Headphones while commuting

pmorgan1

All, appreciate if you help me understand 2 things that I have failed to grasp so far.

1. How do people commute by bike while wearing headphones? I thought a significant part of road awareness comes through the ears.

2. How some cyclists overtake stationary cars/buses without glancing back and checking one's 3-6pm sector?

Oh well there's also the fixies with no brakes, but that's a subject of a separate thread

Pep

pmorgan1 wrote:

I thought a significant part of road awareness comes through the ears.

Everything else being the same, using headphones makes cycling not as safe as not using them.
It's your life at stake, you makes the choice, you are not accountable to us. But perhaps to your children, sposue, parents...?

pmorgan1 wrote:

2. How some cyclists overtake stationary cars/buses without glancing back and checking one's 3-6pm sector?

It's your life at stake, you makes the choice, you are not accountable to us. But perhaps to your children, sposue, parents...?

junglist_matty

Sometimes I listen to music whilst riding and sometimes I don't.
Generally I wear earphones in the winter when it's dark and cold because it gives me a bit of motivation to keep riding on, without music, these rides are just a drag and not really all that enjoyable.
In the summer when it's warm and the sunlight hours are plentiful it can be quite nice to just listen out for the nature around you and enjoy your surroundings.

But then I hardly ride anywhere in a city because urban riding is totally sh*t.

drummer_boy

The Darwin awards have got to get their entrants somehow!!

Seriously though, I might try bone conduction headphones, but anything other than that on the open road is just suicide waiting to happen!!

pmorgan1

I live in London where commuting in central streets is bumper to bumper, squeezing between lanes and traffic light to traffic light. When I see ppl wearing headphones keeps making me wonder

junglist_matty

Drummer_Boy wrote:

on the open road is just suicide waiting to happen!!

Why exactly?

A very tallented UK cyclist who is deaf and rides on open roads without being able to hear traffic :roll:

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid ... %20cyclist

drlodge

pmorgan1 wrote:

All, appreciate if you help me understand 2 things that I have failed to grasp so far.

1. How do people commute by bike while wearing headphones? I thought a significant part of road awareness comes through the ears.

2. How some cyclists overtake stationary cars/buses without glancing back and checking one's 3-6pm sector?

Oh well there's also the fixies with no brakes, but that's a subject of a separate thread

Such things are done by stupid people.

Last week I saw a fat bloke on a Boris bike, no helmet, wearing headphones and jumping red lights. I mentally gave him first prize in the Darwin awards.

pmorgan1

And what about fixies with no brakes?

alimaysports

It also perplexes me why cyclists like to cycle whilst listening to music in their ears. I was nearly run over by one these cyclists who wasn't paying attention!

drlodge

pmorgan1 wrote:

And what about fixies with no brakes?

That's plain stupid.

iPete

Indeed fixies without brakes is daft but they don't seem to get squashed so must have some level of skill.

As for headphones, I rode for years with music in 1 ear. I've only stopped because it was causing me issues. It's a bit daft to think you can't ride safely with music. I tend to shoulder check more with music.

drummer_boy

junglist_matty wrote:

Drummer_Boy wrote:

on the open road is just suicide waiting to happen!!

Why exactly?

A very tallented UK cyclist who is deaf and rides on open roads without being able to hear traffic :roll:

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid ... %20cyclist

To me there is a very large difference between someone who has a permanent disability, and has developed mechanisms to stay engaged with their environment, and someone who deliberately distracts themselves, and probably does not have the same appreciation how how dangerous it can be out there, or what is going on around them.

Being deaf is an absence of sounds, playing music is a positive distraction tying up one of your senses. I'm sure if we had ipods back in prehistoic times a lot less of our ancestors would have survived being stalked by sabre tooth tigers and what have you :-)

apreading

Oh dear, not another one of these threads...!

Yes, it is obviously less safe than riding without but then so is driving with loud music in a hermetically sealed box, especially while having a conversation with someone sat next to you and even more so with screaming kids in the back - just about anything you do adds a level of distraction so you just choose what your comfortable level of distraction is.

I VERY rarely do it, and actually I think last summer was the last time and then only the very odd occasion and only on rural roads. I found my headphones didnt block all sound and I could hear albeit obviously not as well. I found I was always paranoid and looking behind because I wasnt sure if I detected the faint sound of a car but usually there was nothing there.

Most of the time I just have tunes running round my head, which has the added benefit that I can mentally change the tempo to match my desired cadence - I have got quite good at that - some of the tunes that the old noggin jukebox plays are a bit strange though!

chris_bass

just out of curiosity, can anyone name a time when hearing a car made them safer? Or hearing a car meant it didnt hit them?

apreading

Chris Bass wrote:

just out of curiosity, can anyone name a time when hearing a car made them safer?

Tuesday.

Hearing a car behind me told me not to pull out into the centre to turn right yet and on another occasion provided extra warning of cars proximity when merging in with another lane of traffic.

Thats not to say that I would have crashed wearing headphones, I would have made extra effort to compensate and been more cautious.

I have no axe to grind with people wearing headphones and as said above on rare occasions have done so myself but you cant possibly maintain that you dont have more awareness without them.

chris_bass

apreading wrote:

Chris Bass wrote:

just out of curiosity, can anyone name a time when hearing a car made them safer?

Tuesday.

Hearing a car behind me told me not to pull out into the centre to turn right yet and on another occasion provided extra warning of cars proximity when merging in with another lane of traffic.

Thats not to say that I would have crashed wearing headphones, I would have made extra effort to compensate and been more cautious.

I have no axe to grind with people wearing headphones and as said above on rare occasions have done so myself but you cant possibly maintain that you dont have more awareness without them.

So you would normally change lanes without looking?

Just for the record I don't wear headphones but don't see why you shouldn't

apreading

Chris Bass wrote:

apreading wrote:

Chris Bass wrote:

just out of curiosity, can anyone name a time when hearing a car made them safer?

Tuesday.

Hearing a car behind me told me not to pull out into the centre to turn right yet and on another occasion provided extra warning of cars proximity when merging in with another lane of traffic.

Thats not to say that I would have crashed wearing headphones, I would have made extra effort to compensate and been more cautious.

I have no axe to grind with people wearing headphones and as said above on rare occasions have done so myself but you cant possibly maintain that you dont have more awareness without them.

So you would normally change lanes without looking?

Just for the record I don't wear headphones but don't see why you shouldn't

No, but a look is often a quick glance - Looking behind means that you arent looking in other directions, so you split your time and make compromises. Hearing allows you a continual sense of what might be there, in case you missed something, someone suddenly pulls out or changes lane and also gives an early warning before the point at which you might normally look.

Underscore

Chris Bass wrote:

just out of curiosity, can anyone name a time when hearing a car made them safer? Or hearing a car meant it didnt hit them?

Yes. Last summer I was riding along a 30/40 limit road approaching a point where there was an island in the middle of the road. Just as I reached the island, I heard a car skid a little behind me so I moved as far to the left as possible to give them as much room as I could if they couldn't slow down enough. Fortunately they didn't need that space, so they wouldn't have hit me had I not heard them, but I do feel that hearing the car did make me safer (though,with a ton of metal and plastic skidding towards your rear wheel, that is a relative term!)

_

chris_bass

Underscore wrote:

Chris Bass wrote:

just out of curiosity, can anyone name a time when hearing a car made them safer? Or hearing a car meant it didnt hit them?

Yes. Last summer I was riding along a 30/40 limit road approaching a point where there was an island in the middle of the road. Just as I reached the island, I heard a car skid a little behind me so I moved as far to the left as possible to give them as much room as I could if they couldn't slow down enough. Fortunately they didn't need that space, so they wouldn't have hit me had I not heard them, but I do feel that hearing the car did make me safer (though,with a ton of metal and plastic skidding towards your rear wheel, that is a relative term!)

_

so you heard a car that wouldn't have hit you then? not sure if that counts!

iPete

Are we assuming that you can't listen to music AND hear a skidding car?

thistle_

Are you talking about headphones (old things that go over your head) or earphones (that just go in your ear)?

With earphones I find I can hear cars approaching from behind just as well as I can without. I'm not sure how loud people have their music on so they can't hear vehicles approaching. Wind noise masks the sound of motor vehicles significantly more than earphones in my experience.

chris_bass

thistle (MBNW) wrote:

Wind noise masks the sound of motor vehicles significantly more than earphones in my experience.

I find this too, I do have quite a high fiber diet though!!

slowbike

Chris Bass wrote:

just out of curiosity, can anyone name a time when hearing a car made them safer? Or hearing a car meant it didnt hit them?

I dunno about "safer" but it allows me to make decisions on how I'm going to ride.
Eg.
small engine approaching behind, you know it's a car - and then being a driver as well I can judge if I think there's enough room for them to safely overtake and either move out if it's marginal or hold my line if it's not.
big engine approaching behind, you can guess it's a lorry/bus - knowing your route means that sometimes you can help them get past you - eg pulling over just before a hill where an HGV or bus cannot overtake you, but small lorries & cars can.
hear a tractor approaching behind you and you've got a whole load of options ...

On narrow single track roads where cars cannot safely pass without a cyclists assistance, being able to hear it approaching before it's on you can give you time to get to an appropriate place to allow them to pass.

If you can't hear them it's not the end of the world - but being able to hear them opens up a whole load of options you wouldn't have otherwise - and some of the time it's helped build a good relationship (quite often see the same vehicles during the commute) which results in vehicles giving me more space when they do pass - so in that regard it has an indirect positive effect on safety.

Oh - thinking about safety and space on overtakes - I wave at colleagues as they pass in their cars on the way to/from work (it's only 1 - sometimes 2) - every time I've done this, the next car has given me more space than usual.... perhaps waving at cars gives you more space!

Underscore

Chris Bass wrote:

Underscore wrote:

Chris Bass wrote:

just out of curiosity, can anyone name a time when hearing a car made them safer? Or hearing a car meant it didnt hit them?

Yes.
[...]
Fortunately they didn't need that space, so they wouldn't have hit me had I not heard them, but I do feel that hearing the car did make me safer (though,with a ton of metal and plastic skidding towards your rear wheel, that is a relative term!)

_

so you heard a car that wouldn't have hit you then? not sure if that counts!

Sorry, I read your question as either safer *or* not hitting them rather than safer *and* not hitting them. Hearing the car allowed me to take action that made me safer.

Also, for iPete's benefit, the question only asked about hearing a car. It did not ask for a judgement on whether I could have still heard it with headphones, nor did I offer one.

Given that the earphones that I own are the in-ear type that seal the ear canal, it is likely that I would not have heard it but I assume that people who do ride with ear phones do so with more appropriate ones!

_

drlodge

Underscore wrote:

Given that the earphones that I own are the in-ear type that seal the ear canal, it is likely that I would not have heard it but I assume that people who do ride with ear phones do so with more appropriate ones!

Yeh, quite a big difference I expect between in-ear phones that reduce outside noise, and open-backed phones that allow sound through. IMO wearing anything that reduces your chances of hearing something makes you less safe and is therefore daft.

chris_bass

Underscore wrote:

Sorry, I read your question as either safer *or* not hitting them rather than safer *and* not hitting them. Hearing the car allowed me to take action that made me safer.

But if it wouldnt have hit you if you had moved or not, how were you safer? thats all i meant!

like i said, i don't wear headphones so I'm not trying to defend them as such. I think hearing a bus coming up behind you or a car waiting behind and then going down a gear in preparation to overtake can only be a good thing whilst cycling. But as long as you take a bit of extra care looking over your shoulder I don't think headphones lead to certain death like some people seem to think!

guinea

Has anyone got a link to any injuries caused by wearing headphones on a bike?

I occasionally do it on long training rides and would like some actual evidence to help me make up my mind.

There is never any evidence used in this debate. Has anyone got some?

squired

Surely it depends on the roads you are riding on and the volume?

I'm not a user of headphones when riding, but if I'm commuting in London I know that 95% of the ride to work I will have a car in front of me, one next to me and one behind me. Being able to hear them or not will make absolutely no difference. Having said that, back when I had a car I found it very hard to concentrate while driving when people tried to turn the volume on the car stereo right up. As a result, I could imagine a similar level of volume where it will affect concentration while cycling. So, that would be my issue rather than just the act of wearing headphones when on the bike.

johnpercival80

i use headphones on my commute everyday but.... i can still hear a car skidding or a horn i don't have them blasting in my opinion thats all you need to hear,

d10brp

Easy. I use Aftershokz Bluez and have Italian road bike mirrors installed on both my bikes. Next question.

Juddlinski

I wear headphones and listen to a soundtrack of random car noises. Now that I come to think of it, it's really annoying.