Quote Originally Posted by ddeand View Post
The "cause of accident" discussion is basically irrelevant.
The most you can do is protect yourself, to some extent, from the outcomes of the event, and that protection is based on a sliding scale that each individual determines.
AlmostTrick wrote:
Discussing the cause of crashes is extremely relevant for those who wish to avoid them.
The most we can do is study, and learn from previous crashes and the situations that lead to them.
I absolutely agree that studying the causes of crashes can help mitigate the frequency or severity of those crashes. The studying, though, comes after the fact of the incident. Again, by definition, a crash or accident is not a planned incident and can occur regardless of the precautions taken based on the study of crashes. A case in point would be the advent of seat belt laws in automobiles - the use of seat belts has reduced the number of deaths and injuries in crashes, but it has not necessarily eliminated crashes (there has been slight reduction of crashes over the past decade). The safety measures only help protect the individual in the case of the crash. I place bike helmets in the same category as seat belts in that they help generally mitigate the severity of damage that can be caused in crashes. My premise stands - accidents (unplanned events) and crashes will happen regardless of how much we study the causes of those accidents. Thus, we need to determine our individual level of proactive behavior (wear a helmet, wear pads, don't ride at night, ride only on bike paths, quit biking) until we reach a comfort/safety level that is tolerable.