Interesting Information

[LisaB]

Wow -- looks like I'm a day late to this party. Helmets do not "improve safety." This seems to be the basis for the guy's argument, and, as most daily-riding cyclists know, all helmets do is protect your head. There are ancillary effects (getting called a dork, having a place to mount your light, etc.), but helmets only do one thing: protect your head. Helmets don't improve safety. These things do:
• Being an aware and experienced rider
• Riding on a low-risk facility
• Riding with aware and experienced facility co-users
• Communicating with your facility co-users with your voice, bell or horn
• Signaling to traffic and obeying traffic laws while behaving in a predictable fashion (i.e. "like a car").

Wearing a helmet just reduces your chances of severe insult to the organ you keep in your skull -- NOTHING MORE. Further, the connection of "bicyclists who wear helmets are more likely to be hit by a motor vehicle" and "I really doubt if it’s necessary to wear a helmet while riding my bike to work on the bike trail" when cars are a factor in the former and are not in the latter... okay, soooo not gonna go there.

The study is spurious at best (the results are observed, not causal). YMMV.

[Kitsune06]

I know cycling police/security officers are far more common these days. Has anyone considered buying a couple unlabled 'official-looking' jerseys and/or jacket (yellow on top with black down under) for commuting?

I know you can legally (in the States) buy clothes that read 'Security' because it's such a general term (and security officers have few or no rights the general public doesn't have)

It might make life a little safer for us out there.

exDH and I had matching jackets that looked a lot like bike-officers' jackets, and we had a *lot* of respect, biking together. ...and we had one drunk student yell "F***ing Pigs!!!" out the window of a BMW. We only wished we could be... then we'd write her smart *** a ticket (or so)