crazy bikers

if you hang around bikers at all, you will quickly catch on to what they like to talk about. very often you will hear about topics such as their bike's weight, or how dumb people drive to the gym to ride a stationary bike. one particularly prevalent topic is how crazy and inconsiderate automobile drivers are while they are on the road.

personally, i've seen these crazy automobile drivers from time to time, but i hardly feel that these operators are limited to the motorized vehicle domain. for example, i have often seen bikers on the wrong side of the road while biking at night without a front headlight (illegal where i live). now, i can see that someone might not want to spend the money on a headlight and thus risk getting a ticket for a short night ride, but why would you ride on the wrong side of the road?

what happens if someone biking on the wrong side of the road meets a car? if the biker is travelling at 15mph while the car is travelling at 35mph and they have a head on collision, that's effectively hitting the car at 50mph; compare that to a 20mph collision if the biker and car are travelling in the same direction. more importantly is the fact that car drivers have much more time to see and react to it bikers on the same side of the road. it is particularly difficult for drivers who are turning to see bikes on wrong side of the road.

so, a quick review:
dumb biker + car = 50mph crash = scrambled biker.
smart biker + car = 20mph crash = more like... biker over easy, but we all know the yolk doesn't always make it through unscathed. but the main point is that smart bikers are much more visible and less likely to get cracked and thrown into the frying pan in the first place.