Top seven most common (absolute) beginner mistakes

[Mono]

On 5/4/2023 at 6:02 PM, mrelwood said:

Who’s into word games now? The driver didn’t look with necessary detail.

As I wrote, this is a very important detail: if the driver looked but did not see the EUC with the rider sitting, which is the likely scenario, it would be effective to make the EUC or the rider more visible to prevent the accident. I suspect, for example, a bright headlight would reduce the chance to be overlooked in the mirror at least by some 85%, possibly even much more, even at daylight. If, as you wrote, the driver didn't look (kinda unlikely), a headlight would do nothing.

On 5/4/2023 at 6:02 PM, mrelwood said:

do speeds of more than 25km/h automatically determine that he wasn’t riding in a safe manner?

No. The obvious rule is that the speed must be adjusted to the situation. Speeds that, like in this scenario, predictably lead to a head on crash resulting in injuries with a probability above 1:1000 are unsafe, not even close to safe.

On 5/4/2023 at 6:02 PM, mrelwood said:

US riders seem to be pretty unanimous about speeds lower than the rest of the traffic being unsafe.

And they are unanimously wrong when claiming that riding faster to match traffic is safer  Driving a car does not make someone an expert in car traffic safety. Additionally, the US American track record on road safety is pretty abysmal in terms of first world standards.

On 5/4/2023 at 6:26 PM, redsnapper said:

@Mono - I am trying to understand your perspective - is it that helmets/gear are useless?

From a transportation policy viewpoint and for casual cyclists, I strongly suspect the answer is yes.

On 5/4/2023 at 6:26 PM, redsnapper said:

and people should therefore use only other (behavioral,etc.) means to stay safe?

Casual cyclists should use other means, right, regardless as to whether they use a (mostly useless) helmet. Just as a "stupid" example, a bright headlight is probably a considerably better protection against brain injuries than a helmet. So, if you have 130 bucks to invest on a bicycle, buy a headlight (and a good dynamo) instead of a helmet.

On 5/4/2023 at 6:26 PM, redsnapper said:

  i don't think anyone believes helmets allow riders to operate without considering other non-gear related safety considerations.

Sure, but "without considering" and "with less consideration to" are two very different things. I think it is almost inevitable to get less worried about head injuries when wearing a helmet. This lesser worry may well influence decisions being made the wrong way.

On 5/4/2023 at 8:27 PM, conecones said:

Let's do another thought experiment:
Scenario 1 - Rider posts about getting hit by a car, suffers serious injuries. Rider also states that no gear was warn.
Community response: "OMG, you're a dumb shit for not wearing gear. WTF where you thinking? You could have died. Next time wear gear you bozo!

Scenario 2 - Exactly the same as Scenario 1, except Rider states that they were fully geared up.
Community response: "OMG, thank goodness for that gear. What gear did you wear? Where can I buy it? Have you tried this other ABCXYZ brand?? I have it myself, love it, makes me feel so safe and saved me multiple times. Wish you speedy recovery! 

So f***ing true.

On 5/4/2023 at 8:27 PM, conecones said:

Asking questions about what lead up to the collision almost always starts an argument about assigning blame. 

Yes, it's such a terrible habit, it is in effect hurting people. I started to avoid discussing the real reasons because I just don't want to take the shitstorm.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Mono

[OldFartRides]

Ah,…..never mind.

[conecones]

1 hour ago, Cerbera said:

 

I think it's more that people have accepted we are in the 'power age' of EUCs, where speed, performance and torque are valued above, or at least developed before the sort of safety and redundancy we are just beginning to see in wheels now, so gearing up to the max is merely sensible prevention and pre-planning. Yes, it is 'expecting to fall' to some extent, but that is not an unreasonable expectation to have for anyone who rides with any degree of regularity, or is willing to trust an early batch machine.

I think we DO see a lot of this behaviour in BMX and MX particularly - very rare I see one of those guys not geared up to the very max... and the sheer range and cost of snowboarding armour / accessories seems to suggest it is a thing there too. People just wanna do mad things, and try not to get hurt while doing them, and I can't really blame them for that.

I'm not really referring to the guys testing cut out speed of batch 1 wheels - I totally get the requirements there.

I'm concerned about the newbies showing up to group rides wearing $2000 in MX gear, on a wheel that goes way faster than their skill level, trying to keep up with the experienced riders. In the past, high speed on bad roads was a good skill check to keep riders in their respective groups, but now with these big suspension wheels a 2 week old rider can go 60km/h+ easily - they have no idea what it's like to step off the wheel at that kind of speed and all that gear will do is save you from some scrapes, bones are still going to break. 

Edited May 4, 2023 by conecones

[Planemo]

16 minutes ago, conecones said:

I'm concerned about the newbies showing up to group rides wearing $2000 in MX gear, on a wheel that goes way faster than their skill level, trying to keep up with the experienced riders. In the past, high speed on bad roads was a good skill check to keep riders in their respective groups, but now with these big suspension wheels a 2 week old rider can go 60km/h+ easily - they have no idea what it's like to step off the wheel at that kind of speed and all that gear will do is save you from some scrapes, bones are still going to break. 

Well said. That combined with the sheer weight of the top end wheels and very few riders having the skills to stop them properly adds up for a nice catalyst of pain if even the slightest hazard comes their way. I doubt many new-ish riders could stop quicker than a decent pushbike, the obvious difference being that pushbikes aren't generally doing 50mph+. Further, I'm not aware of any 50mph vehicle that anyone can step in/on without a driving licence and therein lies the problem - way too many EUC riders out there now with shocking road awareness, many without any formal driving experience of anything except a skateboard/pushbike. What could possibly go wrong?!

[redsnapper]

I will continue to wear a helmet for the reasons I already mentioned (and cuz my wife & kids will not stop hounding me about it)... But I must applaud the very civil and considered arguments being made on this issue! Bravo to all - complex issues reside in the greys - seldom reducible to binary choices. Many good points from multiple perspectives worthy of consideration. Some of @Mono's counter-intuitive perspective (gear affects rider behavior and can lead to more injuries, etc.) is captured in this article :

https://blog.scienceborealis.ca/bike-helmets-protect-your-head-from-injury-but-theres-a-catch/

 

Quote

Bike helmets protect your head from injury, but there’s a catch

 June 22, 2020  Science Borealis

Share this:

FacebookTwitterLinkedInPartager

Katrina Brain, guest contributor

If you ever fall off your bicycle, you’ll want to be wearing a helmet. If you’re in a bike accident, a helmet could reduce your odds of a head injury by about 51 per cent, and reduce your odds of a fatal head injury by 65 per cent. This makes wearing a helmet seem like a no-brainer (pun-intended). After all, cyclists are vulnerable road users. Cars, other cyclists, pedestrians, and poorly designed biking infrastructure can all lead to crashes, even for the most cautious cyclist.

In Canada, from the mid-90s until 2012, an average of 74 cyclists died every year following a bike accident, and estimates show that only 17–33 per cent of these accidents were the cyclists’ fault. Some parts of Canada have responded to these fatality rates by creating helmet use policies: eight of the 13 provinces and territories have helmet laws that require either minors (under 18 years old) or all ages to wear helmets when they’re riding a bike. But with such convincing evidence on the benefits of wearing a biking helmet, why doesn’t every province and territory (or every country, for that matter) have a helmet policy? Because there’s a catch….

Eight provinces (and zero territories) have mandatory helmet policies. Image by Katrina Brain, used with permission.

 

In cycling, there is safety in numbers. If there are a lot of riders on the roads, drivers expect to see them and are usually watching for them. But helmet laws decrease the number of people who cycle, sometimes by 30–51 per cent, making it more dangerous for those who do ride a bike. If there are fewer cyclists, there is also less incentive to improve cycling infrastructure, which is another important part of cycling safety. So while on an individual level, it probably makes sense to wear a helmet, forcing everyone to wear helmets isn’t necessarily safer.

This surprising paradox means that there is a lot of published research on bike helmet policy. A 2013 study specifically looked at cycling-related head injuries in Canada before and after helmet legislation was implemented. The study found that helmet laws alone weren’t enough to affect hospitalization rates in a way that was statistically significant. Cyclist fatalities and head injuries were already going down when the Canadian helmet laws were put in place, and they’ve continued to do so. And while head injuries have decreased by a greater margin in places with helmet laws, they haven’t decreased by enough to rule out other influencing factors, like improved bike lanes.

Helmets may have a few unpleasant side effects on an individual level as well. Some research has found that cars pass closer to cyclists who are wearing helmets, giving them much less space on the road. While this alone probably isn’t enough of a reason for cyclists to stop wearing helmets, most serious cycling head injuries involve cars, so it is a definite cause for concern.

Another counterintuitive impact of helmet wearing could be ‘risk compensation’ – cyclists who are wearing helmets feel safe and protected, making them more likely to take risks on their bike. Risk compensation is often discussed in the academic research, but it’s hard to prove if it actually exists because it’s difficult to measure.

Helmet laws create other policy conflicts as well. British Columbia’s mandatory helmet laws for all ages posed a challenge when Vancouver first tried to introduce a bike share program (helmets were technically provided with each shared bike, but many were stolen and there were worries about pests like lice). Some cyclists in Nova Scotia, which has a similar mandatory-helmets law, are against the policy because they see it as a barrier to getting a bike share program, and getting more people biking.

 

Toronto has a thriving bike share, but these programs are much more difficult to create in places with mandatory all-ages helmet laws. Image from SamuelStone on Pixabay, CC0

Public health concerns compound the issue. Conditions like obesity, heart disease, and cancers are growing public health concerns and cycling regularly offers some major health benefits. One study found that over five years, people who commute by bicycle have a 41% lower risk of death from any cause, a 52 per cent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, and a 40 per cent lower risk of dying from cancer when compared to people with non-active commutes. If helmet laws deter people from cycling (by as much as 30–51 per cent), many people may miss out on the health benefits that come from getting outside and active on a bicycle. For that very reason, some places like Saskatoon have voted against introducing bike helmet policies, because they don’t want to deter people from becoming physically active.

Despite the evidence that might point away from helmet policies, a 65 per cent reduction in fatal head injuries for helmet-wearers can’t be ignored. Apparently, trying to make an evidence-based decision about bike helmet policy would require prioritizing some facts over others. So, what is a policy maker to do?

In this case, there doesn’t seem to be a ‘right’ answer. This means that decisions about which evidence to use to make policy are values-based. If you were a policy maker, would you value the public health benefits of cycling, and prioritize keeping more cyclists on the road? Or would you value the safety of a (possibly smaller) group of cyclists, and prioritize better outcomes for them in case of a crash? Would you try to straddle the two options by providing helmet education programs instead of a law, like in Quebec and Saskatchewan? Or, would you try a different approach altogether and focus on creating better bicycle paths? In the case of bike helmets, making a policy that is evidence-based is a lot more complicated than just gathering all the data

Regardless of helmet-policies, I put on my helmet every time I get on my bike – I feel vulnerable without it. And I think you should probably put on your helmet, too (odds of a fatal head injury reduced by 65 per cent? Yes, please!). But do I think that all of the provinces and territories should adopt all-ages helmet policies? Based on the available evidence on the subject, I really can’t say.

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by redsnapper

[mrelwood]

 

12 hours ago, conecones said:

Legalizing EUC's everywhere bicycles are allowed with a fair low speed limit 25 or 32 km/h opens the door for riders to buy insurance. Regarding the speed itself, it should be set low for two reasons: 1) Matches existing infrastructure designed for bicycles/scooters. 2) Matches existing/already established laws regarding e-bikes/e-scooters.

There are a few catches though. Bicycles are free to ride much faster than 25km/h, and considering that it commonly takes a considerable amount of effort to get back to speed, they often try to keep their speed in situations where it would be advisable to slow down momentarily. 25km/h is still too fast for EUCs to pass pedestrians at close range or approach a low visibility corner, so rider assessment is required anyway.

 This is of course largely environment dependent, but where I live there are a very large amount of dead straight bicycle roads with perfect visibility and zero crossings. Limiting EUCs or bicycles to 25km/h impairs usability much more than it brings benefits compared to for example 35km/h.

12 hours ago, conecones said:

a point that often gets missed/dismissed: Protective gear changes people's riding habits.

This was discussed a few pages back.

 Every sane human being determines their courses of action based on the apparent risk level. Slack lining is an interesting activity at 50cm height, but if the line was tightened at the tops of two sky scrapers, sane people would not try it without a safety system of some sort in place.

 Wearing gear changes the risk tied to riding an EUC, so it is only natural that it would affect how, where, and how fast one rides. I don’t leave our yard without gear, because for me riding an EUC in public, faster than 20km/h, or for longer than a few minutes exceeds the risk threshold that I’m willing to take without gearing up. So I would be a safer rider without gear, because I wouldn’t ride. I’d use a car instead.

That doesn’t imply that I should ride without gear though.

12 hours ago, conecones said:

seems like the typical opinion is to prioritize gear above all else. It's almost like some kind of fetish. You don't see this kind of behaviour in other extreme sports such as BMX freestyle, MTB Downhill/Freeride, Snowboarding, etc.

I don’t hang out at BMX or DH forums so I don’t know how people there talk about gear. But I have never seen a DH rider at any skill level either in public or in videos that didn’t wear a full-face helmet.

12 hours ago, conecones said:

An experienced (bicycle) rider usually ends up with less gear than beginners overall, so there is a definite difference in mentality.

As is to be expected. Bicycles don’t get cutouts, can’t be overleaned, don’t get death wobbles, and won’t immediately crash in case of a flat tire. 

 

11 hours ago, The Brahan Seer said:

The best thing we can do is imagine no one ever sees us

I believe that to be a best approach as well, and do my best to follow it at all times.

 

11 hours ago, Mono said:

I suspect, for example, a bright headlight would reduce the chance to be overlooked in the mirror at least by some 85%

I know for a fact that it wouldn’t. The problem with bright headlights is that human eyesight has zero ability to assess the distance of a single spot light source. So far Inmotion is the only EUC manufacturer to limit the headlight pattern upwards so that it would prevent this from being an issue. And 85% of wheels aren’t Inmotions.

A few years ago at night we saw a bicyclist with a good headlight approaching at a considerable distance. I thought it was still far away when the bicycle all of a sudden passed us. The person I was riding with said the same, she couldn’t see the bicycle approach either despite (or because) the bright headlight.

A headlight is usable for visibility only if it’s pointed at the road, and the glare towards others eyes is prevented. EUC headlights are very far from that, Inmotions excluded.

11 hours ago, Mono said:

The obvious rule is that the speed must be adjusted to the situation.

I definitely agree. But he problem is that even as perfectly safe of a rider as you make mistakes in assessing the situation and determining a suitable speed. Therefore other means must exist.

11 hours ago, Mono said:

Speeds that, like in this scenario, predictably lead to a head on crash

The rider definitely didn’t predict the car to make a U-turn.

Either way, all that we have to go with are a short description of the events from the rider himself. We are in no place to assess the events or to determine what should’ve been done differently.

11 hours ago, Mono said:

I think it is almost inevitable to get less worried about head injuries when wearing a helmet. This lesser worry may well influence decisions being made the wrong way.

I agree, it’s inevitable that it affects the choices one makes, due to the risk assessment I wrote about above. But to turn this around to say that it would mean riding without helmet to be safer is pretty twisted in my opinion.

 If condoms disappeared from the face of the earth, it would surely decrease the amount of sex people would be having. Less sex = less STDs and unplanned pregnancies. But this definitely doesn’t mean that sex without condoms would somehow be safer.

[Mono]

On 5/5/2023 at 10:42 AM, mrelwood said:

The rider definitely didn’t predict the car to make a U-turn.

IIRC, he wrote explicitly "or something". If a U-turn-"something" is a >1% chance and if not being visible is a 33% chance, it is a >1:300 chance to get severely injured which seems an extremely good reason (to me) to slow down. If a rider (a) can't very reliably predict all "possible" ways of how vehicles may end up at a direct collision course (like a car may make a U-turn) and (b) value their physical well-being, then in such scenarios they better don't ride an EUC at 40km/h ever. That's just a sad fact of the world, irrespectively of how we wish it to be.

On 5/5/2023 at 10:42 AM, mrelwood said:

I know for a fact that it wouldn’t.

How exactly did you establish "the fact" that a bright headlight would not reduce the chance that a sitting rider on an EUC is overlooked in a car mirror (by at least some 85%)?

On 5/5/2023 at 10:42 AM, mrelwood said:

The problem with bright headlights is that human eyesight has zero ability to assess the distance of a single spot light source.

Right, a single headlight doesn't provide reliable distance information. The implication that single headlights hence don't improve visibility and prevent accidents is however completely wrong.

On 5/5/2023 at 10:42 AM, mrelwood said:

So far Inmotion is the only EUC manufacturer to limit the headlight pattern upwards so that it would prevent this from being an issue. And 85% of wheels aren’t Inmotions.

I didn't mean to say one must use the built-in headlight though, obviously one should use an headlight as effective as possible, ideally the best available. Motorcycle gear also doesn't come with the EUC for free. I am still positive that pretty much any headlight increases visibility and decreases the probability to be overlooked, but we are already used to disagree over trivial matters.

On 5/5/2023 at 10:42 AM, mrelwood said:

A few years ago at night we saw a bicyclist with a good headlight approaching at a considerable distance. I thought it was still far away when the bicycle all of a sudden passed us. The person I was riding with said the same, she couldn’t see the bicycle approach either despite (or because) the bright headlight.

That's how you know for a fact that single headlights don't increase visibility and reduce the chance to end up in an accident by a significant margin?

On 5/5/2023 at 10:42 AM, mrelwood said:

[...] even as perfectly safe of a rider as you make mistakes in assessing the situation and determining a suitable speed. Therefore other means must exist.

This is called wishful thinking. It makes me think of talking to someone who wants to balance on the handrail of their balcony in the fourth floor (the free fall speed from 10m is 50km/h) and put motorcycle gear because they know they will sometimes (not often though, maybe every other year) fail to balance and fall to the wrong side.

I do make mistakes, regularly and usually without any consequences. I embrace my close calls to learn from. My most consequential mistake was on a bicycling where I broke my hand (entirely my mistake). I was really lucky in a few close calls on the motorbike, mostly above 60km/h. On the EUC, my margin of error for life changing injuries is probably below 1 in 1 million trips. I estimate this from the cycling data we have, from my falling history, and from comparing my behavior to other cyclists.

On 5/5/2023 at 10:42 AM, mrelwood said:

If condoms disappeared from the face of the earth, it would surely decrease the amount of sex people would be having. Less sex = less STDs and unplanned pregnancies. But this definitely doesn’t mean that sex without condoms would somehow be safer.

Right, that may be because sex can't be made safer by slowing down 

The data tell us that the policy of abstinence is not a solution to preventing STDs or unplanned pregnancies (IIRC, it actually has the opposite effect), and the data tell us that the policy of wearing helmets is not a solution to cycling safety. In both cases a policy doesn't lead to the effect we expect from the direct and seemingly obvious mechanism. It's a strange world.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Mono