As I’ve been cycling to work over the last 5 years, I’ve noticed that quite often if a cyclist engages in one kind of unsafe behavior, they are also likely to engage in other unsafe behaviours. So for example, a cyclist that crosses a busy highway against the lights, is very likely to also not be wearing a helmet.

Today I witnessed an example of a high degree of correlated unsafety when I observed a chap riding along

• using only one hand to steer,
• that hand also grasping a beer can,
• while a cigarette hung from the mouth,
• and the other hand was texting on a mobile phone.

To his credit, he was wearing a helmet. He’ll probably need it.

Another curious observation I’ve made a number of times is cyclists riding along with a helmet draped over their handlebars, thus incurring all the disadvantages of having a helmet without gaining any of the advantages of actually wearing it.