Quote Originally Posted by han-grrl
my rant

Aero bars should be used for RACING ONLY! Personally i think they should be banned for non race use. People get pretty complacent when they are in the aero position and they can't quickly manoeuver if someone is in front of them.
Han-grrl, feel free to rant against those that are known to be in the aero position in inappropriate situations and I’ll do it with you, but I was told that in the case I related above, the person was simply tooling through town on his way back from a training ride and did everything he was supposed to as a conscientious cyclist (with hands off the aero bars). One does need to train for races and would need the bars available once the rider is in the country. Also, people who ride ultra distances/randonneurs find these bars beneficial as do those with wrist/hand problems.

We don’t know about the Corvallis case but since the average cyclist doesn’t use aero bars, we can speculate that the pedestrian was killed by someone without them. Weight, speed, articles being carried on the bike plus the pedestrian’s lack of weight, speed, fragility to start with, etc. all go into play in such accidents. I can easily imagine a large rider slamming and knocking me to the ground hard enough to sustain severe head trauma or worse, all without aero bars involved.

This is the same argument that is used against SUVs. Defensive driving and riding when around others is always best. Otherwise we need to ban pick-up trucks, semi-trucks, buses, etc.