Ephemerica

Here is a press release from a researcher in England who is a “traffic psychologist”, who did a study on whether wearing a helmet (or not) affected how close cars and trucks came to his bicycle as he rode the streets of Salisbury and Bristol. He found that drivers were likely to come closer to the bike if he was wearing his helmet—something that seems counter-intuitive. Poor guy got hit twice during his research…lucky for him, he was wearing his helmet both times. But maybe he wouldn’t have been hit at all if he wasn’t wearing his helmet…it makes the brain hurt to think too much about the causality of it all.

Another interesting aspect of his study is that when he wore a wig, he got 5.5 more inches of space than without the wig. Regardless of his results, I won’t be giving up my helmet anytime soon (I can personally attest to having my noggin saved by one on multiple occasions), but I may have to give the wig thing a try.

Posted by Matthew on September 11th, 2006 | Filed under: General