Bit of a reach i know, but as long as we’re talking about road safety i thought i’d mention this story.
I have a mild but persistent case of Iritis, an eye inflammation. It’s fine it’s kept well under control with eye drops. As part of monitoring it i have to go to my hospitals eye department every six monthes or so just so they can look it over.
Last time i went, they had a new toy with which to examine the eye, some clever laser thing, details aren’t important. Anyway there was some idle conversation and prompted by this i asked the eye doctor, a professor well into his 50’s/early 60’s what the biggest change he’s seen in his career was. Instantly, without a moments thought he replied “seatbelts”. Which were made complusory in the UK in the 80’s. It turns out that before seat belts were made obligatory, that on a weekly basis they’d have some poor devil rushed in who’d gone headfirst through a windscreen in a crash and they’d have to rally round to try and save his eyesight. These were apparently known (in the finest traditions of medical black humour) as “Horrorectomys”, after what someone looked like having been hurled face first through a sheet of glass.
Not an air bag but something very similar left me with a broken nose and a bloody circle around each eye where the frames of the glasses had cut into the skin. The lenses themselves survived and if I recall the frame worked well enough to hold me until a new pair could be acquired. The face itself needed a lot of stitches to repair the impression of the glasses.
I myself was injured badly enough that when I opened my eyes and saw my glasses lying on the ground in front of me with people running around my first response was not to immediately protect them from danger. I suspect long time glasses wearers will realize how telling that is.
Is this riding against traffic an American thing? Some piece of folklore/urban myth got started that it was more safe, and it’s slow to die (unlike those following that advice).
I’ve been cycling in London for over 10 years, i’ve seen the odd person shoot down an empty section of one way road here and there, but i’ve seen anyone cycling against the traffic on a proper road about twice, and one of those times the guy was clearly drunk. It would never have occurred to me to do so, and i’ve never heard any cyclist here suggest it was a good idea.
In the USA our car culture tend to look on bikes as not being vehicles, even though they legally are. As a result some folks think that when they are on a bike they are more a pedestrian than a vehicle and so act like a pedestrian in a road rather than a vehicle - and pedestrians are supposed to walk against traffic.
Once in a while I will see somebody riding against traffic ON AN OVERPASS/BRIDGE! Where do you expect to bail out to if you’re 40 feet in the air with a guard rail to leap over? You’re worried about not being seen so you do something guaranteed to make you invisible until the last possible second…
Everybody rode against traffic when I was a kid. I think they started requiring bicyclists to ride with traffic in the last 70’s. Seemed terrifying and weird as hell at first to have cars sneaking up on me from the rear. But, I’ve gotten used to it and rely on my mirror. I always ride with traffic these days.
I don’t ride on crowed city streets. Too darn many cars. I prefer leisurely county roads out in the country. I may only see one car every half hour.
It’s something I associate with very small children on quiet suburban streets where everyone drives 20mph. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an adult do it in traffic except for bike messengers in DC who enjoy riding like douches.
