h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think you're right. This is also why it is important not to cycle on the pavement or grill red lights.

I want car-users to treat me as a vulnerable road-user, and not as some sort of urban guerilla that will join in their games of cutting people up, getting too close etc.

It is also linked to why I cycle nearer to the middle of the lane than the gutter - again I am a road user and I want them to overtake me with the same degree of caution as they would with a wider vehicle, not as if I was a bump sticking out from the pavement.

Sprout

See anything by Forrester or Franklin, actually. I'm about to do an article on vehicular or co-operative cycling, AKA assertive cycling. The Dun Run article has been accepted for the edited guide, and I have another one on Bicycle User Groups currently up for peer review (I don't want to put a link to Sustrans in it, so there ), so I'm doing ok on the cycling article front.

Is there an article on h2g2 about the great helmet debate? It has been done to death on urbancyclist-uk, and although many people seem to think there is no consensus on lid wearing, there is - pro-choice.

I wear a lid purely because I've broken my skull so often I can't really afford to do it again (never on a bike, funnily enough); but I don't expect it to save my life in a collision with a car

I've put a link to Guy's helmet article into the entry; I've also added a last paragraph with the best solution.

I guess if you cycle in the full robes and wig of an English High Court judge people will steer a wide berth. The wig would cushion a fall as well....

Sprout

Cushioning would help, lawyers are not usually trim of build . . .

You know, you may be on to just the answer! Not the full-bottomed judge's wig, but a helmet mimicking a barrister's perm would be quite practical both as a helmet and as a *most* arresting, mind-jolting warning. Patent it quick!

I've updated this now, and incorporated the wig suggestion, for which I credit Sprout as co-researcher. I've taken out the first-person speech, and hereby submit it for review.