Originally Posted by JoeyBike

No doubt I am one of those persons you refer to, and I realize my posts sometimes look like I am calling the victims "foolish", and this is not the message I am trying to sell here.

My message is this: Just the act of balancing on two wheels is dangerous. i think 100% of us are willing to accept that danger and live with the consequences of performing a circus trick to move ourselves from one place to another. What I wish every single traffic cyclist would do before setting out, or before even making plans to set out on a journey, is to consider human weakness as it pertains to motorists and mesh that knowledge with the kinds of routes, time of day, numbers in a group, and road positioning that they will use during the next bike ride.

^This is pretty much it.

Perhaps every cyclist in the OP group gave their outing careful consideration and did the best they could. I don't know. But I do know cyclists personally who push off without one thought about what they are doing. Same with most motorists of course. We can only change our own behaviors and have no control over what the other folks are going to do. Too many stories of people getting killed on their bikes riding on much more sketchy roadways than the OP bunch. I've done it myself. I know the rationalizations I made. I hope every other cyclist at least gives their next route some thought, and if they decide to go anyway, that's on them. Rest assured that if I get clobbered on a 2-lane 55mph highway that I gave it ample thought and was ready to die when I did it. When i knowingly put myself in harm's way, that's on me. You folks won't have to feel sorry for me. (I hope some would miss me though!)



You know very well this is a silly rationale. Your stair safety is 100% under your control. Your highway safety around motorists is maybe 10% under your control. Maybe more if you ride like I do. Unless you think someone might push you down the stairs unexpectedly. I also think more people fall in tubs and showers than down stairs. No doubt someone here will look up that statistic and let me know.