Our obese neighbor dropped dead while cutting his grass. My wife, an RN, is glad I ride.

Yeah it is a bit weird and overkill. My wife does not really know about it, I just happened to find it reading small print. If someone is worried it is an option. I find it more interesting what phones do now since these are our first smart phones.

If they are checking the history, then they are likely already in the panic/worst case scenario mindset already.

I phone when I leave my desk and when I get to it. I am usually within minutes of my estimated time of arrival.

Honestly, I think the best thing to do and to tell her would be to make sure that you always carry identification with you so that people can be notified in the event of an accident if you can't give them that info.

Just last weekend, I was hit by a car while out on a ride. While I was generally OK other than some nasty cuts and bruises, had I not been able to give the police my wife's contact information, that would have presented a different story. Stupidly, I wasn't wearing my Road ID, but I will be from now on every single time.

She has come around. I explained to her that most fatal accidents are the cyclists fault (LAB Statistic) This is good news for her in that I know how to ride safely, which is something that very many cyclists do not.

When I started I was more likely to die of a heart attack than I was to be killed by a car. While the risk of death by car has not changed, the other risk has gone way down. This produces a net benefit.

I installed a free app called Life 360 on both my phone and my wife's. It is marketed to parents who want to know where their kids are. It is automatically updated every 15 minutes. I also defined locations - home and work - and a text is sent automatically whenever one of us arrives at either (you can set for departure too). It probably is a bit of a battery suck and could be categorized as an electronic leash too, I suppose.

My wife requested something because I would sometimes forget to text when I got to work and she had no idea of knowing if I had made it okay. It has been kind of handy too when I am expecting to meet her somewhere I can check her progress and vice versa.

She knows my route too. I would say she isn't too much of a worrier overall, but likes to know my expected arrival.

My sister got me this shirt a couple of years ago:

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Riding to work is a bit safer than mountain biking (I think). Both are safer than being a couch potato.

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Seriously, it reminds me of watching the news to find out where crime is happening.

If you watch the news, the you'll find that they only very rarely discuss shootings in the actual ghetto. In the part of the city where it happens all the time, it's not "news".

But in the part of the city that's decent, they'll report every shooting that happens. It only happens once every couple of months, so it's "news". If it happens in the "good" party of the city, damn, they're all over it every time.

For every cyclist killed, there's like 100 drivers. It's not a fair comparison, because obviously there's way more drivers on the road than bikers, but the news reporting gives a horribly skewed idea of the #'s.

I'm glad my family is not always keeping up with where I am! Keep quiet about those apps now.

The N+1 rule also can also apply to spouses. ;)

I just installed the Glympse app, which sends a text and/or email with a link to a map showing my location and real time updates. Because my spouse whined when I worked late one day and didn't text or email. Got home, and the phone was in another room charging and she hadn't checked email so I achieved nothing :rolleyes: It looks like a kind of cool app though.

I waited till my spouse got home before posting again. As it happens, she is blind and does not use a guide dog. Every intersection is potential injury or death. It has never occurred to me to want to keep electronic tabs on her. Nor, she informs me has she ever wanted to keep electronic tabs on me. I do not text her when I get to work nor does she text me. The assumption is always that the trip was without incident. I cannot see a downside to this kind of optimism. Most days one or the other of us will call the other just to say hi. Sometimes not. My sweetie bought me my first hi-viz soft shell and I wore it so much I got another identical one. She got me my second MagicShine. I now have three of them. I rarely use all three at once, but I need a lot of light at night, and in the rain at night I do indeed use all three. In the eight years we've been together I've been down hard twice. Neither involved a car or pedestrian. #1 was a storm drain, and #2 was a ride off the road edge at night. The second MagicShine was a response to the 2nd road incident. If the worst happened she would find out eventually. I think if we were intended to know within 10 minutes everything that happened to our partners then we would become telepathically linked to whomever we had sex with. I am assuming that it is intended for humans to have essential privacy upon becoming adult. FWIW.

H

If you're going to talk about statistics, the research which has been cited here many times is that overall lifespan increases 20:1 for cycle commuters. That is, for every bicyclist life year that is cut short due to a fatal accident, commuting bicyclists have 20 years of healthy life added to their collective lifespan due to the health benefits of cycling.

Yes, there's a risk, but there's a risk in getting out of bed in the morning and one of not getting out of bed in the morning.

The news has gotten ridiculous, really. They get paid to sensationalize and to instill fear in the populace, because fear draws eyeballs to the news.

Violent crime has been dropping for 30 or 40 years at least, it's lower now than it ever has been, yet parents get threatened by CPS for letting their kids ever get out of their sight, whereas 40 years ago kids roamed free and nobody thought anything of it.

I know, I grew up in the "omg you're going to be kidnapped by a child predator!" era. It was rediculous.

There's something more going on behind it. Usually it's about money. I feel like people just keep going to their jobs and don't thin as much about their annoying work environments if they're instead convinced they could be killed and their's no other options.

My poor Wife watched me get hit on a ride. She told me it was the worst thing/feeling she had ever seen and had no idea if I was even alive afterwards. She sold her road bike right away. I sold one of my road bikes to fund the purchase of a CX bike and I have mainly stayed off the roads and stopped going out for regular long rides alone. It has changed our lives. Things that have helped her are time and keeping busy when I am out for any sort of ride. You cannot really change how your spouse feels but you can take an interest in your safety and work through her fears together.

I have a Garmin edge 510 that lets people watch my ride. I have my wife and a few close family members on there so every time I leave the house it emails them and they can keep up with me. I think it's a great idea. If they see me stopped on the side of the road they know either something happened or I have a flat tire.

RoadID now has an app like that ... both for Android and iphone.

Oddly I don't think mine worries all that much. She knows I'm going to ride, one way or another, so there's probably no sense in arguing with me about it. Helps that she's actually seen me a few times in traffic (I was on my way home, she was headed downtown for a work meeting). Also probably helps that MKE is pretty bike friendly.

Your wife has very good reasons to worry. The smartest thing would be to stop commuting. It is to dangerous in the long run. Of course, I know you won't, so just accept it and carry on.

I played with the Glympse app again this weekend (free in the Google Play store). You can set up a favorite, "work to home" for instance, and one button starts it up. It runs in the background and I can start up Strava also if I want. My spouse gets an email and/or text that I'm leaving and can track the ride from a link in the message. It works as advertised!

I wouldn't do that every commute of course, but working late or in severe weather conditions it seems like it would be considerate and reassuring.

I don't know if you're joking, but for the record this is wrong.

This method has actually done quite a lot to settle my wife's nerves. She can see where I am on the route. If something should happen she would know where I am, especially if its a hit and run type situation. The OP is clearly someone who worries about worrying his wife so anything he can do to calm her is worth trying.
Would it really be that big of an inconvenience to send a quick text or call if you were in the same spot for 20 minutes. 3 seconds of my time is worth it to calm the other half.

I use the road id and runmeter app. Runmeter sends a text message to her every 2 miles. She also knows I have my life insurance policy pretty much maxed out at work and another policy at home so she doesn't worry too much. I take precautions and try to ride as safely as possible.

Riding a bike is safer than being in a car. Hard to believe. It's safe if you know what you're doing, which is to say that skill is key.

Cyclists being killed and badly injured are newsworthy because it's not common. We shrug when it happens to people in cars unless it's someone we know. It's all too common.

Show your wife what you know about riding in traffic. Show her some statistics. I don't have them handy. I really should compile and bookmark them.

This post is typical of several in this thread and... ... I don't know... it makes me sad on several levels. I mean... you guys have bought into the whole male stereotype. Life insurance policy... two of them? That's what reassures her? If you get creamed, she will be maintained in the manner to which. Nice. I'd like to ask ALL the men running apps like runmeter: are your wives also using similar apps on their smartphones? If not, why not? Because she doesn't ride in traffic? Weak. Fair is fair. I don't care if she doesn't ride. If you are going to be tracked via your phone, then she should be also.

I would also suggest you give more than passing attention to the opinions of the posters who, like myself, belive that, as cyclists, we are actually at less risk for accidental death and/or dismemberment during a commute. It is, in part, because many of you have tremendous fear and loathing of vehicular cycling yourselves why you so easily accede to your spouses needs for reassurance that you are ok out there.

H

There's no resolution, because every relationship is different.

I could track her phone if I wanted to, with either google location or wheresmydroid. I've never wanted or needed to. The capability does not imply a lack of trust. It's a measure of my trust that I never would without prior agreement, and of her trust knowing that I wouldn't.

With or without a particular location app, isn't it common courtesy to let someone know where you are if you're late and that person is expecting you? What difference does it really make how that information is relayed?

Got a helmet and always wore one since. No one seems to be too bothered, but then again, i kinda do know what i'm doing. ;)

- Andy

My wife is great, she is very supportive of my full-time bike commuting, but she does have some concerns. One time near the beginning I didn't call home before I left work, and when I got home she was crazy because she couldn't reach me at work, and didn't know if I was on the road, or stuck or crashed or injured. So now I tag up before every time I leave work, and she likes that.

Also, I try to share with her information about what I do on my rides to keep safe. Like when we drive by one of my problem intersections, I'll point out "sometimes I'll just get through the intersection and wait at the curb for the light to turn red to hold back the cars so I can change lanes here", or "here is a place where cars have to cross over the bike lane into the right turn lane, so I'm always looking for gaps in the traffic to make sure I can move through, or take extra care to communicate with drivers and watch them close anyways" etc.

Also a good idea as mentioned above to take her on a ride sometime. Preferably a weekend morning when traffic is light...

I had my life insurance before I became a cyclist. It's as much for my piece of mind as it is hers. I also have seizures, but I refuse to sit in the house and hide from the world. I started using a tracking app after my seizures started or she wouldn't even let me take a walk. I expect to be bike commuting 20 years from now. Btw my wife frequently texts me when she's leaving work also. We're pretty good about staying in touch.

I get where you're going, but you're lumping together two things that really shouldn't be. Preparing for your financial future, while it's not something that Americans are particularly good at, is just plain smart. Many spouses have life insurance policies because things happen and the lack of a policy that will help your spouse provide for themselves following your death can translate into a severe financial burden. Losing a spouse is tough enough, but think about adding the potential stress of being forced out of your home because you can no longer float the costs, etc. (And no, I'm not in financial sales at all).

I do agree with you, however, that ideally people should just relax, take precautions that they can and let the chips fall. I was just hit by a car last week. Luckily, the incident was minor as accidents go and apart from some nasty scrapes, I didn't really have any damage and my bike escaped unharmed thanks in large part to my body serving as a shield :) Despite being shaken up by it a little, I thanked my lucky stars I wasn't injured, took to heart some defensive things I might could have done along that stretch to avoid a similar situation and was back out for two rides this weekend.

As the late, great Warren Zevon famously said "Life'll kill you." You might as well have some fun while you're around.

Perhaps she has reason to worry? Bicycling: Relatively Safe | streets.mn

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