyclists around the corner
>> and so forth.
>
> (IMHO) ****THAT IS 100% THE IDIOT CYCLISTS' FAULT!****
>
> Anyone cyclist who relies on someone else hearing a bell and taking
> avoiding action, rather than cycling at a speed that will enable them to
> stop in time, is quite simply a bloody idiot. Ring the bell, but also be
> prepared to stop.

I wouldnt disagree. How does this defend deafening yourself with
headphones? Not at all.