Bicycle
advocates have a difficult job. Winning improvements for cycling is hard enough,
but then every gain they make can become the target of lawmakers who see
cyclists as obstacles to be removed from roadways. Such lawmakers often try to hide
their initiatives under thin veils labeled “safety” as if they are doing
cyclists a favor.
Such
false “safety” initiatives are usually packaged in laws that require cyclists
to wear things, which make cycling less convenient and often impossible for impoverished
cyclists without breaking the law. Such laws force impoverished cyclists into
becoming targets for police harassment because they have no other transportation
option. The most common of these sorts of laws are mandatory
helmet laws. Others include reflective vests or other supposed safety gear.
These
sorts of malicious initiatives are so harmful to any bicycle program that I
made sure to include a short section on bicycle advocacy in Defying
Poverty with Bicycles. The book focuses on setting up a community
center where people can find bikes and careers. And yet even these program
leaders must be alert for threats like these to ensure they participants can
ride.
Even
though such threats are common, I was stunned earlier this year when I read
about the situation in New South Wales, Australia. Australia is already
crippled by a nationwide mandatory bicycle helmet law, which likely emboldened brazen
lawmakers. They took these deceitful tactics several notches higher with
increased fines and an additional requirement for cyclists to carry ID. Read
more about it here.
So I’m
happy to report that they didn’t get away with it. This
recent article gives a nice overview of the successful response from
bicycle advocates.
We can
let out a sigh of relief for everyone in New South Wales who needs to or will
ever want to ride a bicycle. And yet we cannot ignore the fact that bicycle
advocates had to spend more than a year battling this ridiculous threat when
they could have given their energy to creating
kinder communities.
We all have
to keep a careful eye out for and then stomp out even the slightest hint of
such threats or we could be faced with an escalation like they saw in New South
Wales.
Sue
