Lose the Helmet?

The BBC yesterday reported on an interesting study done in the UK about how motorists interact with bicyclists. Specifically, how close the cars travel to the bicycles given different contexts.

Surprisingly, it appears that cars will reduce their margin for error (i.e., drive closer) if they see the rider has a helmet on. Whodathunkit? The tests also suggest that motorists give female bicyclists more room on the road than men.

I’m a proponent of motorcycle helmets. I always wear mine, and I live and ride in a state that requires a motorcycle helmet. But I can’t help wonder what the results of tests like this might be like in helmet-optional geographies.

Fascinating.

S

Daddy, what’s a “TV Guide”?

My nearly-six-year-old amused us this evening with this utterance. He wanted to know what time some new show was coming on tomorrow and my wife commented that we’d have to check the TV Guide. To which my son replied as per the post subject.

I thoroughly enjoy the events that are these anachronisms, which creep into our daily lives so often these days. In his years on this planet, I will bet he’s never seen a “tv guide” of any sort (at least in our household). This would include the actual so-named publication (I haven’t personally seen one of those (other than in the check-out line at the market) in well over ten years) or even the weekly jobbie from the Sunday paper.

As a child, growing up with television as a constant companion, I vividly remember the Middlesex News Sunday television listing magazine on the den coffee table. In fact, how many of you remember that not being able to find the remote was preceded by not being able to find the tv guide? “Where’d the damn TV Guide go?!?!”

And of course the next words out of my son’s mouth were “Let’s go check the computer.” I don’t know jack about TV Guide’s business, but I do know I’m glad I’m not involved in it.

S