Originally Posted by
SethAZ
It's a calculated risk. Cycling can improve your fitness and health, improving your overall quality of life. It could also get you killed if some moron runs you over while you're out riding. But you can get run over while jogging, crashed into while you're driving a car, a plane you're flying in can crash. Hell, this one lady (in history) was in her house and she got hit by a meteorite from outer space. At some point you just gotta decide how you want to spend this life and then go for it. I'd rather go while out doing something I really enjoy, then just stay fat and old and die early from heart disease or whatever.
Absolutely spot on right! I’ve faced and won some major battles in my life, I’m trying to do everything I can to maximize my well-being. But I’m not going to sit in a chair and hide my head under a blanket because life has risk.
I was literally about a second or maybe less from a sudden death or serious injury Tuesday evening on my way home from the gym - because some idiot in a minivan driving in the far left lane on a 4 lane (each way) divided highway decided he/she just HAD to get into the drivway of a Home Goods store on the far right, and did a near 90 degree sudden right across all 4 lanes of traffic - on a road with a 55 MPH speed limit. I barely missed a head-on at 55 MPH with the rear passenger side of the minivan - not that I did or even could do anything, it was all instantaneous, timing and luck saved me. Fortunately it was 8:30 at night so traffic had thinned out; I believe I was the only driver seriously at risk of colliding.
I hope that idiot driver doesn’t kill someone just because he/she is too stupid or lazy and inconsiderate to go a 10th of a mile to the next turnaround and loop back through to get to a frickin’ Home Goods. That type of high-speed risky driving maneuver could be justified - arguably - if driver were a cop and he was making that 90 degree high speed right into the ER driveway with his critically wounded partner in the passenger seat. A home decorating crisis don’t really rise to a life or death standard.
But where does any of that leave me? Well ... I can make the best informed choices I can, safe vehicle, drive carefully, and so forth. Which is why I suggested to the OP in his situation to consider some safety gear- if full body armor feels like too much, at least knee and elbow pads. After that, it comes down to fate. Why worry about the unknowable?
But, having heard the same comments last summer, I know how the OP feels, and I see it like this - at 58, he’s a big boy and can decide for himself what level of risk he is willing to accept when performing a legal activity in order to achieve the desired outcome.