Your reply begs the question of whether streaming music through Oticon HAs from an iPhone connected to a Garmin Varia Radar Tail Light “detracts from situational awareness”. My experience is that it does not. To the contrary, the automatic semi-muting of streaming music when the HAs detect environmental sounds that don’t fit (using Oticon DNN hoodoo?) provides yet another cue that something demands the pilot’s attention, possibly a vehicle overtaking. For my first 55 years of road cycling I eschewed headphones for safety reasons. But technology is continually resetting the boundaries of what is and isn’t safe and I’ve never felt more in touch with the road.
Ironclad rules are no substitute for good judgement and common sense. When I rode the Empire State Trail from New York City to Canada last year I did not stream tunes when navigating the few urban segments like Inwood to Van Cortlandt Park or the sketchy on-road sections around Ticonderoga. But most of the EST is rail-trail where it’s unusual to see more than a few cyclists or pedestrians per hour and a Mahler symphony seems like an appropriate soundtrack. Likewise, my riding around home is empty country roads in the Catskills, where I can safely grunt my way up the climbs lashed on by Larkin Poe or Ida Mae.