I was behind a golf yesterday...

[breadturbo]

I used to wear sennheisers in the astravan when young, but that was bouncing along being obnoxious with 4x 15" HCCA's behind me

 

[Merlin5]

VAG stereos are terrible to be fair.

You obviously never had two women at the same time

 

[acemastr]

It's illegal here.. rightly so

 

[Begbie]

It's illegal here.. rightly so

But riding without a helmet isn't.

 

[Lopéz]

Deaf people know they are deaf. People wearing headphones do not....

I'm pretty aware that I cannot hear anything else when wearing headphones, it's kind of the whole point.

I don't wear them myself when driving.

 

[theone8181]

But riding without a helmet isn't.

I don't see the problem, in fact we should have that rule here. It's Darwin at its best .

 

[Calm]

It probably less significant with cars, but i know pedestrians (who are more often than not oblivious idiots anyway) are especially stupid when sporting earphones.

 

[Dr Who]

You can be prosecuted for wearing headphones in a car, as driving without due care and attention.

 

[Haggisman]

I don't see the problem, in fact we should have that rule here. It's Darwin at its best .

There has been at least 1 study which has shown it's safer to ride on the road without a helmet than with

I can't see wearing headphones is the same as having your car stereo on - even when I have mine on at a decent volume, I can still hear sirens and motorbikes approaching (although I do drive a 10 year old japanese car, so sound insulation maybe not the best )

 

[Orionaut]

I'm pretty aware that I cannot hear anything else when wearing headphones, it's kind of the whole point.

I don't wear them myself when driving.

Not in the same way.

Deaf people spend their whole lives being aware of what is going on around them using their other senses.

Some numpty drowning out the world around them with headphones while they are Walking/Jogging or Driving will not have anything like the same "back up" awareness.

Headphones are also different to just having the car stereo turned up too (Though that is also dangerous) they do put you in a totally different world which is why gaming with head phones is far more fun than just using a couple of speakers each side of the monitor. Not a good place to be if you are in public anywhere let alone driving a vehicle.

 

[Jokester]

I’ll even turn my audio off if I need to think about what I’m doing.

 

[Duke]

VAG stereos are terrible to be fair.

mine is fine

 

[Dr Who]

I’ll even turn my audio off if I need to think about what I’m doing.

Same here

 

[.:SAmSuNG:.]

I see people wearing headphones quite regularly in older cars without Bluetooth streaming.

 

[blueboy2001]

I wear noise cancelling headphones when I have to drive a van for any length of time. It’s a decision I have made after reasoned consideration of the pros and cons.

In itself wearing headphones is not illegal. If you wear headphones and it causes you to drive in a manner that amount to offences under the RTA because you can’t hear something then that’s a separate issue.

Noise cancelling headphones are mostly effective against constant low frequency sounds like tyre noise, engine noise and wind noise. They are not effective at cutting out high frequency noise like sirens or variable noise like speech. In a van most of the noise from the vehicle itself is low frequency drone so the headphones are very effective at removing that meaning I can have music playing at a much lower volume than I otherwise would have to to overcome the background noise. I don’t like loud music anyway.

If I do need to hear external sounds for any reason I can flick a switch and sounds from microphones in the cans is amplified into the speakers so I can hear better. If I ever get stopped by the Police I’ll be keeping them on and doing this.

It’s far less stressful driving long distances in a quieter environment and my general observation when driving is such that even if I didn’t hear something it wouldn’t cause me to commit an offence.