Comparison: Cycling Violations vs. Driving Violations

Don't complain about cyclists without helmets if you don't wear a life jacket in your car, says writer Eben Weiss.

In a tongue-in-cheek piece for Outside Online, Weiss picks apart a sticking point in the conlifct between cyclists and drivers: traffic violations. Both drivers and cyclists sometimes break the law, but "quite simply, breaking a law on your bike is not the same as breaking that same law in your car, in the same way that one (1) Japanese yen is not worth the same as one (1) U.S. dollar," he writes.

For example? "Thanks to sound-insulated cabins (not to mention engine noise, climate control, etc.), a driver listening to no music whatsoever still hears less than a cyclist wearing earbud headphones."

For more, check out Weiss's chart comparing cyclist violations to their driving equivalents.