> I'm good at not falling off my bike. The biggest thing that concerns me is drivers...
I think this is a good way to frame it for those who ~~are anxious about riding~~ don't regularly ride bikes. It's really easy to ride safely on your own once you learn the intricacies of riding on two wheels. Bikes are hard to tip over if you know what you're doing. It's the introduction of large machines with the means of generating immense amounts of kinetic energy with very little human input that things start getting complicated. In fact this applies for the introduction of electric bikes and scooters, too. So many times I have seen new riders on shiny new e-bikes accidentally shock themselves four meters forward because they aren't used to the throttle. Imagine if they're waiting behind a cyclist, or at a stoplight, and they push either themselves or a cyclist in front of them into the flow of traffic.
I would be interested to see hard data but I suspect "one-person" bike injuries are much less prevalent and dangerous on average than those involving at least one cyclist and at least one motor vehicle (including e-bikes).
"Less prevalent" seems unlikely, from the large number of accidents I'm aware of among myself and peers, maybe 25% have involved motor vehicles? Sure, they tend to be the more serious ones, but certainly if you do any sort of regular off-road recreational riding (esp. MTB) you're almost certainly going to come off quite a few times with no other vehicles involved. But I don't know how well my own observations extrapolate to the population as a whole - I suspect a large percentage of bicycle falls never get reported/recorded anywhere anyway.
Helmets are required around construction sites for health and safety. That's not an argument to require helmets for pedestrians. Any particular activity can be particularly dangerous, and you can mandate safety gear for that activity, but that has absolutely no bearing on stuff outside of that activity.
And I agree that MHL laws should be more flexible, and not just a blanket "you must wear a helmet at all times while on a bicycle" statement, which is what it is in Australia.
I was driving to work one day and there was a bicyclist far ahead of me, alone.
I have no idea what happened but the gentleman flipped the bike and took a tumble right over the handlebars. No visible road debris, road wasn't wet, bicyclist wasn't doing anything silly.
I stopped and luckily he was fine (he was wearing a helmet) but seemingly for no reason, a bicyclist ate pavement.
Wheel could have gotten stuck in a recessed light rail line, pothole, or gouge in the road. A stick or shoelace could have become tangled in the front wheel and arrested its movement.
For what it's worth, I did the same thing once without a helmet on (it was a rail line and my front tire got perfectly stuck) and made it through with only a scraped knee. So we're 1-1 on anecdata.
I think this is a good way to frame it for those who ~~are anxious about riding~~ don't regularly ride bikes. It's really easy to ride safely on your own once you learn the intricacies of riding on two wheels. Bikes are hard to tip over if you know what you're doing. It's the introduction of large machines with the means of generating immense amounts of kinetic energy with very little human input that things start getting complicated. In fact this applies for the introduction of electric bikes and scooters, too. So many times I have seen new riders on shiny new e-bikes accidentally shock themselves four meters forward because they aren't used to the throttle. Imagine if they're waiting behind a cyclist, or at a stoplight, and they push either themselves or a cyclist in front of them into the flow of traffic.
I would be interested to see hard data but I suspect "one-person" bike injuries are much less prevalent and dangerous on average than those involving at least one cyclist and at least one motor vehicle (including e-bikes).