Motorists Dismount

Buttons that pedestrians or cyclists are forced to push in order for a computer program - programmed by a car-centric engineer - to grant them authorisation to cross a street in their city have to be among the most archaeic remnants of a century of city planning that caters only to the automobile.

And that was a long sentence. Sorry.

I wish for their immediate demise. The only thing goofier is the pedestrian flags in some American cities. Talk about ignoring the bull. Not to mention engineering instead of designing our cities.

One of the things I like most about cycling in Copenhagen is that I don't have to push any of these buttons. There have been a few but they tend to get removed and thank goodness for that.

Here's one from the archives:

(Although now I'll have to check if it's still there...) Still, they are a rarity here and I've only seen them at t-intersections.

So why not signage like the graphic up top? If we're going to level the playing field - which we should - after this centuria horribilis. Let this sign be posted in densely-populated urban centres, near schools and kindergartens and basically anywhere we're keen to reestablish liveable cities.

More wacky buttons from around the world:

Ljubljana, Slovenia & Washington DC & Sao Paulo

Berlin & Halifax, Canada

Lean on your city. #cyclechic #amsterdam #bike

Ottawa & Amsterdam

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 wi

Head Protection for Motorists

A while back we posted about an Australian 'motoring helmet' designed to protect motorists' heads in car accidents. It was designed in the late 1980's. Then we recieved this tip yesterday. Another head protection device for motorists, this one developed at the University of Adelaide, in Australia. A serious product for the serious of protecting motorists from the dangers of driving. Despite airbags and seatbelts, motorists are victims of alarming head injury rates. Here's what the Centre for Automotive Safety Research [CASR] in Australia says: The Centre has been evaluating the concept of a protective headband for car occupants. In about 44 percent of cases of occupant head injury, a protective headband, such as the one illustrated, would have provided some benefit. One estimate has put the potential benefit of such a device (in terms of reduced societal Harm) as high as $380 million, compared with $123 million for padding the upper interior of the car. Thi

Fear of Cycling 03 - Helmet Promotion Campaigns

Third installment by sociologist Dave Horton, from Lancaster University, as a guest writer. Dave has written a brilliant assessment of Fear of Cycling in an essay and we're well pleased that he fancies the idea of a collaboration. We'll be presenting Dave's essay in five parts. Fear of Cycling - Helmet Promotion Campaigns - by Dave Horton - Part 03 of 05 Like road safety education, campaigns to promote the wearing of cycle helmets effectively construct cycling as a dangerous practice about which to be fearful. Such campaigns, and calls for legislation to make cycle helmets compulsory, have increased over the last decade. In 2004, a Private Members’ Bill was tabled in the UK Parliament, to make it an offence for adults to allow children under the age of 16 to cycle unless wearing a helmet. Also in 2004, the influential British Medical Association, in a policy turnaround , voted to campaign for helmets to be made compulsory for all cyclists (for comprehensive detail on these

The Life-Sized City Blog

Search This Blog