[SDCBC] Pedal Power in the News

[John Forester]

Serge Issakov wrote: "However, trying to increase the popularity of 
bicycling within the culture is also a widely accepted goal of 
"bicycling advocacy".  That's why I'm puzzled as to why so many 
bicycling advocates participate in efforts (and celebrate such efforts) 
that greatly exaggerate the dangers of bicycling in traffic, efforts 
that cannot help but can only hinder the popularity of bicycling."

Of course Serge is puzzled: he's thinking rationally about an irrational 
aspect of our society, for which there are no rational answers. I offer 
two explanations, the second growing out of the first.

The first explanation is that everybody who counts (that is, everybody 
except those few crazy vehicular cyclists) knows that cycling is so 
dangerous that society must produce special safety measures to make it 
sufficiently safe for normal people to use. Now, society won't move 
sufficiently fast unless it believes that the danger is enormous. 
Therefore, the danger must be proclaimed to be enormous. Therefore, all 
measures that are thought to reduce the danger must be celebrated as 
heroic achievements against both the danger itself and the inertia of 
society. QED.

The second explanation feeds off the first. Some people, such as 
motorists, see the convenience to themselves produced by these "safety 
measures". Other people, such as bike planners, have a financial 
interest in providing these "safety measures". Still other people, such 
as anti-motoring activists, have the ideological interest that these 
"safety measures" will reduce the reluctance of motorists to switch to 
cycling. Whether or not these people actually believe that these 
measures are needed safety measures is irrelevant; they recognize that 
proclaiming the danger of cycling and the benefit of these "safety 
measures" will, because that is what most people do believe, help attain 
their objectives. QED


-- 
John Forester, MS, PE
Bicycle Transportation Engineer
7585 Church St, Lemon Grove CA 91945
619-644-5481