Coroner blames headphones

[Bez]

Right. That's even clearer

You've been riding for five minutes without hearing any cars. You fail to hear a car entering audible range from behind because at the exact same moment a bomb goes off in a nearby building.

If you're distracted (and you probably are) you're distracted by the sound of a bomb going off, you're not distracted by not hearing the car, otherwise you'd have had five minutes of distraction leading up to that point.

So that's a no then.

Yes, it's a no. Because it's the answer to a different question.

[Vorpal]

I notice that nobody has answered my question about whether or not they would encourage their kids to wear ear-phones in the road.
I guess this is because everybody agrees that ear phones are dangerous in traffic.

Not an unreasonable point but there's a difference, which is that kids are still learning how to deal with traffic visually, let alone aurally. Plus pretty much every parent is paranoid about their own kids and will normally take reasonable measures to reduce risk to them as a general policy, and frankly it's not humanly possible to look up research into the realities of every perceived risk. That's why "common sense" is quite acceptable for personal decisions, it just doesn't justify population policy decisions.
.........

So that's a no then.

I don't think that it is reasonable to draw that assumption. If I said I didn't 'let' my children wear ear phones in traffic, it wouldn't necessarily be because I think they are dangerous.

Children have less capability to judge whether something is a distraction for them, and they also have less risk awareness. Part of my job as a parent is teaching them that. So, I will teach them that talking on the phone, using ear phones, listening to music, talking to their friends, or trying to do anything else whilst walking or cycling can be a distraction, and isn't something they should do in traffic. When I feel that they are capable of making such decisions for themselves, I will leave it to their judgement.

So, it isn't because I feel that ear phones are dangerous, but rather that they *could* increase risk, and I'm not sure that my children are yet capable of making the right determination in that regard.

I have similar reasons for not letting my 7 year old do some things that his older sister is allowed to do.

Ear phones are just objects. They can't by themselves, in any way be dangerous.

[Flinders]

If I'm walking, I take off my headphones if I have to cross a difficult junction (such as one I do have to cross which is a 'motorway+dual carriageway+two other roads' roundabout. It does make me wonder if in an accident this would not be noticed, and I'd be blamed for listening to them when I wasn't.

I haven't used them on the bike, though I did once think about a suggestion made here of using them in just one ear (my cycling tends to be in rural, light traffic areas). I do find it is useful to be able to hear things like someone cutting a hedge, or a tanker coming up behind me, so I can be aware of a possible problem even before I could see it and look for exit strategies.

In the car, in heavy or tricky traffic, or if I'm in an unfamiliar place looking for directions, I switch the radio/CD player off. I never have it on at a high volume, either, as I like to listen to the engine in order to drive better. I do use my hearing to add to the picture in my head of what is going on around me. You can often tell people's intentions about overtaking by how hard they are revving their engines, for example.

re the helmet straps thing, I'm told that thicker furry straps are worn round the standard ones to reduce wind noise, not to increase it, so as to be able to hear traffic better. A friend tells me they work. I'm thinking of making some for myself.

On the sad topic of the original post, I find it difficult to see how headphones would have stopped someone seeing a large truck - though some people wearing them do seem to take longer to notice even visual things than those who are not. It seems more likely given the note about brakes that, if I understand the alignments correctly, the cyclist thought she could turn immediately after/alongside the truck but was unable to brake in time to time it correctly, and perhaps had a rear wheel skid when she tried to brake harder.

It seems to me like it is a very sad tragedy where nobody is really to 'blame'.

[Phil Fouracre]

Ear phones are just objects. They can't by themselves, in any way be dangerous.

Wot? You mean like cars and roads?

[Vorpal]

Ear phones are just objects. They can't by themselves, in any way be dangerous.

Wot? You mean like cars and roads?

They only become dangerous when you introduce humans into the equation

[reohn2]

Ear phones are just objects. They can't by themselves, in any way be dangerous.

Wot? You mean like cars and roads?

They only become dangerous when you introduce humans into the equation

Much safer when non humans w-ear them:-

[meic]

If she had been merely deaf she would at least have not had the distraction of music.

That begs the question of whether music is a distraction. Research found that surgeons who listened to self-selected music had better performance, which rather suggests that it can have quite the opposite effect.

maybe for women, but not for men...see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-38289080

That test sounded more like performing while subjected to white noise torture than performing while listening to music. It seems women have a greater resistance to psychological torture than men do.

[Flinders]

I've never gone for that 'women are good at multitasking' stuff myself. I suspect that even if it is the case, it's social conditioning rather than genetics - e.g., women get stuck more often with the daily details of bringing up kids, and usually (though not in this house) do more housework than men even when also doing a full-time job, which means you have to multitask. But that is changing with the younger generation, I think.

They may also get interrupted more often when doing things, because there is a notion in some environments that what women are doing can't matter as much as what men do - just as in measured conversations, men interrupt women far more often than the other way round, but men think they interrupt less- they don't even realise they are doing it, but they think women interrupt more than they do. Also not the case in this house, mind you.

Personally I know that though I can multitask, it means doing all the things worse than if I did them one at a time, so I see no point in doing it.

[thirdcrank]

An issue I've mentioned before is a subconscious feeling among some that because cycling is associated with children, cyclists must be childish. I've experienced this when for example, "on official business" complete with black braid round the neb when somebody was complaining about on-street parking outside his house which was near a recreation ground and at certain times, lots of cars were parked. He was hanging on my every word until I mentioned being a cyclist and he switched to full on patronising mode: "I hope you're not one of those cyclists who ...." Although I'm an approachable sort of a chap, I've had colleagues who were much younger, with significantly less service and of more junior rank talk to me when I've been arriving or leaving work on my bike talking to me as though I were an errant teenager.

I'm trying to figure out your underlying message,could you clarify.

By coincidence, I was looking for something else when I came across this post and realised I had never replied to this. There's currently another thread where there's a comment about the lack of clarity in some of my posts. Here's my belated explanation.

All the World's a stage ... And one man in his time plays many parts.

I was trying to make the point that I've sometimes played two different roles at once. One as a police supervisor - black braid round neb - and the other as a mere cyclist, to be patronised or spoken to like an errant teenager. At the time, it seemed relevant to the victim blaming theme of part of the thread.

[reohn2]

TC
After reading your post that I wasn't clear on,it's now crystal clear what you were saying,apologies for asking and thanks for getting back to me on it.