What it comes down to for me is whether or not environmental auditory cues are genuinely useful. I maintain that they aren't, and that the sense of hearing is more or less redundant when cycling (at best it comes very low on the list of useful senses) - and I really don't get why hearing would be useful when cycling but not when driving. If anything, I would think the opposite is true. I try to ride my bike in a way that enables me to react to the silent hazards (pedestrians, broken glass) as well as the ones that make a noise, and I find that hearing doesn't give me any useful extra information that I didn't already get from my other senses. YMMV*
What's more, even if you do believe hearing is helpful, it isn't trustworthy. It's all very well jumping to conclusions based on sound wave experiments in school physics lessons, but the real world isn't a laboratory and there are all sorts of factors that affect how sound behaves that can create some very misleading impressions. We're not bats, we're humans. Our sense of hearing is somewhat rudimentary. It does
not give us accurate information about the world around us. If you rely on the evidence of your hearing when cycling, especially in a busy urban environment, you are soon going to come a cropper.
If I were going to get philosophical, I could say that we should never trust any of our senses ever, but that's for a different thread. And that, my friends, is my very last word on this subject. At least until next time it comes up.
d.
*User, I could give an analysis of your examples to back up what I'm saying, but since I consider it unlikely that I'd convince you I'm right, it would be pointless and I really don't want to get drawn into the argument again, so I'll spare you. It's ultimately a matter of opinion, and you have your opinion and I have mine.