[QUOTE=Maelochs;22327748]....if someone rams me from behind ....... usually there is extreme carnage, as there is in almost every bicycle crash ...
The usual consequence of a bicycle crash is that everyone picks themselves up and gets back on the bike. If extreme carnage were the usual outcome cycling would be illegal. Why people who believe what you believe continue to ride is beyond me.
Rammed from behind is not what happens. The whole point of drafting is the two riders are matched in speed. And close. The rider behind would not be taking shelter in the front riders draft if he had some kind of hyperdrive that allowed instant ram speed. What does go wrong is overlapped wheels, then lateral movement. It takes a lot of stupid to make that happen, but it does. And is a good reason for riders who don’t know each other to not draft. But it is a completely different accident from the imagined terror.
Wheel contact drills are stupid. They do happen, a few persist in that. I did that just once. Coach made me the target. And didn’t bother telling me. My beef was mostly that Coach was taking money from his pupils and should not have been involving me in a commercial enterprise. First couple times one of the pupils hit my rear wheel I thought I had hit a twig or a pebble or maybe a tiny pavement blemish. When the knocks continued I started to wonder what sort of mechanical problem this might be. The whole exercise was totally not dramatic. No terror.
Of course the rider behind should announce. I draft far less than formerly because when I announce the most common response is no response. Because the person I am speaking to can’t ride and talk at the same time. That is not a good person to ride with. If they just passed me and are going 1/2 mph faster than me drafting is kind of automatic. Most of them can’t ride a straight line, can’t make a steady pace, are way too erratic for me to want their wheel. So either I hit the brakes and hope they will pull away (half will pass and then fade) or pick up the pace and drop them. The momentary drafting is just another traffic situation. It happens.
Most following too close accidents happen at low speeds in heavy traffic. Doesn’t have to be fast to get messy. The real world accidents again are completely different from the imagined horrors. Stop living in a world of imaginary problems.