• I read that research on female cyclists too. It was fairly convincing, I thought. It says a lot that the more feminine you look, the more incompetent drivers (both male and female) will assume you are. I hate to collude with such blatant misogyny, but you've got to take what you can get, I suppose. I certainly feel more visible dressed in normal clothes than in cycling ones: in the former, to your average van driver you're a bird-on-a-bike: he'll give you a wide berth and probably yell at you out of the window. If you're lycra'd up (and presumably helmets have a similar effect) you're just a generic cyclist; with all the advantages (less sexual harassment) and disadvantages (less space) that goes with that.

    There is something apparently infantilising about not wearing a helmet, as if you are obviously deeply frivolous and are incapable of making the decision based on anything other than vanity. I have never worn one, although I always own one, for hypothetical situations I can't even imagine. But I have thought it through, and made a rational decision based on the reading I've done, and my own opinions, et fucking tedious cetera. Today I overtook a man in hi-vis with a helmet and mudguards and a babyseat (unoccupied). He caught me back up at the lights, and leant over and said 'you are too pretty not to be wearing a helmet, young lady', for all the world as if he was paying me a compliment, rather than patronising me beyond all civility. I mouthed wordlessly at him as he grinned amiably back at me, then, as I saw the amber and started off, I muttered something over my shoulder along the lines of '... well, actually, conflicting research....'

    Bet that taught him.

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