Psamathe wrote:My personal opinion is that it is all a balance. Ride one handed and you slightly increase your risk of falling off. How much will probably depend on the individual, road surface, weather, alcohol, state of alertness, etc., etc. So in good conditions then riding one handed might have an irrelevant impact on risk for some. Add other factors and different people will experience different risks. You see these Sky team riders riding without any hands with loads of people and other riders around (after finishing a race) and I assume they are not putting their careers/lives at high risk - maybe because they are experienced at doing this, are full alert, know the road surface is good, have quick reactions, etc., etc. I can't ride no handed for very far atall.
So to guess at what increased risk she was exposed to through her behaviour is difficult particularly when the only source of information is from a newspaper report based on information from her husband who is starting a helmet campaign (and who is relying of reports from her mother).
Ian
We are basing our thoughts on what the woman's family have said. If their reporting of the event is faulty, so are our thoughts about it. My own feeling is that the victim's husband made his helmet comments as a reaction to this catastrophe, and not necessarily with a lot of reasoning. Very understandable. It is a difficult time for him. I wear a helmet and if I went out without it, had an accident and died as a result of not having the helmet I would expect my family to blame me and nobody else for that omission. (I know we can't be sure a helmet would have made a difference here, but that is another point).