We should share common sense as well as the roads.

I sometimes listen to my MP3 player when cycling, as long as the volume allows you to hear traffic etc I cannot see a problem. No different to been in a car with the radio/stereo on, too loud dangerous, sensible volume safe.

Simples

simples i think not. paraphrase quote "do you cycle with one eye shut?" cyclists (i am one too) need to be able to hear clearly whats around them. are we not getting enough music in our ears already? tried listening to the sound of silence?

As a cyclist,in an accident I don`t have the safety systems that a car driver enjoys,so would prefer to have full use of all my senses,to warn of imminent danger.

Working in London,I have observed lots of "zombie" cyclists riding,while listening to their i pods,though I have to say,it can also equally apply to pedestrians.

There is a tendency to lose concentration or focus whilst listening to music,in the same way that car drivers,are recoomended not to use their phones whilst driving.

Its a personal choice,but I feel safer being able to hear when a car is in the vicinity,or just behind my shoulder........

rubbish argument, what about Motor Bikers with their Helmets(including police bikers), cars with music players, cars with Sat. nav systems, boy racers with cars that can be heard 2 miles away,pedestrians wearing ipods, etc.... shall i continue,by the way i am also a motorist, our cycling safety needs to start at home and from an early age at school as a lot of our kids are now cycling to school on a daily basis.

I cannot see how being side swiped by a motor car or pedestrian stepping off the kerb without looking has anything to do with music on the go.

Cyclemambo,didn`t say I was right,just that I prefer not too.

If you rode regularly in central London,where there is so much going on you need every little bit of help you can get,to detect where the next car,pedestrian,scooter, taxi or another cyclist is coming from,I feel safer having all of my senses!

I agree with cyclemambo 100%. i wear my player at all times, i can still hear traffic perfectly well. the 2 times i have been hit i have been T boned by cars with a more common fault, both looked and saw me but went ahead and ran into me anyway. take cd players, radios, cigarette lighters and most other switches out of vehicles and it would not make a blind bit of difference as far as im concerned. in general we have evolved in to a me me me society where everyone else on the road is in our way regardless of what we use.

i used to listen to my i pod when i lived in cornwall but now i live in manchester i would consider it suicidal to ride with them in the traffic...

The headphones weren't the cause of either accident mentioned, it strikes me that this is about scapegoats not actual safety. Abigail Haythorne rode in front of a car, unless she was also wearing ipod speakers over her eyes it's hard to see how you can blame them. Your eyes are so much more important than your hearing on a bike, if you don't pay enough attention to see a threat you're not going to hear it either.

The article should have been titled "Don't be s**t at cycling, cyclists!" or perhaps "Don't be s**t at using the road, road users".

Surely those commenting that cycling with earphones in is no different to driving a car with the stereo on are missing the point.

If I were hit by a car whilst driving I would expect to walk away from the accident in most situations. If however, I was hit by a car whilst cycling, it would most likely result in far more serious consequences. Even on the quiet lanes I ride on I wouldn't dream of listening to music and I cannot believe that clothing manufacturers make a selling point of fitting i-pod friendly pockets!

As a cyclist in London I personally don't use headphones as I tend to think that my ears are sometimes the eyes in the back of my head.

However I think the biggest problem on our roads is that the different types of road users all blame each other. Car drivers find it easy to blame cyclists and tags like ipod zombies don't help drivers move away from thinking that cyclists practically suicidal, wanting to be run over. Red light jumpers and creeepers don't help the overall image.

Us cyclists blame vehicle driver for every type of accident when the reality is its sometimes very difficult as a driver to see bikes and some bike riders put themselves in stupid positions inviting accidents.

Finally pedestrians tend they think they have the high ground in every situation despite doing some very stupid things when it comes to walking in front of cars, trucks and bikes alike.

The message needs to be about looking out for each other. Minimising dangerous situations by telling cyclists where not to be and motorists where to look and when e.g. left turns. Finally pedestrians need to just not walk in front of moving stuff.

I ride over 10,000km per year on British roads (mostly in London) and find that my hearing is one of my greatest assets in surviving on the busy roads. As a consequence, I have no doubt that wearing headphonse and listening to music substantially increases the risks of an accident or injury. Why wear them in the first place?

On a training ride, unless it's a group ride of course, i'll wait until I get to the quieter roads before turning on the music (which for me is an essential motivational tool). With traffic interrupting your flow all the time, you can't train properly anyway, so I really have no need for music when on busy roads. This logically works for me and i've never had any incidents when out riding. As long as you're careful and take control of the road at times, you should be ok. You just need a bit of common sense really.

Nicely put,GEPC.

there are some proper f*cking idiots riding bikes in London

sorry if that is harsh, but its true

I would love to own a helmet camera so I could film what I see every day on my commute from NW to S London

every day, I see cyclists completely disregarding the highway code, other road users and especially pedestrians on crossings, and taking the most stupid risks

its not a "blame" game, we ALL (cyclist, motorists, taxis, lorries, pedestrians) need to use common sense, the highway code and courtesy as we are all sharing the roads

I have more near misses with idiot cyclists (jumping lights, etc.) every week than with motor vehicles, only pedestrians are more dangerous than cars in London as the pedestrians take stupid risks with the traffic and often step off the kerb without even looking (probably wearing their headphones)

Can't see what the problem is, you have two ears. I ride 38miles round trip, five days a week around west london, I have one ear phone in my left ear & nothing in my right ear. I can hear cars just fine. cycles without lights is the one that's get me. should be doing more about that. not worrying about MP3.

I agree with Bhima, ironically the only times I’ve ever had accidents are when I’ve not been listening to music and probably had something else more pressing on my mind.

If you've only got one earpiece in and the music level is fairly low you can generally still hear just fine so what difference is that going to make? If you're wearing earphones that cover your entire ears and have it blasting away louder than everything else then of course its going to be a distraction and affect your judgement its common sense, but again they are headphones and you have a choice to put them on or take them off , have high or low volume whilst riding anyway as you see fit at all times. This is a pointless debate as the issues are simply not black and white. Perhaps a discussion on drilling into peoples heads exactly what dangerous cycling actually is might be more useful.

Leave it as it is to the discretion of the police with dangerous riding / being reasonable and not encourage some nanny state policy / legislation, just think oh joy yet another privilege taken away because someone decided we're all too stupid to know better. I may not want to listen to music right now on my bike but at least I know I still can if I want to (especially if i'm out training on my own).

I'd never even consider listening to headphones whilst cycling. I can't believe it isn't illegal to be honest. Cyslists rely far more on our hearing than any other road users because we need to. Forget a campaign to make people aware of the danger, just make it illegal

I like headphones offroad, on-road they are tempting but you miss things. I also have a mirror on my glasses, some excellent helmet lights and still cars cut me up, pull out in front of me, etc. Yes, not hearing cars adds to the risk, but the way Edmund King talks to the Times, the only reason that cyclists are dying is they are listening to music.

I don't listen to music on the road, yet I consider my life endangered by AA members. Not just lorry and van drivers, school mums are the enemy when I am on the school run themselves.

I think its fine to listen to music while out on the road provided you are not on really busy commuter roads with lots of distractions. Ironically, I think sometimes they are worse off-road where you need to concentrate on very technical terrain.

I wouldn't have anything in my ears - you can hear little enough with the wind in your ears as it is; stick speakers in them and you'll likely lose a court case.

As for motorcyclists, you can actually hear a lot more of what's going on as much less wind rush in you ear 'oles (spoken as an ex motorcyclist (no time/money)).

Also, cars and m/c's have mirrors, which going on another thread on here seems to be for wimps. I have a mirror.

I used to listen to music when on my motorbike. Only just loud enough to be heard above the wind noise. I justified it to myself because I could still hear the traffic. Then one day the batteries failed when I was mid ride to work and I couldn't believe what I had been doing. I could hear traffic noise but I couldn't HEAR what was going on around me. That was the critical thing, there was no spacial awareness because I couldn't hear properly.

I've never done it since.

The one day I thought I'd just have a quick try cycling on some side roads with music at similar volumes and as I yanked the headphone cable out to kill the volume I was horrified to find the car I thought was a few metres away way almost touching my back wheel and about a 'to hell with it' move that would have run me off the road because of another car oncoming.

We can all state the examples of equally bad road craft caused through excessive music/ noise volumes for vehicle drivers, and true it most certainly is, but on a bike, a push bike, your ears give you the spatial awareness.

I'm not sitting in judgement and I'm all for choice, so please don't leap on my comments as moralistic finger wagging. I've simply seen the net result of a cyclist listening to music and he ended up with a badly broken leg and was lucky that was all he got. Try as he might initially to blame the car that clipped him, he finally admitted he was distracted by his music and didn't look at the junction. S**t happens I know, but why encourage it?

Some of the comments here suggest it's OK to ride a bike blindfold provided your ears are uncovered!

You should be glancing over your shoulder often enough to allow you to form a picture of what's going on behind anyway. If a specific vehicle (not just traffic passing by, but one particular vehicle that's going to cause you a problem) gets close enough that you can hear it, but you haven't already seen it, you're not looking properly.

Hearing is a secondary sense on the road, much less important than proper observation. I see lots of cyclists who don't observe what's going on around them properly (they're usually surprised when I overtake them!).

The solution, quite simply, is for all road users to be much better at observing what's going on around them. Earphones are an easy thing to blame, but poor driving skills (yes, on the road you should "drive" a bike, not "ride" it) are are the actual problem.

It's all relative to every situation.

I listen to music 90% of the time whilst i'm on my bike and i've never been close to any accident at all but i was once knocked off my bike by a pedestrian stepping into the road in front of me which on my part was completely unavoidable

I've come very close to hitting a few old people wondering all over the place on a contra-flow stretch of pavement.

Most of it comes down to luck really or just stupidity, if cyclists, cars or pedestrians act irrationally then they're likely to cause an accident and then try to blame it on the other party and pick out any slight flaw. for example i've been shouted at to turn my lights down when they're on the lowest setting but if i were to be using a powerbeam or something similar in an accident they'd probably argue that the light wasn't bright enough!

When on the roads you realy need all senses active. If you cant hear verbal warnings , you cant react. Music realy does make you tune out your surroundings to an extent and in traffic this can be very dangerous. Pedestrians are inherently safer when on pavements as the other trafic shouldnt be there with them. We dont have that luxury.

Music, cycling and roads do not mix simple - In cars fine because there is metal protecting driver from initial impact but nothing for a cyclist, riders who believe otherwise are just ignorant simple.

I have tried listening to music while riding, and although I had the volume at a level where I could still safely hear what was going on around me, I wasn’t comfortable with it.

On my daily commute, I ride along cycle routes shared with pedestrians, (mainly runners and joggers) and have found that ringing my bell is useless, as most of them wear earphones, and can’t hear me.

As far as the rise in cycling accidents is concerned, I think a lack of cycling skills and road awareness are to blame. Some of the riders I see can't ride in a straight line.

Cyclists shouldn't do this, pedestrians shouldn't do that, drivers can't do the other. There's always something to moan about, a finger to point and money to be made somewhere in this time where health and safety has gone mad !!

It's very simple, use your f*cking common sense. If you don't, I'd call that Natural Selection.

I totally agree with the findings. You shouldn't listen to music on your bike, you can listen to music anytime off the bike. You ride your bike and stay safe, it's madness to leave it up to common sense cos some people haven't got any!

"estevens

Music, cycling and roads do not mix simple - In cars fine because there is metal protecting driver from initial impact but nothing for a cyclist, riders who believe otherwise are just ignorant simple."

If I'm on my bike, I'd rather ride into the back of a car because I was distracted by my music, than be hit by a car whose driver was distracted by the music in the car.

(I don't listen to music on the road, given the attitude of many drivers I like having every sense available to keep me alive)

But that's an incredibly selfish view, it's not about the injuries a car driver might suffer, but the injuries they might inflict on someone else as a result of their actions (same applies to cyclists and pedestrians). It's exactly because a car driver is protected that their actions are often dangerous. A cyclist/pedestrian is never going to nudge a car forwards, or force them out of a lane on a roundabout, because the car will win. Just like a car wouldn't do it to a bus or lorry. The person with the biggest capacity to injure and kill has the greatest responsibility.

I'm a child of the Walkman generation and it really isn't a good idea to use a walkman on the bike. Even as a pedestrian you have to take extra care, it is all to easy to wander into the road especially with cars being quieter now than ever.

If you choose to cycle through red lights, with a walkman, whilst on the phone or without a helmet (either or all of them) that is your choice but if you get hit I would agree with MattC59 it is natural selection at work.

No amount of being right, morally or legally, will resurrect you but simple steps may stop you needing to be....