Bike Helmet Protest in Melbourne

I had a brilliant week in Melbourne as a guest of the State of Design Festival. Loads of interviews and events that all culminated with my keynote speech on the Saturday.

There was, however, an event on the Saturday morning - July 26, 2010 - that was extremely interesting to be a part of. A group of citizens, rallied together by filmmaker and bicycle advocate Mike Rubbo, decided to go for a bicycle ride together on Melbourne's new bike share system bikes. A splendid idea. Melbourne's bike share system is shiny new, although unlike most cities in the world with a bike share programme, only 70-odd people are using them each day. In Dublin, by contrast, there are over 30,000 subscribers. Not to mention the cracking successes in Paris, Barcelona, Seville and most of the over 100 cities with such systems.

So, a group of people, many of them Copenhagenize.com readers, fancy a bike ride. Sounds lovely enough. They met up at the bike racks at Melbourne University. Hired the bikes without a problem. Now the tricky bit is that you can rent a bike spontaneously - the whole point of such systems - but you then have to figure out how to get a bike helmet. The State of Victoria, like all Australian states (not Northern Territory... they repealed their all-ages helmet law when they saw cycling levels fall drastically) has an all-ages mandatory bike helmet law.

The bike ride was a demonstration to point out that a bike share system won't work with a helmet law and that Australia's failed helmet laws should be reconsidered.

I arrived at about 09:40, together with my son, Felix. After greeting some of the people I noticed two Melbourne bicycle cops lingering nearby. Speaking in low tones, eying the 'mob'. They had been there since 09:00, waiting for this 'demonstration' to kick off. Seriously. Two city employees lingering, doing nothing, for an hour because some people had announced they were going for a bike ride. Mike Rubbo had generated some good pre-press about the ride. Like this from the ABC and this article in The Age newspaper.

It included this poll, which signals a sea change in public opinion in Australia:
Should public-bike scheme users be excused from wearing helmets?
Yes... 71%
No.... 29%
Total votes: 13885


Felix and I took a bunch of photos but this shot really sums it up for me. Mike Rubbo on the left, Dr Paul Martin on the right and an ominous-looking police officer keeping an eye on us all. Dr Martin is from Brisbane and flew down for the ride. He recently recieved a ticket for cycling without a helmet in Queensland and is intent on fighting it, following in the footsteps of Sue Abbott, from New South Wales. They were all wearing badges from The European Cyclists Federation's Ask Me Why I Cycle Without a Helmet campaign. Mike Rubbo also did a film about the bike share system in the days up to the protest.

(it was actually Felix, aged 8, who took this shot, which makes this dad proud, but that's another story...)


There were loads of cameras and journalists present during the whole event. People going for bike rides must be big news in Australia. After Mike Rubbo did the talking to the press the group was off.


All in all, it was a frightfully well-dressed demonstration and with the exception of the recent Velo-City Global conference in Copenhagen and conferences in La Rochelle and Lleida, Catalunya, I hadn't before been with such a large group of well-informed people who knew their science about helmets and who were so passionate about promoting cycling.


Here is one of the bike racks for the bike share bikes and here's Felix joining the press corps to document the event. It was great to have him along to witness this little slice of democracy. I explained the whole situation to him as neutral as possible.

What from I understand the University of Melbourne grounds were private property so the police - and camera crews - tagged along as the group rode away.


As soon as the group hit the mean streets of Melbourne, the police moved in. Three bicycle cops and three (!) police cars were in action to tackle the 20+ well-dressed people on bicycles. Comical.

After some discussion the police informed the group that they wouldn't be ticketed but if they decided to continue riding, they would be. Six or seven of the group set off.

And enjoyed it!


They were all ticketed accordingly. The fine for cycling without a helmet in Melbourne is a whopping $160. Not exactly encouraging people to cycle, now is it. Fining them for contributing to lower pollution levels, better public health, etc etc. is hardly the way to build the foundations of a bicycle culture. In contrast, Sydney is experiencing a greater boom in cycling, despite having less infrastructure, largely because they don't bother punishing cyclists for riding bicycles without helmets.


After the evildoers were duly punished, we all walked our bikes for the rest of the short route. One chap was straddling his bicycle and was told to dismount. Straddling bicycles is, apparently, illegal.


After the formalities were complete and the route was completed, the bikes were returned and we retired to a local café for a coffee. Pleased with the results, pleased that a debate, hopefully and finally, has been launched in this country. Hopeful that the work of so many Australians may finally reach a greater audience. Dr Dorothy Robinson, Prof. Piet de Jong, Chris Gilliam, Bill Curnow, et al.


There's always room for a spot of Cycle Chic, even when protesting. At left is Jenny from Auckland Cycle Chic and at right is Saskia from Cycle Chic Sundays - Sydney. Both made the trip to Melbourne to hear my talk. Which was wonderful!

At the end of the day it's a David v Goliath challenge, but this was an excellent start.

Now it's interesting to see what Vancouver does or doesn't do with their impending bike share system.

London's Bike Share Programme

I've been in Melbourne to give a keynote at the brilliant State of Design Festival and then Abu Dhabi for some holiday and I regret the dry season on Copenhagenize.com. I arrived home a few hours ago and thought it appropriate to chuck a link up to a Guardian film and article about London's new bike share progamme, launched a couple of days ago. The Great Bike Hope for urban cycling in big cities, after the massive success of the Vélib in Paris.

The Guardian's Helen Pidd test drives the system in the film. Great insight into the bike share programme in the British capital. There's a bit of the typical whining about weight that is inherant in regions with too much focus on hobby cycling, but otherwise it's a great little film.


In other news, there is more Revenge of Car Industy with yet another car company continuing the regrettable tradition of promoting bicycle helmets. First there was the Volvo flop in the Netherlands and now FIAT is having a go. Yet another sign that the car industry feels threatened by bicycles and does all it can to brand cycling as more dangerous than it is.

While we're at it, here's an interesting article from The Herald about Melbourne's bike share programme flop. More on that, from my own POV, later.

North Korean Anti-Bicycle Campaign

Copenhagenize has recieved a leaked public service film from behind the fortified borders of North Korea that provides insight into the classic manipulative nature of a well-oiled propaganda machine.

Above is a classic Communist propaganda film from North Korea showing the typical use of children in emotional propaganda praising the State and The Great Leader, yada yada. Using children is a classic - and quite regrettable - tactic in such countries. The Soviets were also well versed in using children to promote their ideology, as were most Communist states.


Here is the leaked video that Copenhagenize recieved. It hails from the northern province of Northern Yoo Lan, far from the capital. An agricultural area with an adbundance of tractors and a tradition for using vehicles more than in the populated cities.

Their dialect is difficult to interpret but we've learned that the propaganda film is the intiative of the People's Committee for Glorious Promotion of Farm Vehicles and Safety, started by the Communal Fathers Committee of the capital of Northern Yoo Lan, Aal Bor.

The Communal Fathers view the bicycle as a threat to the glorious progress of their vehicle culture and are trying to restrict the usage of the machine through this constructed fear campaign. Encouraging people to instead stimulate the struggling economy by using vehicles to get around. To get to their communal workplaces or even to transport themselves to their People's Center for Glorious Secular Societal Togetherness - Yoosk Seng Atoys Laya, as it is called in their dialect.

Using children to promote ideology is something that we here in the West find somewhat disgusting. Children as weapons in a self-serving emotional propaganda campaign should not be tolerated and Copenhagenize hopes that an offical letter of complaint is sent to the Communal Fathers Committee. As per usual with such propaganda, there is very little science involved. That would just clutter up the Glorious Message with common sense and rationality. Two societal qualities not tolerated in such societies.


Here is a previous propaganda film from the Communal Fathers of Aal Bor, in Norther Yoo Lan. Like most of their campaigns, they have the blessing of the National Bureau for Traffic Manipulation and Fearspeak - Fa Ken Wang Kaas and the People's Committee for Elderly Persons in Wooly Socks and Sandals, Soo Kal Yelm.

Despite the secretive nature of North Korea, the Communal Fathers have, through third party contacts, negotiated a rare trade agreement with a Western company in the interest of further developing their Glorious Farm Vehicle & Safety Five Year Plan. According to observers, the People's Commune of Aal Bor will send all the now unused bicycles to Great Britian. In exchange for a massive shipment of these Safety Devices to be placed on the heads of the children of Aal Bor at all times. Adorned with the appropriate slogans and graphics that accompany such projects.

A shocking and frightening peek into the inner workings of North Korean society. Thank Odin I live in a region with strong Social-Democratic traditions and a cultural history involving rational thought.

Such Stuff as Fear is Made On

When Shakespeare wrote the line "...such stuff as dreams are made on", 'stuff' meant fabric. Indeed, in Danish, 'stof' is just that, fabric.

I've been wondering about these bicycle helmets on the market that are covered in fabric or even leather. Are they more dangerous than other kinds of bike helmets?

I'm sure we can agree that one of the basic, important qualities of a helmet is that it's slippery. If you're a helmet-wearer and your head strikes asphalt - which is never a smooth surface - I'm sure you'd rather have your helmet slide along the asphalt, as opposed to snagging. That wouldn't be very good for your neck.

While cycling is fantastically safe, most serious head injuries are the result of so-called angular or rotational acceleration, which leads to diffuse axonal injury (DAI) and subdural haematoma (SDH). These are the most common causes of brain injury in all traffic accidents.

Minor injuries are usally the result of linear acceleration. A straight-forward impact without any rotation.

Modern bicycle helmets are only tested for linear impacts and have little effect in preventing rotational ones. In the tests they are dropped straight down onto a flat or slightly-rounded surface from a height that is roughly the same as a cyclist's or pedestrian's head. They simulate a speed of about 20 km/h. They are only tested for impact on the top of the helmet, not the sides or front or back. A vertical fall. They aren't tested for an oblique, or angled, fall which is the most common type.

Nor are they tested with a anything that resembles a human body and all the forces that are involved with many kilograms of body attached to a helmet or impact with a car. There are even studies that suggest that risk of rotational injury is higher with a helmet on. In other words, even low-speed lateral forces can be converted to the far more dangerous rotational forces. Wikipedia has lots of links about it, and the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation has a page.

Anyway, I was wondering if there was any tests or research done on these new fabric-covered helmets but I have been unable to find any evidence that there is. Landing obliquely on asphalt at any speed is like landing on sandpaper. Racing cyclists shave their arms and legs in order to reduce this sandpapery friction and thereby reduce the severity of road rash caused when body hair slides along asphalt.

The same principle applies to ventilation holes on a helmet as well as to fabric on a helmet. Surely the one thing we can all agree on is that a helmet should be slippery. Even if these fabric covers are easily detachable it certainly seems to be an unecessary risk to run - increasing the chance of having your head snagging on asphalt.

In the midst of my checking around, I recieved an article from a reader out of Australian Cyclist - a lycra mag from Down Under.

They expressed much the same concerns about fabric snagging on asphalt and basically dissed the concept.

"...the typical helmet's smooth, sleek surface is not as much for sporty effect as to prevent it from catching from things during a fall. 'They're shiny and smooth so if you fall off an hit the asphalt it doesn't snag. If it snags you can break your neck'. (says Michael Peel, program director for fashion at RMIT University's School of Architecture and Design)

The Yakkay brand from Denmark does not meet Peel's endorsement on these grounds. This company has created covers for BMX-style helmets that look like fashionable hats and is recieving rave reviews around the world. Peel points out that while he likes the look, the cloth covers could snag in a fall. Ultimately that's the key point with helmets. They are worn as a safety device, not a fashion statement. Anything that adds to style but detracts from safety is a step in the wrong direction."

I've even seen helmets on the market covered with leather, which would seem even more risky than fabric. I recall hearing that some 'stylish' helmets produced for the City of New York featured fabric but the city couldn't get them insured so they were dropped.

I've recently learned that a helmet manufacturer, Giro, made a soft-shell helmet that came with a helmet cover. This was in the early 1990's. They were taken off the market because, among other reasons, the higher risk of neck injury and brain injury caused by the snagging of the fabric on the asphalt.


I think that if companies that produce fabric-covered helmets should be required to produced comprehensive evidence from laboratory tests that show without a doubt that they do not increase the already worrying risk of brain injury.

Whilst researching all this I stumbled across a Swedish company called MIPS. They have developed a new kind of helmet that has a thin layer of liquid between the two shell layers designed to reduce the intensity of rotational impacts. The outer shell rotates a bit upon impact. What's interesting about their website and their video, above, is that they're basically saying that existing helmets don't do much for you.

Ever Lazer helmets call rotational injury The Absolute Enemy.

Marketing or fact? Who knows. I'm not in the market for a helmet so it doesn't matter much. But if were a helmet-wearer I'd stick, at the very least, to smooth and shiny plastic outer layer and not many ventilation holes.



Related: Denmark Promotes Walking Helmets
- Helmets for Motorists
- More Helmets More Motorists - New Design
- Articles on Bicycle Helmets

Cycling Isn't 'Fun', It's Transport

Richard at Cyclelicio.us blogged this yesterday. It's an online survey from a group called Ecology Action in the US about bicycle commuting.

Right off the bat I agreed with Richard about the fact that the first four reasons are silly and out of touch with basic anthropology. The most important reason of all was left out.

Richard, however, claimed that the most important reason was that it was 'fun'. I got off the bus at that point.

I don't ride a bicycle all over the map because it's fun. I don't think I've ever considered it fun. Enjoyable, perhaps, but even that isn't at the top of the list.

Frisbees are fun. That's why hundreds of millions of them have been sold since Walter Frederick Morrison concieved his flying disk. But there are very, very few people who think that it's so much fun that they want to join a league and do it full time.

When the City of Copenhagen asks its cycling citizens what their main reason for cycling is - and they ask every two years - the majority reply that it is because a bicycle is the quickest and easiest way to get around town. 56% of them say that.

In second place, 19% reply that their main reason is 'good exercise'. They get their 30 minutes a day like the Ministry of Health suggests but riding to and from work and on to the supermarket.

Only 6% ride because it's inexpensive and only 1% ride for environmental reasons.

I agree with Richard when he writes, "No wonder we fail so miserably at cycling promotion. Do car advertisements speak blandly to the raw number crunching, analytical bottom line? Or do they appeal to your desire for visceral, go fast, fantastic feeling of freedom and sexual prowess?"

Cycling advocacy is hopelessly out of touch with basic human anthropology. It doesn't trigger anything universal in it's marketing. If we want large numbers of citizens to choose the bicycle, the main way to do that is what I call A2Bism. It's goal number one in my Four Goals for Promoting Urban Cycling lecture that I travel around with.

People on bicycles are no different than people on foot, on trains, planes and automobiles. They want to get there quick. Homo sapiens are like rivers - we'll always take the quickest route.

People in established bicycle cultures ride because it's quick. Easy. Convenient. If you make that possible in emerging bicycle cultures, you have half the battle won. Sure, it requires safe, separated infrastructure to gain access to the goldmine of societal benefits associated with high levels of urban cycling.

On the Ecology Action - Bike2Work site that hosted that poll I found this:
Why Bike Commute?
- Its good for your health. (I don't give a shit... I want to get there quick)
- Saves you money on gasoline, vehicle maintenance, parking fees and parking tickets. (I don't give a shit... I want to get there quick)
- Reduces air, water and noise pollution associated with driving. (I don't give a shit... I want to get there quick)
- Reduces automobile traffic. (I don't give a shit... I want to get there quick... although fewer cars might be nice...)
- Its good for the community by making our streets safer, quieter, and cleaner. (Yeah, yeah, sounds nice... but I still just want to get there quick.)

"Once you discover the freedom, convenience, and fitness benefits of biking to work, you'll wonder why you didn't start riding sooner. Bicycling can be a convenient, dependable, and virtually free mode of transportation. And bicycling burns about 500 calories an hour, so you can commute and stay fit at the same time."

From a marketing perspective this is really dreadful copy. This isn't selling anything, let alone cycling. And yet this is the standard fare on so many 'advocacy' websites all over the world.

After the above paragraph on the website was this...

Before You Ride - Helmets
Always wear a helmet - it may save your life.

All that harping on about the 'benefits' followed by the 'it could kill you' bullshit and the standard propaganda spiel about 'helmets saving lives'. You'd think people would have learned by now, from all the data and experience, that promoting helmets kills off cycling.

Whatever. This isn't about this one little website. It's much more general than that. If you want to continue marginalizing urban cycling, then by all means keep banging on your drum chanting those most failed rallying cries; "It's green!", "It's healthy", "It's cheap!", "It's carbon neutral!" Blah Blah Blah. All you'll be doing is continuing the long, sad tradition of the Greatest Marketing Fiasco in History: Environmentalism.

Think about it. Forty years of noisy awarness and activism. Millions (billions?) of dollars donated to thousands of organisations and spent on 'projects' and what do we have to show for it? The vast majority of our citizens are not 'converts'. They don't wear organic sweaters knitted from the wool of their free-range sheep while gardening biodynamic beetroot in the light of the full moon. They can't even be bothered to turn off their computer at night. Or buy water-saving toilets. Or take the bus one day a week.

Bicycle advocacy, as it is now in so many regions, is the bastard child of the pathetically ineffective environmental marketing of past four decades. There are so few people who have the Know Why - not to be confused with Know How.

Why did the bicycle explode onto the urban landscape all over the world 130 years ago? Merely because it was 'fun'? No. Sure, there was a niche group of rich white boys who first embraced the velocipede and the penny farthing as playthings. They had 'fun' with their expensive machines.

When the Safety bicycle was invented, however, the bicycle went mainstream. Every corner of society embraced it. It was all about mobility and effective transport. It was A2Bism. Sure, it liberated the working classes and women and no other transport form has transformed society so quickly and so effectively as the bicycle. But the workers could merely extend their mobility radius in their search for work. Women could get from A to B without being dependent on their husbands. And so on. And so on.

The bicycle went mainstream because it was quick and easy.

Bicycle advocacy needs to start applying basic marketing principles to this amazing product if we want it to go mainstream again. In the big picture, all we're doing now is getting small numbers to go for 'bike rides' on the weekends - families if we're lucky - and a few more adrenaline-driven men to take to the roads. We're selling frisbees. Whee. Oooh, but remember your plastic safety hat!

100 years ago 20% of all trips in Los Angeles were by bicycle. Now, according to this CNN article, About 27 percent of adults in the United States bike at least once a summer, according to a survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

This isn't just about one country. It's a global thing. We're doing so little right in the battle for behavourial transport change and urban mobility - and in an age where the population is ripe for it. It's now. And yet we're missing the point.

If we did stuff purely because it was 'fun' we'd all be living in condos in Spain or Florida playing beach volleyball and drinking daquiris until we died. I use a bicycle because it's quick. I enjoy it quite often. I know it's healthy. But those are just tag-a-long benefits, not primary reasons.

Make the bicycle the quickest way to get around a city or town. THAT'S what people want. THAT'S what will make them choose the bicycle. THAT'S how we will mainstream urban cycling and work effectively towards liveable cities, healthier populations and The Common Good.

Addendum:
That was actually that but then I saw this on the website...

They photoshopped a helmet onto EINSTEIN! That's just sick. The man was a SCIENTIST. Show some respect for SCIENCE. Interestingly, the European Cyclist's Federation's new Scientists for Cycling group use the same photo of Albert. Without a helmet, not surprisingly.

Copenhagenize Quiz Winner(s)!

Disclaimer: The photo does not depict the winners of the quiz. :-)

Thanks to everyone who took part in the Copenhagenize Quiz yesterday. A thrilling battle for a messenger bag from Cykelhjelm.org.

The correct answers are as follows:
Which year did Sweden begin bike helmet promotion?
1988

Which year did Sweden pass a helmet law for under 15's?
2005

To be honest, I've discovered I'm crap at hosting quizzes. The first question is good enough, but the second one is a bit unclear. They passed the law in 2004 and it went into effect in 2005.

Should have been clearer. Sorry. I'll be flexible in choosing the winners. And here they are:

Kim - 1988/2005 (even though he changed his mind later in the comments... :-) )
Crispy Kale: 1988/2004 (benefit of the doubt due to my badly-formulated quiz question)
@brumcyclist: 1988/2005

What you three lucky readers need to do is send me an email at copenhagenize [at] gmail [dot] com with WINNER! in the subject field and your full names and addresses. I'll get a messenger bag shipped off to you quicksmart.

For more reading on child helmet laws and their destructive nature, here's a good page to click on to.

Fewer Swedish Kids Cycling

Here we have a graph from Sweden showing helmet usage and number of cyclists in the 6-15 age group. Erik from Ecoprofile.se blogged about it, in Swedish on his own blog.

While helmet usage is up, the number of kids cycling is going down. They passed each other like ships in the night in 2007. Shocking, really, and a lesson to be learned. The graph is from VTI, Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute.

I can certainly understand why Swedish MP Camilla Lindberg has proposed a motion in the Swedish parliament to repeal the helmet law in her country.

Hey! How about a contest?!

Have a look on the graph and answer these two questions:

1. Which year did helmet promotion begin in Sweden?
2. Which year did the country pass a helmet law for under 15's?

It's bit tricky with the second question, but hey, it's a quiz. No cheating with Google, just look at the graph.

Put your answer in the comments and add your name. The first right answer will recieve this messenger bag from Cykelhjelm.org:



And please feel free to join the Cykelhjelm.org (bike helmet in Danish) Facebook group to support a return to rationality and common sense in Denmark.

Her kan man se konsekvenserne af cykelhjelm promovering og påbud. De samme negative resultater ses over hele verden i samtlige regioner som har promoverede cyklehjelme, for slet ikke at nævne tvunget borgerne i cykelhjelme. Folk holder op med at cykle. Rationalitet er den nye frygtkultur. Kend dine fakta.

Mexico City Repeals Bike Helmet Law

When it rains, it pours. A little while ago I blogged about how there appears to be a growing resistance against bike helmet laws around the world. Then I got word from my network of a couple more developments.

Mexico City repealed their bike helmet law back in February 2010.

Let's face it, it wasn't much of a law since there was little enforcement and it was, essentially, unenforceable. Back in 2008 there was a bicycle count including over 26,000 cyclists and 93% of them didn't feel the need to wear a helmet.

The main reason for the push to repeal the helmet law was the upcoming implementation of the city's bike share system, Ecobici.

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy [ITDP] were instrumental in getting the law repealed but there was also support from within the city government.

Back in December I blogged about how the helmet law in Israel was up for repeal, as well. From what I've heard the lobbying was successful and adults are no longer forced to wear helmets. Any more info on this is appreciated.

Basically, the helmet law in both places stood in the way of bike sharing programmes that would serve to encourage more people to cycle. Programmes which have been successful in achieving this goal in Paris and Lyon and 24 other French cities, as well as Barcelona and Seville and other Catalonian/Spanish cities and many places around the world.

The Australian Helmet Hurdle regarding bike share programmes is well-known. Nevertheless, there are still crazy ideas floating around in that country like making cheap helmets available at corner shops so that if you spontaneously want to grab a public bike for a short trip somewhere, you'll have to first piss all over that spontaneity and go into a shop to buy a cheap helmet.

In short... Got a helmet law? Don't bother with bike share programmes until you repeal it.

Growing Resistance to Helmet Laws?

Do I dare say that there is a growing resistance to helmet laws? It would seem so. There is more media attention of late on the subject.

And then there's this quote:
"We are the safest and healthiest human beings who ever lived, and yet irrational fear is growing, with deadly consequences — such as the 1,595 Americans killed when they made the mistake of switching from planes to cars after September 11. In part, this irrationality is caused by those — politicians, activists, and the media — who promote fear for their own gain."
Dan Gardner, Canadian author of "Risk"

Here's a few bits and pieces from around the world:


Here's an article from MetroNews in Vancouver.
Nanny-state helmet law may hurt cycling - by Derek Moscato - 26 April 2010
Brad Kilburn can’t be thrilled to be an outlaw in British Columbia. But the avid cyclist has become exactly that since last year.

Kilburn, you see, no longer wears a helmet while riding his bike. The Richmond resident, who has commuted to work by bicycle for the last 26 years, has come to the realization that mandatory helmet laws are actually bad for cyclists and Metro Vancouver’s cycling environment.

“It’s too bad well-intentioned individuals have harmed cycling advocacy by forcing riders to wear helmets,” he told me. Kilburn also maintains the same law is hampering Vancouver’s attempt to set up a bike sharing program.

He’s not alone in his assessment of helmet laws as more hindrance than help. In 2007, Saskatoon’s city council rejected a bylaw that would require bikers to wear helmets. One councillor wisely cited Canada’s obesity epidemic as a reason to distance the city from punitive measures that would discourage folks to get on a two-wheeler.

This is not to say that cyclists shouldn’t wear helmets. Most should — especially children, and those who ride in heavy traffic. But forcing riders to wear head protection in every circumstance has had the effect of killing any spontaneity and enjoyment from cycling.

Not only do helmets give some riders a false sense of security, they also send a message to motorists that cyclists are somehow better protected — and less vulnerable — in the case of a collision.

Sadly, the law is symptomatic of the nanny-state mentality that is so pervasive today.

Last September, Colin Clarke, a bike safety expert and former coach with the British Cycling Federation, published a detailed report entitled “Evaluating bicycle helmet use and legislation in Canada.”

According to his report, “helmet law effects in Canada appear to have resulted in the public being fined, subject to police involvement, loss of cycling health benefits and a reduction in civil liberties, as well as additional accidents and longer hospital stays for head injury.”

Canada, his research concludes, should emulate the cycling culture of the Netherlands, where helmet laws are unnecessary because of “good cycling facilities or wide on-road cycle lanes that avoid high speed and heavy vehicle traffic.”

Sadly, the sensibility that exists in Holland and even Saskatoon has yet to prevail in B.C. And that means cyclists like Kilburn will have to continue riding on the wrong side of the local law.

Derek previously wrote an article about how the province's helmet laws were a hindrance to Vancouver's plans for a bike share system.


Meanwhile, Down Under, Sue Abbott continues to push for, at the very least, a debate about Australia's restrictive helmet laws. Here she is with her MLA George Souris in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, with a copy of the European Cyclists Federation campaign brochure "Ask me why I cycle without a helmet".

Sue, you may recall, was ticketed for riding without a helmet and decided to fight the ticket. The first judge ruled against her, but when she took it to the next judicial level, the judge quashed her conviction. While the appeal was dimissed, she is no longer a criminal, doesn't have to pay the fine and her unexpected half-victory is important.

I first blogged about Sue here, then here, then here.


Cycling at the summer house in Sweden.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, a Swedish politician, MP Camilla Lindberg has proposed a motion to the Swedish parliament - Riksdagen - for repealing that country's child helmet laws on moral grounds. A bold and brave move as well as a necessary one in The Age of Obesity.
Thanks to Erik from Ecoprofile for the Swedish link.

Airbags Instead of Bike Helmets

I received an email from a friend at the Dutch Cyclists Union - Fietsersbond. In the subject line it read, "Airbags instead of bike helmets".

Back in June 2008 I blogged about Bicycle Airbags on Cars and about how the Danish Cyclists Federation were interested in getting the Traffic Safety Board to investigate a Dutch study that suggested external airbags on cars would save cyclists' lives. That was the last we heard of it in this country.

But the Dutch... oh, the Dutch... Undefeated World Champions in Bicycle Advocacy and Societal Rationality... (no, let's not forget the Hungarians...) they've kept at it. The idea of airbags on cars to protect cyclists started as a kind of a "what if..." story in the Fietsersbond's magazine a few years ago.

Now the idea is nearing fruition. In a press release from early March 2010 the Fietsersbond boldy declares that cars will be equipped with airbags for cyclist collisions by 2015.

The Dutch do their homework. Like any self-respecting advocacy org they have traffic consultants dedicated to scientific issues and they know that bicycle helmets don't have a lot going for them as far as effectiveness goes. They know that the mere promotion of helmets reduces cycling and they've read the chilling results of the mathematician Professor Piet de Jong's study about the heavy price helmet laws inflict on countries and regions.

So, in an inspired moment of rationality, they decided to put forth the idea of putting air bags on the machines that cause the damage - the cars. No ignoring the bull here. Place the responsibility where it belongs.

The airbags for cars idea met a great deal of enthusiasm in the Netherlands. So much so that funding has been given to test the idea.

And the email I recieved today was about the Dutch Transport Minister pledging €1 million more for further research. Here's the minister saying stuff about it in Dutch:


The crash test in the film is one of a series to determine where cyclists land on cars in order to figure out where the airbags should be placed. The next step is the completion of a detection system for pedestrians and cyclists. Then there is a test on the streets of Amsterdam.

"Thanks to this detection system, an airbag will be activated in the event of a collision so as to considerably cushion the impact of a cyclist’s head on the windscreen. The cyclist will not die from his injuries, and will have a good chance of coming out virtually unscathed."

"The test in Amsterdam will take a year. The researchers of Autoliv and TNO Automotive want to know if the sensors on the front of the car will function well under all weather conditions. The test car will be fitted with a button which the driver must push in special situations, such as a collision or near collision. The recordings of the detection system’s cameras will be saved. The researchers want to analyse the observations of the system. A collision sensor is fitted in addition to the sensors - the cameras - that will recognise cyclists. This collision sensor registers when a cyclist is indeed hit and an airbag should be activated. These extensive tests are needed in order to make sure that the system is fully reliable. The airbags should only be activated when a cyclist or pedestrian is hit. It is not supposed to activate when the car hits a pigeon or post."

Mandatory Airbags on Cars?
‘The airbag is expected to be taken into production in 2015, but that of course depends on the wishes of consumers and car manufacturers’, says Van de Broek of TNO.

‘That’s an amazing result’, says Theo Zeegers who is responsible for the project on behalf of the Fietsersbond. ‘We’ve come much further than we’d ever hoped for.’ The costs involved are as yet unknown, but Zeegers expects it will be a couple of hundred Euros per car. He pleads for the airbag system to become a compulsory part of each new car. ‘Just compare it to the compulsory introduction of the catalytic converter.’

A compulsory airbag on the windscreen will add a couple of hundred Euros to a car’s price tag. But what does it yield? According to Zeegers, it may save dozens of cyclists’ lives in the Netherlands. In terms of the EU we are talking hundreds of lives."

The airbag system is a big success for the Fietsersbond. ‘In collisions with passenger cars in which the cyclists dies, it is nearly always the head injuries that are fatal. That’s why we’ve been busy for years trying to find out how we can make cars safer for cyclists’, says Zeegers.

TNO carried out an exploratory study on the instructions of the Fietsersbond four years ago. They expected the shape of the front of a car to largely determine the seriousness of the injuries. Ultimately however, it emerged that airbags on the exterior of a car may save many a cyclist’s life. But they have to be in the right position.

The TNO studies showed that cyclists often benefit little from an airbag system specifically developed for pedestrians. In a collision, pedestrians end up with their heads on the hood or the lower part of the windscreen. That is often different for cy-
clists however. Their heads usually do not hit the hood, but the upper part of the windscreen. If they are unlucky, their heads even hit the hard metal window stiles. This is where airbags for cyclists should be fitted.

Dead or dizzy
So we know that an airbag can drastically cushion the impact. But by how much? Researchers express the force of the impact in Head Injury Criterion (HIC). This HIC value should stay below 1,000. For the elderly, this value should even be below 600. During computer simulations carried out by TNO in 2008 it emerged that in a collision at 30 kilometres per hour, the cyclist endures an HIC value of 3,700. Hardly anyone would be expected to survive such an impact. With the airbag however, the HIC value dropped to 590. All a cyclist will suffer from in that case is a headache and dizziness.

Here's a link, in Dutch, to the Fietsersbond's page about this exciting project.

No Helmets for Urban Cyclists in Israel

Tel Aviv Cyclists, by Thomas Schlijper.

Last year Israel implemented an all ages helmet law for it's citizens, despite the fact that helmet laws appear to becoming less popular over the past couple of years.

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation has now decided to support a bill that would modify the law to exclude adults cycling in urban areas from being forced to wear a helmet, The Jerusalem Post reports.

Israeli Coalition to support helmet-less bike riding within cities

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation threw its support on Sunday behind a bill which would remove the requirement for adults to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle in the city.

The bill, sponsored by MK Sheli Yehimovich (Labor) repeals part of the Helmet Law which was passed last year. Instead of requiring a helmet for intra-city riding, Yehimovich's bill would leave that decision up to the adult rider. Children, those riding off-road or those biking between cities would still be required to wear a helmet.

"Riding a bike in communities and especially in cities significantly reduces traffic congestion, parking difficulties, air pollution and accidents. Requiring helmets drove many people away from their bikes and back to their cars because of the hassle of wearing a helmet and carrying it around," the MK said in a statement.

"In Paris and other European cities, there are wonderful programs which provide bikes for transport and no one requires a helmet there. Tel Aviv has also signed a contract to station 2,000 bikes around the city but the project has been held up because of the Helmet Law. Moreover, the law is unenforceable and the police have said they do not plan to even attempt to enforce it," she added.

The bill hasn't passed just yet. There are three votes in the Knesset to come. Nevertheless there are signs that rationality is returning to our species.

The problem that helmet laws pose for bike share programmes is not new. Australia is pondering what to do with this contradictory mix. Mike Rubbo, the documentary filmmaker, tries to get to the bottom of it at his blog. We've posted about Israel and Australia previously regarding helmets and bike share.

Spain is one of the only other countries to distinguish between city and countryside. Spain implemented an all-ages helmet law in 2004. It doesn't, however, apply in the following situations:
- cyclists riding in towns and cities
- cycling during periods of extreme heat
- cycling up steep hills
- professional cyclists

Besides that, the law is rarely enforced.Source.

Hungary has, in their recent amendments to the Highway Code included a helmet detail regarding speed limits.

If you're cycling outside of cities and want to ride 50 km/h or more, you can do so if you wear a helmet. If you don't wear it, you're only allowed to ride 40 km/h. Source: this post, in the comments.

Strangely, when viewing the Jerusalem Post article, there was an advert under the article that read:
Pedal Power: Learn the basics of biking with pro-advice, confidence-building drills, and a training plan developed by Cooking Light expert Gin Miller (Cooking Light)

Nothing to do with this post, but it's just humourous.

Electric Cars in Amsterdam and Elsewhere

Amsterdam Traffic

This article from the NY Times about the emergence of electric cars highlights the problems and frustrations of electric cars being percieved as 'green' and of politicians who are keen to promote them.


A Pro-Bicycle City Faces Trouble Promoting Electric Cars

The article is interesting because we are on the cusp of the same issue here in Denmark, one of two countries along with Israel that is a testing ground for new electric cars and technology. I read the article with Copenhagen in mind.

"...now officials are trying to switch gears and mount an aggressive effort to encourage people to buy new electric cars. That jibes with this country's fight against global warming, but it is also warming the tempers among cyclists. They worry that their traditional right-of-way over cars will be sideswiped by more cars and more parking ramps.

The city council is giving free power to new electric car owners for the next two years and has agreed to pay half of the extra cost of purchasing plug-in vehicles, as compared to cheaper gasoline-powered models. The city might even carve out a reserved parking space with fuel access and front-door approach for new owners. That's a jackpot in this space-squeezed city."

Is this the beginning of the transport battle for Amsterdam? And other cities like Copenhagen? Will this be the greatest challenge bicycle planning has faced in established bicycle cultures for the past four decades?

I recall Adrienne from Change Your Life, Ride a Bike telling me about how her lobbying for bicycle lanes in her neighbourhood is not completely understood by her neighbours who offer up pearls like this: "Why do you want bike lanes?! We'll all have electric cars soon!"

Full article:

A Pro-Bicycle City Faces Trouble Promoting Electric Cars

Cycling is Part of the Solution

Friday night bicycle traffic in Copenhagen.

The European Cyclists Federation [ECF], present here in Copenhagen for the conference, sent a letter to all the members of European Parliament's delegation to the Climate Conference. It is short and sweet and to the point.

Dear Member of the European Parliament’s Delegation to Copenhagen Summit,

Urban traffic is responsible for 40% of CO2 emissions.

Transport is part of the problem.

Cycling is part of the solution.

A tripling of cycling (*) in Europe at the expense of individual motorized trips,
would save 49.1 million tons of CO2 or 5% of CO2 transport emissions.

[*] See The Charter of Brussels.

You can read the letter to the MEPs here, as a pdf.
Brilliant. The European Cyclists’ Federation was founded in 1983 by 12 bicycle user associations. It has now 60 member organizations in 37 countries.

In another recent newsletter email from the ECF they announced the work of the ECF's Helmet Working Group.

The ECF Helmet Working Group is building this page to help ECF member organisations stop the dangerisation of cycling through helmet promotions and the threat of mandatory cycle helmet laws. Shock-horror helmet promotions are countering the good work of ECF members to promote cycling as a healthy and safe way to travel.

They're still building their webpage, which can be found here.

In addition, the ECF has started a Scientists for Cycling network
As cycling has many different aspects it should be an issue for many different sciences. In any case scientists who cycle themselves, who believe that people should cycle and who want to contribute to the promotion of cycling and to the improvement of cycling policy and the bicycle as a vehicle should be interested in the exchange of ideas, articles, research projects, reports etc. via a network of scientists for cycling.

Danish "Cyclist" Beats Up Bus Driver

This is so frightfully un-Danish and certainly not representative of what we do here. But wackos are all over the place.

A Danish 'cycling enthusiast' went nuts and chased after a bus that he felt passed him too close while it was avoiding oncoming traffic. The 'cyclist' followed the bus to the end station outside of Aarhus and then boarded it to begin beating the bus chaffeur, leaving him badly cut and bruised.

The man was caught on the busses camera and it took two weeks for the police to apprehend him, but they did so in the end. Not really a great advert for Team CSC - now Saxobank.

Safe but Somehow Scary

The Culture of Fear has a firm grip on even an otherwise rational land like Denmark.

According to a recent survey every fourth parent in the country doesn't feel it safe enough to send their children to school alone on foot or on bike.

This is despite the fact that it has never been safer to walk or cycle in Denmark. The Danish Road Safety Council carried out the survey. It's ironic that the development of this fear culture is largely their own work.

Their warm embrace of a certain type of fear campaigning, especially regarding cycling but also including traffic in general is said to have caused the change in perception in the population.

In Denmark we cycle 30% less than we did in 1990. This is a national figure - things are quite different in cities like Copenhagen and Odense where cycle traffic, for example, has boomed in that period. If we still cycled that 30% we'd save 1500 lives a year - and that number is currently being revised and will end up being a lot higher.

Since the early 1990's, the Road Safety Council's scare tactics are directly responsible for the sad fact that the number of children driven to school has risen 200%.

Now they're scrambling to get parents to change their minds back to pre-1990 perceptions, especially regarding getting kids to school.

They are now encouraging parents to train their kids better to walk or cycle to school and have issued statements this week about how it's the parents fault or responsibility to teach their kids better and to practice walking or cycling the routes to school. In order to teach them to be confident in the traffic.

Ironic, isn't it? You spend two decades trying to scare the shit out of parents and then you have to come out and say, "No, no... it's okay. Really!"

"There are far too many parents who drive their children to school and who are so busy in the morning that they just speed up to the school to drop their kids off. That's not the way to train children to take safe routes to school", says Anders Rosbo from the Road Safety Council.

He says that it's the parents themselves that create dangerous traffic situations with the armada of cars outside schools in the morning.

"The many cars in the areas around schools cause a general insecurity among some parents who don't dare let their children walk or cycle alone to school."

One of the policemen who works towards getting schools and parents to work better together is Michael Bjørkman from the Copenhagen Police. He, too, thinks that it is the parents themselves who make the school routes unsafe.

"When I speak with parents they say that they drive their children to school because it's too dangerous to walk or cycle. But my experience is that there are many, many school routes where children from 3rd Year can walk or cycle alone. All that is required is that parents take the time to practice with their children and train them to understand what to look out for", says Michael Bjørkman.

It's not hard to see how the Road Safety Council's hardcore helmet promotion of the past year and a half has contributed to this Culture of Fear. Just two years ago you didn't experience conversations with people about how dangerous it was to cycle to school or work or anywhere.

Since intense helmet promotion was started by the Road Safety Council and Danish Cyclists' Federation there has been a paradigm shift in the way people percieve cycling. Now you have conversations at dinner parties or in workplaces about how 'dangerous' cycling is. I constantly hear from friends and collegues about conversations they've been a party to about these 'dangers'. This is not good marketing. It's quite stupid. But The Road Safety Council, and the Danish Cyclists' Federation [believe it or not] have succeeded in branding cycling in one of the safest cycling nations in the world as a 'dangerous' activity.

Despite the lack of statistics to back it up. They've shot themselves in the foot.

I've mentioned before how at a parents meeting last year when my son started in school one of the parents asked the group if anyone "dared" to let their children cycle to school. The question was bizarre for me to hear.

Fortunately, the cycle traffic to my son's school is busy and the bike parking outside the building chaotic - which is a good thing. So many children ride to school, either on their own bikes or in a cargo bike. This is typical of many Copenhagen schools but the story is quite different around the country. Still, there are parents who live within 500 metres of our school and who work within a kilometre or two of the school who still drop their kids off in cars.

There is some political talk about creating safe zones around schools. We've blogged about it before right here.

I fear that we may be well on our way to slowly dismantling our century old perception of cycling as a normal, safe and acceptable transport form. It's not just that the car-centric Road Safety Council is paving the way for a more car-centric society. We're risking losing an important part of our national identity. The part that previously considered the bicycle as an inseparable fifth limb, with all the individual and societal benefits involved.

Even Denmark needs Copenhagenizing it seems.

I often wonder if we're heading in the same direction as other countries. This kind of project in the UK may be in our future unless we start rebranding cycling as a positive thing. There are signs that it may be too late. The Danish Cyclists' Federation has run a campaign called Alle Børn Cykler - All Children Cycle - for years. School classes compete around the country to see who can cycle the most, based on a point system. This year the Cyclists' Federation's campaign was filled to the brim with ideology. Helmets were a main feature and gave extra points. So much for freedom to choose. So much for selling cycling positively and encouraging people to cycle. So much for focusing on the positive aspects of cycling. Where most cyclist federations around Europe have their own traffic consultants who keep their finger on the scientific pulse, the Danish Cyclists' Federation merely get their information from the Road Safety Council. Which explains a lot.

Maybe we're not that far from the British project mentioned above.

As a matter of interest, here's the current guidelines in Denmark for children in the traffic, if the parents have trained the kids in the traffic enough that both parties feel confident. I spent a lot of time training my son, now 7, in cycling to daycare, kindergarten and school. He was confident enough to cycle to daycare from the age of 3 and a half, with training wheels, and from about age 4 without.

3-4 years: Children can learn simple pedestrian rules but they are easily distracted and react impulsively if something catches their attention. Hold the child's hand and keep the child on the side farthest away from the traffic as possible.

4-5 years: Start bicycle training where there is no traffic. It's too early to let children walk or cycle alone. They cannot judge a dangerous situation.

5-7 years: Children can keep focus on the traffic for short periods and walk alone on quiet streets. Most can judge an obvious danger and cross streets with a good view of the traffic but intersections are still hard to tackle. Start with bike riding on streets without too much traffic if the child can cycle in a straight line and is good at braking.

6-7 years: Children can walk alone to school on safe routes. According to the law they have to be six years old to cycle alone in the traffic but it is still tricky for them to judge distance and speed so they should be accompanied by an adult when cycling to school.

8-10 years: Most children are now able to judge the traffic situation and can walk alone to school. They can also take a bus or train if the trip is simple. If the route to school is familiar and safe with light, slow traffic, they can cycle to school alone.

10-12 years: At this age most children can handle a more complicated route to school alone on a bicycle and tackle public transport that requires a change of bus or train.

12 years: Children who have had training and experience can judge the traffic almost as good as an adult and can now freely transport themselves alone. If they are inexperienced on a bicycle they need the same kind of training as small children.

Via: Politiken.

Sue, Mr Rubbo and Australian Bixis

Some of you may remember Sue Abbott, the Australian woman fighting her ticket for cycling with a helmet. The Australian documentary filmmaker Mike Rubbo made a film about her getting ready for court, which we blogged here.

Mr Rubbo made a film following Sue on the day she showed up in court, which you can see above. She lost her case, which wasn't really a surprise, but the judge didn't really take her position seriously, which really is his job. Sue has now decided to appeal, taking her battle for bicycling freedom to the next level.

Good luck to her. We haven't had bicycle 'activists' in Denmark for many years but we certainly used to and anyone fighting to ride a bicycle as they see fit gets our respect. Not least because it's also about questioning society's tendency to ignore the problem - the automobile.


Mr Rubbo was also present at a bicycle conference in Melbourne where a bike share programme was presented. With this film he explores the problems of implementing a bike share programme in a city with mandatory helmet laws. The woman interviewed calls it a 'vexing problem' and she proposes making cheap helmets available FOR SALE at convenience stores and fast food outlets that are open late.

Basically, you want a bike. Before - or after - you get a bike the idea is that you go to a shop or fast food joint somewhere [hopefully] nearby and buy a cheap helmet. Then off you go.

Kind of defeats the purpose of ease of use and accessibility. Making helmets available for borrowing doesn't work due to the issue of sanitation. Lice and happy-sounding skin diseases like Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus are among the reasons that make sharing helmets undesirable in such schemes. There is no cost efficient way to sanitize helmets in bike share programmes. Australian authorities have known this for ages and don't really know how to tackle the problem. Buying a helmet for a short trip from A to B seems a bit far-fetched.

We'll see how things turn out in Melbourne.

Australian Helmet Science - For Motorists

Since posting about mass-produced motoring helmets and later Protective Helmet-ish headbands for motorists I was curious to learn more about the latter, produced at the University of Adelaide.

It's taken a while but I finally recieved the study done in 2000 at the Road Accident Research Unit at the U of Adelaide, called CR 193: The development of a protective headband for car occupants (Andersen, White, McLean 2000).

A chap at Road Safety Policy, Department of Infrastructure & Transport in Australia was kind enough to send a link to the Australian Government website wherein the study is presented.

I don't think cyclists should be bullied with helmet promotion and threatened with legislation when there exists a very real and present danger to car occupants. I think that the car lobby as well as the general population should be presented with more data and facts about the dangers of driving.

It's only fair and logical.

From the Australian report we can read about the background for the study:

"Car crashes remain a significant source of head injury in the community. Car occupants have an annual hospital admission rate of around 90 per 100,000 population. Of drivers who are admitted to hospital, the most serious injury is usually to the head (O'Conner and Trembath, 1994).

In a previous study, McLean et al. (1997) estimated the benefits that are likely to accrue to Australia from the use of padding of the upper interior of the passenger compartment. This study specifically examined the effects of the ammendment to the United States Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 201 (FMVSS 201) in which passenger cars have to pass head impact tests with the upper interior. That report estimated the total annual reduction in harm to the Australian community to be around $123 million.

But more impressive were the estimates of introducing protective headwear for car occupants. The authors of the report estimated that the annual reduction in harm would be in the order of $380 million. The benefit of padding the head is that the head is protected from strikes with unpadded automotive components, exterior objects and in vehicles that predate any eventual introduction of padded interiors."

These are Australian numbers so the numbers for annual reduction in harm would be even higher in the EU or US.

The tests were a success, which is great news for drivers and car occupants:

"The results from Phase 3 indicate that a headband can greatly reduce the severity of an impact to the head. HIC was reduced by 25 percent [...] when compared with an impact with no headband."

The RARU headband prototype covers 44% of impact points usually suffered by car occupants. You can see on the photos at top that the protective area was actually extended when the prototype was designed so this 44% must be a bit higher.

The researchers go on to recommend further work on the subject:


"The results from Phase 3 indicate that a headband can greatly reduce the severity of an impact to the head. HIC was reduced by 25 percent [...] with the use of 25 mm of BB-38 polyurethane, and 67 percent with the honeycomb cardboard prototype, when compared with an impact with no headband."

"We recommend that further investigation is made into materials of a honeycomb structure to find a material of the correct crushing strength and durability. We also recommend that prototypes be developed further to be included in a testing program that would include other vehicle structures tested over a range of velocities."

It gets extremely difficult to ignore the bull when you're looking at this kind of science.

If we're serious, as societies, about really saving lives, these headbands should be promoted on all levels. There are two positive effects: One is that there will be fewer head injuries among car occupants. The other is that we would be informing people of the danger of driving and thereby branding driving as dangerous which will only serve the cause of encouraging people to consider safer transport options like... oh I don't know... cycling?

Take the Poll:


Here's a link to the Australian Government website about the motorist headbands.
Here's the study as a .pdf: The Development of a Protective Headband for Car Occupants

Magpie Attacks and How to Avoid Them

In Australia there is a problem with magpies diving at cyclists. There are many ideas flying around as to how you can avoid this irritation by putting various adornments on your bike helmet if you wear one.

A group of friends in Canberra did a [not very] scientific study to determine the best solution for stopping the menace, including some of the various ideas of what to put on your helmet.

One might conclude that covering the helmet with something less shiny or even a wig might be a good solution. However, helmets have two primary features that are important. One is absorbing impact and the other is being very slippery. That's why they're designed the way they are, with a slippery, thin outer shell.

If the odds are against you and you go down and the odds are further against you and your head makes contact with the asphalt, you really want that helmet to be slippery so your head slides.

Covering your helmet with fabric or what not will increase the risk of your helmet snagging on the asphalt and this will increase the risk of neck injury or worse.

I'll be doing a post about how it isn't wise to cover helmets with fabric in the near future.

Sacred Bull in Society's China Shop

Placing responsibiliy where it counts.
There's something I've been wondering about. I've noticed that the majority of traffic 'safety' campaigns seem to focus on everything except the bull in the china shop - the automobile. It's a global tendency, stemming from the seemingly irreversible prescence of cars and trucks. I find it odd that so few campaigns actually place the focus firmly on the problem: the large, heavy, dangerous machines that rumble about our streets and the people who seem to have difficultly controlling them.

The billboard prototype above is a logical illustration of how traffic safety campaigns should be focused.

In Frederiksberg, the city in which I live - not surprisingly it is staunchly conservative/right wing - these posters were slapped up recently. It rhymes in Danish, but reads "She checked her text messages, and died in the process."

What a stupid girl. Cars are everywhere and they're not going anywhere anytime soon. It's her own damn fault for impeding their route. Think of the poor motorist who had no choice in running her down. He/she was just regular citizen on their way to or from work. Not only were they forced to suffer the mental anguish of killing a text-messaging pedestrian [shockingly sans walking helmet], but they were made to wait around at the scene of the accident, be interviewed by the police and they were probably late for dinner/work.

So someone let a bull into society's china shop. We all realise that and it doesn't look like the bull is going anywhere. All the fragile fine china on the shelves is getting knocked about and smashed on a regular basis. [An estimated 1.2 million people are killed in motor vehicle accidents every year around the world].

It seems quite ridiculous that nobody is talking about the bull. Instead there is constant talk of wrapping up all the pieces of porcelain in thin bubble wrap and tsk-tsking about how dangerous it is to even CONSIDER placing fine china on the shelves of a china shop now that there's a bull stampeding about.

Meanwhile the bull just shit on the floor in aisle 9 and tipped another shelf over. Crash bang boom.

Here's a radical idea. If it proves too difficult to remove the bull entirely from the china shop, what about lassoing it and tethering it to a fixed object? Restricting its movements and not letting it run about? Castrating it and calming it? If need be, creating a pen within the china shop where it can graze, out of reach of the china?

The automobile industry wants us to forget the bull.

And the proud stallion, ram, birds of prey, big cats, mythical dragons. These poor innocent creatures. It's a shame that they can't just freely roam about without all these soft, squishy obstacles that get in their way. Their marketing has succeeded and it's not surprisingly that the industry is among the most fervent advocates for making cycling appear more dangerous than it is.

Society has turned a blind eye to the bull.

Even in traffic safety campaigns that employ scaremongering about car accidents, the focus is often on YOUR safety and that of the other passengers. Rarely the external problem of killing innocent people.

I've been trying to think about examples of adverts that are focused on the actual problem and that place responsibility for the heavy hitters in the traffic equation, rather than the "soft traffic", as we call pedestrians and cyclists in Denmark. One example, or rather exception, is the annual campaign above. It appeared for many years when school was starting, featuring various kids.

"Watch out for Laura. She's new in the traffic"

But it's been difficult to find other examples. Does anybody know of any out there?


A recent public service campaign from Wales, above, is another exception. It focuses on the latest cause celebre - the dangers of texting while driving, but it graphically show how dangerous driving is. It is also the greatest public service campaign for advocating motoring helmets. Have a look and see, despite the seatbelts and airbags, why motoring helmets have been developed first by an Australian company in the 1980's and later at the University of Adelaide in Australia. [after an Australian government study showed that 25% of all car fatalities could be avoided if the motorists had worn helmets - despite seatbelts and airbags. That's over 250,000 lives saved every year globally, and 10,000 in the US alone]

Virtually everyone involved in the accidents has a head injury of some sort.

Like our previous post about applying logic to the case and placing health warning labels on all cars and trucks, a change of focus about the very real possibility of killing innocent people while driving would be an effective way to place responsibility in the right place, as well as encourage motorists to choose alternative transport forms.

There are numerous ways of taming the everpresent bull in society's china shop. There are congestion charges in place in many cities, discouraging motor vehicles and encouraging people to take public transport or cycle. Dozens and dozens of cities around Europe are actively implementing lower speed limits. Down to 20 or 30 km/h in built-up areas and the effects on the number of accidents is positive. Sadly, this very simple idea is not being considered in Copenhagen.

A recent BBC article completely ignores the bull, whereas in Denmark and the Netherlands drivers of large trucks [HGVs/Heavy Goods Vehicles] are being made to improve their mirrors, install cameras and warning sensors and there are other technological advances that will improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists.

There are changes to laws, like in Denmark and the Netherlands that place the blame firmly on the automobile in accidents, unless it can be proven otherwise. The idea is simply that the person in the most dangerous vehicle has the most responsibility.

What started as a "what if" idea at the Dutch Cyclist Federation - Fietsersbond - is now evolving rapidly into a real project. External airbags on cars in case of collisions with pedestrians or cyclists. The project has recieved a great deal of funding and simulations have been produced. A crash-test dummy simulation is on the calendar for later this year.

All in all, it's high time that we turned around, looked at the bull and did something about it. The sooner, the better. It's not rocket science, it's merely a question of changing our marketing tactics.