Plenty of kids are still into bicycles

There may be no law preventing wearing a wet towel over a driver's head and face while driving, but that doesn't mean there is much to fear from people deciding to drive that way just because there is no law prohibiting such behavior.

The knee-jerk reaction (and I emphasize jerk) on BF is from overwrought posters who claim to be petrified and in fear for their lives because of an alleged imminent threat to their well being from alleged hoards of motorists/boogymen they believe are driving down the street/highway blind to their surroundings because they may be legally (or illegally) holding a phone next to their ear, or look at a screen while stopped at a light or in traffic; or because the fearful ones read the claims of this threat from other overwrought posters.

This hyped up "threat" appears similar to the hyped up outrage about bicyclists who supposedly routinely blast through red lights and busy intersection allegedly never looking at all for opposing traffic and create traffic havoc for all.

For sure- it varies depending on location.
All the more reason why the other poster's claim is absurd. What is true in my limited proximity neednt be true everywhere else.

You know the difference between driving with a wet towel on your face and texting while driving (not stopped)? I've seen people holding the phone on the steering wheel while driving on the highway, looking at the screen while driving. Can't say I've seen the wet towel bit.


I love how you insist this is hype and that anyone who claims to have seen this is a liar. Clearly, you are the guardian of all that is right and true.

I still reserve the right to troll the trolls here. I was responding to I Like To Bike's goofy post.

Currently I am maxing out at 2 miles of cycling per day, one or two days a week. And about the same number of posts on BF, mostly in Utility Cycling and Living Car-Free. I still read General Discussion and can't resist the occasional post. I totally avoid Advocacy and Safety since I acquired the Holy Grail of safety (not cycling around cars), as well as Commuting and Touring, since I gave up both of those activities. Unless you call occasionally cycling to work one mile each way through a park "commuting", a total of 2 to 4 miles per week. I don't consider that worthy of the Commuting forum. My bike touring miles have fallen to ZERO over the past five years. Sure I have a ton of touring experience to share, but do not feel compelled to do so. Plenty of good advice given by others on the Touring forum.

My deceased grandmother cycles only 4 miles less than I do every week. I find that amusing. She does type up fewer posts here tho.

Love it as much as your own fabrications? You paraphrase and twist the posts of skepticism about hyperbole and exaggeration of the extent of the threat to cyclists from alleged rampant motorist texting while driving into calling other posters "liars."

If motorists were texting while driving as much as feared by the overwrought petrified posters of BF, the reckless motorists would be eliminating themselves from the driving population through crashing in to objects as quickly as the extinct reckless bicyclists who allegedly routinely "blew red lights" at busy intersection without ever looking at the traffic conditions.

You do understand there's been a steady increase in pedestrian deaths since 2009 after many years of decline, right? Gosh, what's significant about that year? Sure is a puzzler.

This is not a small increase btw, it's a couple thousand deaths per year.

The magic shield around my bike seems to be broken.

I know you love going on and on about strawman arguments you seem to be hearing in your head, but it's a real problem killing real people.

Oh, and btw, Colorado law forbids operating when the driver's view through the glass is obstructed, so it would be clearly illegal to drive with a towel over your face. Nice try. I think pretty much anywhere in the country it would probably be an actual crime of recklessness.

We could debate plausibly about whether hands-free calling is or isn't safer than holding the phone to your ear, but there's no plausible argument that people reading and writing texts while driving are operating safely. I have no idea who in Colorado thought this was a good idea.

Why not blame the rise in pedestrian deaths on climate change or increased racial tensions ? Those issues also get a lot of attention in the media and your bogus deductive reasoning would be just as applicable. Better yet blame it on crumbling infrastructure; pedestrians must be stepping on more cracks in crumbling sidewalks and we all know many people fear that problem.

Note: the reasons (whatever they may be) for an increase in pedestrian deaths are NOT necessarily the same as the reasons for bicyclist injuries/death. The actual reason(s) will not be determined by resorting to hysteria, random anecdotes, biased assumptions or snark.

Your seem unable to figure out the rhetorical device of posting a hypothetical example of people partaking in reckless behavior (towel on face) just because it is not legal was to demonstrate just how foolish is your and another poster's assumption that because such behavior is not illegal, many people ARE driving while texting and hence are oblivious to bicyclists nearby, and therefore deducing that some posters ' fears of hoards of clueless texting drivers mowing down bicyclists left and right are validated.

And you have utterly missed the point that having actually seen people openly engaging in one reckless behavior (texting while driving) when it is illegal and never having witnessed or actually even heard of someone attempting to drive with towel on face is a perfectly reasonable basis to believe that one would be more common than the other if legal. I was just pointing out that even your analogy was based on a false premise--in Colorado, it is legal to text while driving and illegal to drive with towel on face.

BTW, it's also a stupid analogy as the cell phone is a device designed to attract and keep your attention while a towel is a towel. Obviously, there will be more people texting while driving than wearing towels on their face regardless of legality.

The "hoards of clueless texters" is your invention, I get that you're only good at arguing with straw men.