Same thing with bicycle helmets and seatbelts in cars.

This might be closer to the mark:

Under the risk compensation theory, helmeted cyclists may be expected to ride less carefully; this is supported by evidence for other road safety interventions such as seat belts and anti-lock braking systems. Anecdotally, many riders report feeling safer with a helmet: "When I wear it, I feel safe..." One researcher randomized his helmet use over a year of commuting to work and found that he rode slightly faster with a helmet.

Motorists may also alter their behavior toward helmeted cyclists. One small study from England found that vehicles passed a helmeted cyclist with measurably less clearance (8.5 cm) than that given to the same cyclist unhelmeted (out of an average total passing distance of 1.2 to 1.3 metres).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#Risk_compensatio...

According to John Forester, being struck by an overtaking car is among the least likely bicycle accidents, even though it is the rationale used to justify mandatory bike lane usage. http://www.johnforester.com/

His book, Effective Cycling is a great way to improve bicycle safety.

Reminds me of Neal Stephenson's character whose strategy for bike safety at night was to assume he was wearing reflective clothing and that everybody in a car would be paid a million dollars to kill him.

Another strategy is to actually wear OSHA-certified hyper-reflective clothing, such that the anyone would assume that a driver who hit him must have been paid a million dollars to do it.

A friend of mine does this, he has a whole closet full of orange and silver sweatshirts that he wears every day. Last time he got hit by a car was years ago, but when the cops showed up they took one look at him and arrested the driver before he'd uttered a word.

Would only work in the US.

Here in England, everybody wears that terrible neon reflective stuff every time they leave the house. Bicycle optional in many cases. They have no shame here.

The downside is that it makes me comparatively less easy to spot.

Another strategy is to assume the drivers are wearing hyper-reflective clothing and that you've been paid a million dollars to hit them. Someone try that out and report back.

What Neal Stephenson book was that? Zodiac?

Yep, it's a description of Sangamon's method for dealing with the nightmare of Boston traffic.

I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the book or the character - I do remember perfectly the gas-masked fish on the cover of the mass-market paperback, though.

His book is a mixed bag. His thoughts about how to ride are good, but his conclusion in favor of wide curbside lanes and against bike lanes did lots of damage, as many locales/planners used his book as justification for not putting in bike lanes. This thinking was difficult to unwind. Of course bike lane use shouldn't be mandatory, as they aren't in California at least. I don't know any cyclists here who aren't grateful for the great bike lanes we have, thanks mainly to good codified, standards for their implementation. [I think I read his book 20 years ago :-)]

The closest I've ever been to being killed on a bicycle was in a traffic configuration where the presence of a bike lane completely upset the rules of the road. It was in Gainesville, Florida which has bike lanes everywhere and where drivers are familiar with people using them.

While I appreciate that some people favor bike lanes, in my experience riding in the traffic lane as a vehicle is safer than accepting secondary status in a separate lane. And the technique is not dependent on infrastructure...and saying, "But California does it," won't help the cause in most places. [I bought the book about 20 years ago, recently returned to it now that I'm teaching my son to ride]

In addition research has shown that cars drive closer to people with helmets than they do to people without them.

Do you have any citations for that? I'm not doubting you, but genuinely curious (and ambivalent about helmets).

There seems to be a pervasive attitude in the US that if you're a cyclist hit by a car when you're not wearing a helmet, you're automatically at fault, because you're not being responsible. Which is weird, because the risk isn't coming from the bikes...and there's a good chance that it makes cycling seem more dangerous that it is, which makes cycling more dangerous (by making safe cycling techniques more obscure, making it less likely that drivers know how cyclists are likely to behave, etc.).

As a data point: I've been in two collisions in eight-ish years of cycling as my primary transportation (in and around Grand Rapids, Michigan). The first time resulted in a skinned knee and elbow, the second time a bad mood, a bent wheel, and a hurried (but passed) Islamic history exam.

I don't think urban cycling is particularly risky, once you know what you're doing. I feel more in control cycling than when I'm driving on ice (physics!), and I've been driving here for a decade. (Fixed-gear bikes are particularly stable on ice, though.)

Can't remember the name but an experiment by a prof from UCL showed that cars approached him more closely when he was wearing a helmet - but they gave him more space when he was wearing a long blonde wig. So the safest solution is a transvestite without a helmet.

Oddly, I can't remember the name either, but I'm almost certain I've read the same study. Let me know if you find it first. ;)

Edit: Secondary source, still working on the primary - http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/653/blonde-wigs-safer-hel...

Edit': Got it - http://drianwalker.com/overtaking/

American drivers' attitudes may differ from UK/Austrailian drivers', especially regionally (i.e. rural Texas vs. New York City). I'm curious how drivers would behave around bikes with a (scientifically fake) baby / child seat, with a man or a woman riding.

My experience (in the urban midwest) has been that most drivers are agreeable as long as you ride predictably (not weaving erratically, running red lights, etc.), but drivers high on testosterone should be given space - whether it's a red car full of teenagers with something to prove or (in my worst case) a skeezy, ponytailed, balding 40-something man with a considerably younger woman in his convertible. That guy tailgated me for over a mile on a clear two-lane street, trying to prove something (?). I turned off just to let him have his stupid moment and get on with my life.

Places I have lived where more people cycle the drivers have a better attitude. Cambridge, Amsterdam and Vancouver are great to cycle in, London reasonable, smaller industrial cities where cycling is rare = terrible

I used to commute on a motorbike and the cars to be very careful of were: SUV with mom in the front and a kid in the back, BMW with guy wearing suit, hot hatchback with 4 teenagers in - you just gave any of those a wide berth!

Yeah, but wearing a transvestite is really uncomfortable.

This is why I hate people quoting sociology studies. A comparison between wearing helmets and wearing long blonde wigs gets summarized as:

> research has shown that cars drive closer to people with helmets than they do to people without them

I've taken to just assuming any surprising result from sociology is bullshit unless I really trust the source or have thoroughly investigated the methodology.

Even better is concealing your helmet under a long blonde wig.

This conversion isn't automatic at all, though.

Helmets turn fatalities into head injuries but also head injuries into non-head injuries. You need the real statistics for each case before making a judgment.

Also, a metal helmet has the obvious problem that there's no damping for an impact. A Styrofoam helmet absorbs shock.

Styrofoam helmets. That made me laugh.

I'm not talking theory but facts. Metal helmets increased head injuries substantially, and reduced bullet and shrapnel to-the-head fatalities substantially.

Also, you've evidently never seen a real metal helmet, which has plenty of damping. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Helmet

The M1's predecessor, the Brodie also had a padded lining: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B0036C0MXY/ref=dp_ot...