fly:yes/land:no

i hope this is not directed towards me...

jwible

No, sorry. Missed the quote.

OiS

Firstly, who would use headphones if they are not riding solo, and riding solo, who doesn't ride at a respectable distance to the side, that whether a car is passing or not would make any difference to your position on the road?

If I looked back at every car about to pass me, I'd have more chance of injury from whiplash than the potential to avoid a car that a) does not see me, and b) is so far on the edge that they would hit me!

Even though when I do ride with headphones, they are at a level that I can still hear most things going on around me. In any case, I cannot recall a single time that I have benefited, from a safety perspective, from having heard something happening behind me.

twobadfish

1) If I am to be hit by a car, I want it to be an utter surprise. In my experience pain is best served that way. That split-second of terror creates a bad association with future riding. Plus I generally like surprises.

2) My Lexus runs on magnetic propulsion so really, good luck hearing that baby purring at 200mph. I'll make mincemeat of you whether you have a bidirectional sound amplifier mounted to your helmet or are wearing a set of Bose noise-cancelling badass gigantic earmuff headphones. In both cases, you're toast.

rufvelo

So the real question would be...do you listen to headphones in your Lexus?

Agave

I bet he does and they play the sound of a blown V8.

rollin

A&s ass

chipcom 

All a driver wants is for you to be predictable...just hold your line, no need for dynamic lane positioning peek-a-boo.

chipcom 

jwible

Go back to the MUP.

Snapperhead

Guessing you smoke and ride with headphones?! Talk about utter fail!

tagaproject6

Base layers /thread!

merlinextraligh

All the posts in this thread from the headphone crowd deal with the situation of a car coming up behind you. However, that's not the only situation where it might be beneficial to hear what's around you. Riding in traffic stuff comes at you from multiple directions, and personally, I'll take advantage of all my senses to improve my odds of dealing with it.

And even in the situation of a car coming behind you, hearing a car behind you may well prepare you to anticipate a right turn hook. Just one example where hearing a car coming can be beneficial.

I don't care what the rest of you do, as long as you don't wear headphones on a group ride I'm doing.

jamesdak 

This simply is not true. I ride in windy conditions quite often where I do not hear approaching traffic. This is on rural roads where there are not that many cars to deal with anyway. And no I don't wear nor think it's safe (at least for me!) to wear earbuds. Since I can't hear traffic all the time I do wear a rearview mirror on my helmet and am checking it constantly. I've had too many close calls, to include idiots purposely swerving and running me off the road as well as actually being clipped by one truck, to take safety for granted. So, believe what you want but I know for certain there are times that I cannot hear approaching traffic.

ID64

No, more like a comrade Putin

achoo

Who says I don't hear the cars until they're 25 feet away? That link I posted lists a passenger car at 25 feet only 3 dB less noisy than a freight train at 15 feet and almost loud enough to start causing hearing loss from extended exposure. How'd you come up with that meaning I can't hear cars until they're 25 feet away?

I at least posted some DATA that no one has even tried to refute, or provide different numbers.

All I've seen is posts saying, "I can't hear cars." That's irrelevant, because I can and do hear them, and I hear them from pretty far away most of the time.

If I had to guess, I'd say there are some who are emotionally invested in not being able to hear cars around them.

Utterly irrelevant as to whether or not you can hear the car or not.

Also completely ignores the fact that no one does an entire ride
hugging the right curb/edge of the pavement. Unless all you do is ride clockwise around the block the moment you get out of your driveway.
Ah, yes. Ad hominem assaults.

You never did answer the question as to where you measured the sound levels of your "damn quiet" Lexus from.

It was from inside the passenger compartment, wasn't it?

Agave

Who be dat?

Aren't most people squashed by turning cars and not overtaking ones anyway?

surgeonstone

I love listening to tunes with earbuds, both in. Never had a situation occur where it made a difference. Analogy with smoking is just lame. Tell me- are the hearing impaired or deaf not allowed to drive/ride? Are there statistics that show they are at greater risk?

7bmwm3gtr

Actually, taking back what I said earlier, maybe cars...even Lexuses, can be heard well...

I mean take a look at this...the car isn't even moving!

ciocc_cat

I wear my sunglasses at night . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2LTL8KgKv8

LesterOfPuppets

Your previous example of the 45mph downhill could've used some more data, like the wind noise at 45mph. Should be around 75 decibels. I'm sure you can hear a car coming and since it's only overtaking you by 10mph you'll have plenty of time to hear it, but if it were going 90 it would pass you just seconds after you hear it over the background wind noise.



I hear cars, but I ride a lot on crowded 4-lane roads, so rarely do anything with the sounds I hear. The ambient sound levels of a busy 4-lane road and wind noise don't allow one to pick out a particular car. Out on a country road they can be heard much sooner. If there are 50 cars within a 1/4 mile of me is the one that's gonna kill me sound different than all the others?

Basically on a busy road you have a base sound level of at least 70 decibels from other traffic and wind noise, a typical car coming from behind you doesn't break that threshold 'til it's right up on you.

If you're on a low traffic country road, different story. If you're rollin' under 25mph wind noise will be relatively low. Other auto noise will be non existent, so you can hear that one and only car within a 1/4 mile of you.

For motorcycle hearing safety, I've heard that hearing damage concerns begin at speeds over 30 mph for riders without their ears covered, but in that 25-30 mph range things are still quite loud even if they're not a hearing damage concern.

Snapperhead

Even if there were such statistics (no idea) would you stop? Doubtful. It’s simply my opinion that sometimes you just don’t need some agency and a boat load of statistics to “tell” you that certain things are not safe. But it’s simply my opinion, and I could be wrong.

bbattle

I prefer to listen to the music playing inside my head.

Snapperhead

Wow, you get music? I just hear voices.

charliekeri

Single stereo earbud, right ear, volume at a level you can still hear behind you. Then again I ride in a pretty rural setting.