How many motorists have died while listening to the radio? That's what I've wondered as the aftermath of Patricia McMillan's horrible death has played out in the media and the places where cyclists gather. Perhaps the inquest will shed light on exactly why her life ended under the wheels of an articulated lorry, but most people have already decided for themselves. The cycling community, while struck into a grieved silence at a fellow traveller's passing and largely united in opinion that iPods don't kill people, lorries do, has also been vocal in their judgement of iPod cyclists.

I am one.

Creeper vines can be found trailing from my ears as I navigate London between the cars and taxis and buses and errant pedestrians that all stand (or crawl) between me and my destination. Yet I’ve never visited harm's way to a soundtrack; have in fact been listening to music awheel for years while pedaling, literally, from one end of Britain to the other. Most damning of all, the volume is turned up LOUD, to drown out the urban cacaphony of engines revving, tyres squealing, and the occasional unsolicited advice hurled from car windows.

This puts me in an extreme minority. Of those who share my love for the humble bicycle, few would admit to deliberately disabling one of their more important senses; fewer still, to cranking up the decibels. This is the Bill Clinton defense: they don't inhale.

My opening gambit isn’t completely fair. Motorists wear armour. They are protected from most encounters with their kind, and oddly enough from criticism, while we are naked except for whatever skills, experience and judgement we carry in our head and hands.

I have eyes to see. My neck also comes in surprisingly handy, and works overtime to give me a panoramic view of my surroundings. Most cyclist fatalities don’t happen as a result of collisions from the rear. Even if they did, hearing your approaching doom wouldn’t necessarily prevent it.

Common advice for cyclists, often given by cyclists themselves, is to treat everyone else on the road as if they are going to kill you; fear supposedly sharpens the senses, all of which must be present and accounted for if you are going to survive the journey from A to B. If I thought this I’d never get on my bike in the first place.

Why do I do it?

Why does anyone listen to music? It enhances the experience of living. There’s nothing in my social contract as a cyclist which states that I must forgo the experience of Bob Dylan wailing in my ears as I’m sucked into then spit out of Hyde Park Corner Roundabout; or that Waterloo Sunset isn’t a perfectly suitable accompaniment to the joys of spinning across the bridge of the same name. My speciality is karaoke - what motorist wouldn’t admit to that? - which in my defense I only inflict on the wildlife that inhabits the hedgerows of country lanes.

Matt Seaton of the Guardian has written eloquently of “dangerously distracted solipsists on wheels” who seek to “insulate ourselves from our environment in a capsule of creature comforts… Every individual becomes his or her own gated community: status-conscious, exclusive and forbidding uninvited intrusion.” The bicycle is potentially a more human and social vehicle than the car, and should be enjoyed like music itself: “live and unplugged”.

When I’m cycling the last thing I’m usually thinking about is myself, except in a background survival mode kind of way, leaving me free to enjoy the comforts that make being a creature of the road so pleasurable. The world as viewed from a saddle is a feast for the eyes, and I delight in taking it all in, from the subtle movements from inside a parked car that indicate a door might be about to be flung into my path, to the lovely sighting of a courier actually stopping at a red light.

Thanks to my penchant for a personal entertainment system I’m also learning how to lip read. The medium isn’t the message: Cycling is only as sociable as the cyclists themselves. When eye contact turns to a friendly wave or an expressed interest in exchanging verbal pleasantries, it’s a simple enough procedure to unplug.

How many motorists have died while listening to the radio? This is an important question because it points to the cyclists’ apartheid, where we are held to a higher standard while being fed a steady diet of outrage, condescension and nannyish pats on the back: all for the sin of being self-propelled.

Oh, and I don’t wear a helmet, either.