Originally Posted by
PatrickGSR94
There are deaf people who do great at cycling. When on a bike one is more exposed to surroundings, and so a deaf person's heightened remaining senses will fare better than when being isolated in a car. I rely on both sight and sound when cycling. However plenty of things work to muffle or drown out sounds, like wind. Sometimes I cannot hear cars around me, but I'm still plenty aware of what's around me because of my sight and helmet mirror.
Ok, I see your point. It's true that deaf people have other senses more developed, so let's agree to disagree on this one, I still think cycling in the open is dangerous for everyone as it is, deafness definitely adds more grief than help.
Moving back to people using headphones, they do not have their senses heightened and are effectively killing their hearing for the duration of the ride.
Take last Saturday for example, I'm riding on the Rickenbacker causeway on Key Biscayne, Fl, roughly 22 mph, I find this guy going in front of me and because that part of the road is a high speed highway where cars often go above the speed limit, I stay behind him for a couple miles instead of trying to pass him. I'm focused on keeping a straight path and also watching the cars on my helmet mirror; we both are riding roughly at the same speed but this guy is starting to slow down so I have to stop pedaling to avoid a crash. Then all of the sudden he stops pedaling altogether and raises from the handlebar, stretches and it's only when he turns back that he realizes I'm back there, a foot from him, scrambling to not crash with his rear, even though I was making a huge scandal with my cassette and my music!! And all of this with cars passing us at 60 mph 3 feet away.
It's a miracle we didn't crash right there. An even bigger miracle is that I didn't punch him in the face when I finally passed him.