Skip to main content

Fear-Mongering on the Silence Ride

I just had to chuck this post up. I'm in the midst of reading reams of research studies and formulating a blog response to the world of bike helmet advocacy.

Regarding the fear-mongering inherent in the whole debate, I was quite shocked to find this video. It's absolutely mad. It's from the Ride of Silence website.

The Ride of Silence is apparently some kind of memorial event where cyclists honour cyclists who died over the past year with a tribute ride. Which sounds nice.

They have a video on their website about last year's ride, where the ride went around a lake.

Here's a link to the page - it opens in a new window and starts playing automatically.

Here's what the speaker says:

"This has grown way beyond anyone's dreams. No one ever saw this happening. South Africa, Scotland, England, Brazil, Greece... the list goes on and on. You'll be riding with them, 'cause there's still carnage goin' on out there on the roads.

Someone's going to ride around the lake with us tonight... and they won't be here next year."


Get that last bit. He's basically saying that out of a couple of thousand cyclists present at the ride, at least one of them is dead next year. Period. Fact.

Every rider in the short video looks like they're trying to make the cut for the Tour de France [and looking dreadfully incapable of doing so...] They don't exactly look like a group of cyclists who ride casually and attempt to share the road. How many challenge the traffic instead of working with it? And where's the 'Cycle Defensively' angle in the video? Or a sense of 'Let's be careful out there...'?

No, no. Cyclists are helpless victims of 'carnage out there on the roads'. It is an absolute certainty that someone will die.

Nevermind the fact that all scientific statistics show the opposite. That cycling is safer than walking and certainly safer than driving. [more on that in a later post]

It's a nice, beautiful idea, this Ride of Silence. There's a lot of potential for a good, simple memorial. What a horrible, horrible shame that they use fear-mongering to sell their message. Preying on people's emotions in order to get more people to show up next year [after all, they have to replace the dead ones...]

One thing is certain, if anybody gets together to ride in memory of me - unlikely, i know - I'll be having no lycra, no goofy specialist bikes and no helmets. Promise me that. And tell the world that facts and science beats fear-mongering any day.

Ride of Silence Website

Popular posts from this blog

7550 New Bike Parking Spots at Copenhagen Central Station

For all of Copenhagen's badassness as a bicycle city, there remains one thing that the City still completely sucks at. Bicycle parking at train stations. At Copenhagen Central Station there are only about 1000 bike parking spots. Danish State Railways can't even tell us how many spots they have. They're not sure. Even in Basel they have 800+. In Antwerp they have this . Don't even get me started on the Dutch. 12,500 bike parking spots are on the way in some place called Utrecht . Amsterdam has a multi-story bike parking facility, floating bicycle barges round the back and are planning 7000 more spots underwater . Even at the nation's busiest train station, Nørreport, the recent and fancy redesign failed miserably in providing parking that is adequate for the demand . Architects once again failing to respond to actual urban needs. It is time to remedy that. Here is my design for 7550 bike parking spots behind Copenhagen Central Station. Steve C. Montebello i...

Traffic Safety Orgs Speak for Themselves - Not the Rest of Us

Classic traffic safety organisation narrative. "Stop cycling". By Stephanie Patterson With Mikael Colville-Andersen In the diverse world of traffic planning, advocacy and various movements for liveable cities, there is an odd group of outliers who broadcast conflicting messages. While “traffic safety” organisations seem like a natural part of the gallery and of the narrative, upon closer inspection they exist in a communication vacuum populated exclusively by like-minded organisations. There is little correlation with those organisations who advocate cycling, pedestrianism or safer streets. The traffic safety crowd are in a world unto themselves, with little or no accountability for the campaigns they develop or the messaging they broadcast. They are often allied with insurance companies who clearly take comfort in working with others who embrace scaring the population at large through constructed fear . In many ways, they are a classic subculture, with strong hints...

The Race for Lithium for Electric Cars and Bicycles

Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia. Photo: Ezequiel Cabrera/Wikipedia The coming boom in batteries to electric cars and Lazy Bikes (electric-assist bicycles) means a boom in batteries with which to run them. A new race for natural resources has begun. Enter Lithium, the world's lightest metal. For 150 years it's been nickel and lead that have been used in batteries but the advent of lithium technology has allowed for a revolution. Longer battery life, lighter batteries in our laptaps and mobile phones and iPods. Lithium weighs 1/20th of what nickel and lead do. Lithium is also used in anti-depressive medicine, ceramics and nuclear power. With all this talk of electric cars and bicycles, the demand for lithium is on the verge of exploding. Lithium is the new oil. Enter Boliva. This developing country sits on at least half of the world's supply of lithium, most of it in underground salt layers beneath the world's largest salt flats in Salar de Uyuni , in south-west Boliva. Betwee...