Your point about how you yourself behave when riding with headphones is well-taken.
Nonetheless, your claims about reduced risk of accident when not wearing a helmet are misleading. The referenced two studies do not draw such conclusions. One of them acknowledges such claims in other studies but doesnāt make a definitive claim one way or the other, the other just suggests that people who are engaging in more risky cycling disciplines tend to wear a helmet. But that doesnāt mean that if people racing bikes stopped wearing helmets they would be safer.
I felt compelled to add clarification, but youāre right that this may well be off-topic. No hard feelings one way or the other.
Iāve used headphones for solo rides and commuting and training in London for over a decade. Only time I donāt is if I join others in a paceline or on a clubride.
I have hearing issues on what would be the traffic side so rely heavily on my eyes when riding, donāt ever see an issue with it (no pun intended). Often find Iām more aware of my surroundings with earphones than without, as wind noise plays havoc with my sound perception.
I use some cheap but bloody good Ā£20 Taotronics bluetooth earphones from amazon. Pretty amazing sound and decent battery life (~4hrs) given the almost throwaway pricetag.
Iāve ridden with headphones for about fifteen years. I keep the volume reasonable so I can hear people and vehicles if I need to. Any vehicle interactions Iāve had were ones I saw coming and was able to adjust for. If I canāt see it coming, odds are Iām in trouble either way. If I hear something coming behind me and think I need to avoid them, Iām instinctively going to turn and look, and Iām probably getting nailed either way. I ride very defensively, always assuming that the car is going to do the one thing I donāt want him to do (turn in front and cut me off, roll through the stop sign/light, etc.), staying as far right as possible and if I need to move left even a foot or two, I check back.
If Iām in traffic, I at least go single ear if not removing them altogether. If Iām riding with a group, I donāt even pack them. I also donāt wear them under my TT helmet if Iām practicing with it because that one covers my ears already, making it harder to hear.
Solo? Pretty much every ride. Iāve never seen it as a safety issue, probably because Iāve adapted how I ride over the course of time and experience.
Iāve seen people riding the shoulder on highways with giant Beats over the ears headphones to the point where they couldnāt hear me when I was shouting right next to them. Thatās not cool at all.
These are the same ones Iāve been using for more than two years now. I had issues with them running on a treadmill where the sweat wasnāt evaporating, but other than that Iāve had zero issues with them. The sound quality is great, especially at $20 or whatever they are.
Iām confused - why would my wearing earbuds (either 1 or 2, either ear, and at any volume) have any bearing on a court case against a driver who hit me? Do my earbuds make me harder to see? Did my earbuds make it impossible for the driver to wait until it was safe to pass? Did my earbuds force the driver to run a stop sign or right hook me? The answer to all of the above is obviously NO. If I was riding erratically and swerved out into a lane just as a car was trying to pass me - guess what - thatās not the earbudsā fault, thatās my fault for not holding my line, and what I had stuck in my ears has nothing to do with it.
Additionally, this idea that you can somehow hear the car thatās coming from behind (with wind noise in your ears from your own movement), and decide if itās a threat, in time to do anything about it, is a little bit of a stretch, in my experience. At any rate, youād have to turn your head and look to be sure, so why not just make a habit of looking behind you? By some of the logic Iāve seen here, Iām assuming that a lot of people on here ALWAYS drive their cars with their windows down and radio off so they can hear just a little bit better, as if it makes a difference. Pretty sure thatās not the case in reality though.
Bottom Line - I enjoy listening to music, audiobooks, podcasts, etc. when Iām doing my solo rides, and my doing so does NOT make it my fault when cars take unsafe actions.
I use headphones all the time, I can still hear cars and motorbike (when in Europe or Asia there is a lot of moped there) and I double check all the time, I know people says is not safe but I have been doing this since the last 20 years or so I have been riding
Put me in the Bone Conduction crowd. I got a set of Trekz Air from AfterShokz about 6 or 7 months ago, and they were game changers for me. I can hear music and everything else going on around me. Itās hard to explain, but if you remove your āfocusā from the musicālike when talking to someone elseāit sort of fades into the background, almost as if itās not there.
That said, I also ride with a Varia Radar for a little extra awareness of cars behind me, but with the Trekz Air I still have plenty of audible notice before a car shows up right on my ass too. Itās the best of both worlds.
I canāt say enough good things about AfterShokz stuff, honestly.
I use the AfterShokz as well and they are nice. However I get distortion if my phone moves around too much in my jersey pocket. Not sure if I need to reset the connection or whatā¦
Love my Coros helmet tooā¦used to use in ear headphones but its been getting too dangerous where I live. The bone conducting doesnāt have the best quality but its better than no music at all.
Iāve tried one earbud on the road, but I find the wind noise when descending, or riding into a headwind/crosswind makes it difficult to hear. So Iāve given up on trying to listen to anything on the road.
On my fatbike or mountain bike, I listen to podcasts. Exception is if I am riding on a busy MTB trail, where I donāt use headphones, as the most dangerous thing in those instances are other riders, hikers, or horses. Would prefer to hear them with as much advance notice as possible - especially when riding on a trail with limited line of sight visibility.
As for safety on the road - the most important thing is situational awareness like @AustinPT said. Anything that reduces that is bad. Music on headphones doesnāt necessarily do this - but if you put on music or a podcast to āzone outā, youāre not doing yourself any favors.
Yeah there is a sweet-spot for podcasts. Itās just like on the trainer, I canāt watch anything I need to think about too much otherwise I canāt hang on for the intervals.
For podcasts, I can listen to an entire day of Sports Junkies. Take up about 3 hours. Easy enough to tune those donkeys in and out as needed.
Well that is certainly true for a lot of them. In New York City I see people riding with earphones all the time, not to mention running red lights and weaving between cars in traffic.
But just the other day I saw this guy that took the cake: wearing these huge Beats headphones, riding on the sidewalk, which then he left and went onto the road, going the wrong way while pulling his phone out of his pocket. I shit you not.
Iāve noticed a similar phenomenon as a machinist: some machinists work all day with earphones, absolutely refusing to do without their music or whatever. Others, myself included, listen to our machines. I can hear when an insert is chipped, the cut is too deep, the feed and speed are fast or slow, and so on. I actually depend more on what Iām hearing than what Iām seeing while I machine.
Iāve heard a bad insert from across the shop and over the sounds of all the other machines, peeked over my shoulder, and seen the operator staring blankly at his machine, unaware that anything is wrong.
Fifteen years of this has illustrated to me that some people are simply highly visually oriented, while some people actively seek to understand their surroundings and doings through listening too. And the highly visual people simply donāt hear whatās out there to be heard and consequently donāt think theyāre missing anything.
BTW, I can hear when a vehicle approaching from behind has drifted towards or off the shoulder. And whether theyāre accelerating to get around me or slowing to wait for a safe time to pass. And whether theyāre going to pass wide or close. And whether itās a car, pickup, or semi.
When I hear the crackle of tires over the grit outside the lane, I know itās time to dive to the right, whether thereās road there or not. Iāll save the tunes for the trainer.
You raise excellent points here. In many jurisdictions it is also illegal and can really change how much money you get in case of an accident. Even if your ear canals are free (because you are using bone conduction head phones), you can still be somewhat distracted. Now how is that different from people in cars listening to music? Perhaps not much, except that they have plenty of metal armor around them and us cyclists donāt.
Of course, I am not more Catholic than the Pope, and I occasionally do use AirPods every once in a while even though I know I shouldnāt. But then I only do so when I am away from traffic on back roads that I know well.
It makes a difference legally, because wearing headphones is forbidden in many jurisdictions (including Japan, where I live no). That means you will have to share responsibility in case of an accident. You can explain to me 10 times that ear buds donāt make you harder to see, and youād be right, but this is the reality of the law. Plus, there are quite a few situations where not wearing headphones improves our situational awareness, which is our best defense on the road. My closest call last year would have probably ended in a very bad accident* if I had not noticed what was going on just from hearing the cars behind me and reacting instantly.
(*) I was doing 35 km/h on a two-plus-two-lane road with a speed limit of 40 km/h. The road is perfectly straight for the most part, but very often cars park on the left-most lane. On that day there was a decent amount of traffic, and me doing 35 km/h was going more or less with the flow. An a-hole decided to overtake me the instance I passed a parked car, and since there was also a car in the right lane, car + bike + car + car squeezed into two lanes. I caught up with the driver at the next traffic light, but he seemed completely oblivious. Iām usually calm and measured, but that day I taught a few Japanese a choice selection of German swear words.
I used to wear headphones, then I stopped when I participated in my first sportive and never went back.
Maybe Iām just really lucky to ride where I do but I love to hear the sounds around me. Not the cars but nature. Hear the farmers working the land and the bird song. I didnāt start riding to get fitter or faster and as Iāve mentioned previously, my longer rides arenāt training sessions, more like adventures. Removing the sounds dulls that experience.
Weird as it might seem, I also like listening to my bike. On some rides, it has a lot to say!
I feel that a rider with a mirror and one ear bud is safer than a rider without a mirror and no buds.
The safest way for me to cycle on the road seems to be this;
Donāt hug the curb or far right side of the lane (America). If you hug the right side of the lane the motorist thatās only looking up occasionally may not see you. You tend to blend in with the bushes, trees, signs, etc. Hugging the lane also encougages drivers to go around without slowing IMO.
Constantly listen and check my mirror. If I see oncoming traffic I make sure I take the whole lane if thereās not room for a car to pass safely. Sometimes, if thereās a safe gutter area I will pull over and let the car pass if itās uphill (after theyāve slowed to my speed).
My goal is to always watch the cars behind me switch to the other side of the road. This is not possible without a mirror.
I choose two lane roads over 4 lane roads. This feels safer for me in our area.
Agreed on the mirror! I primarily ride solo and use buds in both ears, not noise-canceling. By habit, I am constantly looking over my left shoulder to keep an eye on cars on the road behind me; at least before getting the mirror. In addition, I run my front and rear lights all the time. I just donāt trust drivers, too many distracted driving going on where I live. (I also generally ride out in the country, versus city.)
When you drive, can you hear other cars? Or do you use your eyes to see where hazards and other road users are? No being facetious, genuinely interested. If anything I find my ears lie to me far more than my eyes do in terms of describing my surroundings, so stick to looking and let my ear listen to more enjoyable things.
Iām guessing most people here are US-based, so understand that perhaps driving is a little more dangerous, although I think driving is dangerous almost everywhere!
Numerous comments about situational awareness and other concerns already stated and quite valid considerations.
Are you at risk of being crushed from behind by a 2-3 ton vehicle at a massive speed differential with only lycra and foam for protection, while driving in your car?
The referenced two studies do not draw such conclusions. One of them acknowledges such claims in other studies but doesnāt make a definitive claim one way or the other, the other just suggests that people who are engaging in more risky cycling disciplines tend to wear a helmet. But that doesnāt mean that if people racing bikes stopped wearing helmets they would be safer.