At some point, you have to trust others to obey the rules of the road. An article like this is not zero-sum, it doesn't have to make your riding any less defensive.
I wear a biker tailbone protector and a back protector + an helmet when I go snowboarding and I'm an amateur snowboarder at best that rarely goes in the park and rides at mediocre speed.
Why I usually don't see cyclists wear some of them protections?
Any vehicle you use for commuting is for convenience. Strapping into armour makes it harder so we don't expect it of drivers while we do expect it of extreme sports.
Supposedly the health benefits of cycling outweigh the dangers of the road but I've never looked into it.
They do in fact.
This is the list of the mandatory safety measures in Europe for motor vehicles, it's 24 pages long
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32...
> Driving is the biggest killer of young people
It is not driving, it's road traffic injuries, which includes biking.
Anyways it's worse in US than Europe and it's much worse for male than for female.
One could conclude that it's being a young male in the US that is actually dangerous.
> Any vehicle you use for commuting is for convenience
Assuming this is true, it is valid also for bikes or horses.
> Strapping into armour makes it harder so we don't expect it of drivers while we do expect it of extreme sports.
The entire car is literally an armor!
https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sites/growth/files/car-safety-fe...
Why are cyclist so afraid of protecting themselves?
> Supposedly the health benefits of cycling outweigh the dangers of the road
They don't.
It's not from being hit by cyclists.
>This is the list of the mandatory safety measures in Europe for motor vehicles, it's 24 pages long
Quite a lot of it isn't, read articles 6 and 7 and the lists of implementation dates.
>Why are cyclist so afraid of protecting themselves?
After having people maliciously aim their car at you for being in front of them, it's quite patronising to have them assume you're riding unsafely. People in other countries manage much better safety records through infrastructure and education. On the contrary, I don't think there's any safety clothing I can wear that will save me if a car crashes into me. This thread assumes that exists, yet assumes the same doesn't exist for anyone who dies in a car crash. Why don't you wear a helmet when in a car?
Infrastructure doesn't improve where I am because the nasty, tribalist rhetoric swipes any safety issues under the rug by assuming cyclist fault. You've accused cyclists of being afraid of protecting themselves, thus categorising them in a tribe separate from your own. But I'm not separate from you: I'm a driver, too. Yet when I'm in a car with someone and they see a driver do something foolish, I never hear them call 'drivers' idiots, it's always about the singular person. The tribalism makes you think of the other party as less important.
(And the foolish things happen multiple times a day - I can guarantee I'll see someone speed when I drive home tonight)
Accusing me of being afraid of protecting just gives me the impression that you feel I have to earn the right for you to tolerate me in the road. An impression I get every time someone punish-passes me, or manoeuvres assuming a cyclist won't be in their path. And it's so tiring to be told it's my fault when I know how often I see people fail to obey the laws of the road at my expense.
It is included indeed.
Being hit by cyclists is very common in places where bike density is high.
For example: https://nypost.com/2019/08/31/nyc-bicyclists-are-killing-ped...
> After having people maliciously aim their car at you for being in front of them, it's quite patronising to hav
On my motorbike I wear helmet and protections anyway, before having people maliciously aim at me (because you know, accidents can happen even without malice...).
Why are you so afraid to protect yourself?
> They don't.
Single sided bicycle accidents are pretty common.
Putting yourself at risk because there are supposed health benefit is stupid.
It's like being anti vax because you read somewhere that one time someone had a fever after a vaccine.
You can have health benefits AND protect yourself from dangers, one does not exclude the other (I would argue that protecting yourself from dangers will benefit your health more than cycling).
2. A big difference is downhill versus (mostly) flat. I only wear my helmet about 10-20% of the time when I'm ski touring. Downhill bikers wear all sorts of padding & protectors.
They are useful for the same kind of accidents that happen to motrocyclists: being hit by something or hitting something.