Should Shawn Bradley's accident make us anxious to ride?
04-04-21, 04:58 AM
#76
Senior Member
When your number comes up, it comes up, regardless of how safe you are trying to be. Over my life I have had some visions of the future which have come true, which means these things were predestined to happen, and would happen regardless of what I did or didn't do.
Recently here in Japan we marked the 10th anniversary of the Great Tohoku Earthquake. I remember that day clearly, and I remember how many of the foreigners working in Japan were terrified by the event. Between the quake, the tsunamis, the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant, many of my foreign friends were frantic to leave as soon as possible. One of my coworkers was sent home from the office because he was too terrified to complete his work, he couldn't sit still, and whenever an aftershock struck (there were many aftershocks) he would flinch as though someone had fired a gun nearby. He flew home to America a week later, and a week after he got home, he was killed in a traffic accident.
Your odds of getting in an accident on a bike greatly increase if you ride a bike. But your odds of dying of other causes, like obesity, diabetes, or heart disease, decrease. You can decrease your risk of getting hit by a car if you choose your cycling routes more carefully, if you keep alert of what is going on around you, and if you don't disable your hearing by listening to music while you ride. After a few decades of cycling, I have been in a few crashes, half of which I could have avoided had I been more careful. I have been hit by cars twice, and while these accidents were the fault of the car drivers, they might have been avoided had I been more watchful. I have become much more watchful since those days, and I have gone some 20 more years of riding without a scratch (knocks on wood).
Recently here in Japan we marked the 10th anniversary of the Great Tohoku Earthquake. I remember that day clearly, and I remember how many of the foreigners working in Japan were terrified by the event. Between the quake, the tsunamis, the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant, many of my foreign friends were frantic to leave as soon as possible. One of my coworkers was sent home from the office because he was too terrified to complete his work, he couldn't sit still, and whenever an aftershock struck (there were many aftershocks) he would flinch as though someone had fired a gun nearby. He flew home to America a week later, and a week after he got home, he was killed in a traffic accident.
Your odds of getting in an accident on a bike greatly increase if you ride a bike. But your odds of dying of other causes, like obesity, diabetes, or heart disease, decrease. You can decrease your risk of getting hit by a car if you choose your cycling routes more carefully, if you keep alert of what is going on around you, and if you don't disable your hearing by listening to music while you ride. After a few decades of cycling, I have been in a few crashes, half of which I could have avoided had I been more careful. I have been hit by cars twice, and while these accidents were the fault of the car drivers, they might have been avoided had I been more watchful. I have become much more watchful since those days, and I have gone some 20 more years of riding without a scratch (knocks on wood).
04-04-21, 05:12 AM
#77
Full Member
Join Date: Apr 2019
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Posts: 490
Bikes: 2022 Priority Coast, 2022 Priority Current
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Live your life! Stop living on the internet and in fear. Do your risk managment while riding.
