Skip to main content

Best Magazine Cover Ever

The Most Dangerous Invention in the World_1
If this isn't the most beautiful magazine cover in the world, I don't know what is.

The Most Dangerous Invention in the World. The Car.

It's the cover of Profil magazine, out of Austria. I picked it up in Vienna earlier this year. As I understand it, Profil is a business magazine. Leafing through it, it's filled with men in suits saying stuff in German.

This article, however, is beautiful for its stunning rationality. It's a bold cover and the accompanying article spells out why the car is, indeed, the most dangerous invention in the world and so destructive to our societies.
The Most Dangerous Invention in the World_3
Unfortunately, my German is rather dodgy but that's what infographics are for!
The Most Dangerous Invention in the World_2
The article features an interview with Vienna's wunderkind Vice-Mayor, Maria Vassilakou. According to this website, her splendidly complicated German titles are:

Vice-Mayor and Vice-Governor, Executive City Councillor for Urban Planning, Traffic & Transport, Climate Protection, Energy and Public Participation. She doesn't need a business card, she needs a t-shirt. But hey, times are a'changing in Vienna and Ms Vassilakou is behind the movement for a more liveable city. If only such visionary politicians grew on trees.

The article, in German, is available online right here. Hopefully your German reading skills are better than mine. I'll leave you to it. The most important thing is that this magazine cover and this article exist. A paradigm shift is imminent. Designing cities and streets instead of over-engineering them. Thinking about quality of life instead of traffic data flow. Nice to see that some cities are taking their responsibility seriously.

The Most Dangerous Invention in the World_4
This is a list with car ownership stats for various countries. Austria is high on the list. Who knew that the Dutch owned so many cars?

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Overcomplicating Winter Cycling - Why It's Bad

One of the main focuses of this blog has always been on how Copenhagen and other cities have succeeded in increasing cycling levels by approaching the subject using mainstream marketing techniques. Tried and tested marketing that has existed since homo sapiens first started selling or trading stuff to each other. Modern bicycle advocacy, by and large, is flawed. It is firmly inspired by environmentalism which, in turn, is the greatest marketing flop in the history of humankind. Four decades of sub-cultural finger-wagging, guilt trips and preaching have given few results among the general population. When sub-cultural groups start trying to indoctrinate and convert the public, it rarely ever succeeds. For the better part of a century, people all over the planet rode bicycles because they were quick, easy, convenient and enjoyable. In hilly cities. In hot cities. In snowy cities. After the bicycle largely disappeared from the urban landscape because urban planning s...
Read more

A Walking Helmet is a Good Helmet

At long last logic prevails. A new campaign has hit the streets of Denmark, thanks to the visionaries at The Danish Road Safety Council [Sikker Trafik] and Trygfonden [an insurance company]. Intense promotion of walking helmets for pedestrians has begun. This logic has been sorely missed. These two organisations have happily promoted bike helmets but pedestrians suffer just as many head injuries, if not more. This Danish campaign poster reads: "A walking helmet is a good helmet" "Traffic safety isn't just for cyclists. The pedestrians of Denmark actually have a higher risk of head injury. The Danish Road Safety Council recommends walking helmets for pedestrians and other good folk in high risk groups." The slogan is catchy in Danish since it kind of rhymes. All in all it's a brilliant project. Let's save some lives. The new walking helmets will be available in the Danish Cyclists Union's [Dansk cyklist forbund] shop. Although, as the...
Read more

Driving Kills - Health Warnings

I think it's safe to say that we have a pressing need for marketing cycling positively if we're to encourage people to ride bicycles and begin the transformation of our cities into more liveable places. Instead of scare campaigns about cycling [a life-extending, healthy, sustainable transport form], wouldn't it be more appropriate to begin campaigns about the dangers of automobiles? Many people in car-centric countries no longer regard cars as dangerous. Maybe they realise it, but the car is such an ingrained part of the culture that the perception of danger rarely rises to the surface of peoples consciousness. Sure, there are scare campaigns for cars out there, but what if we just cut to the chase? Much like smoking. Only a couple of decades ago, cigarettes were an integral part of life, whether you smoked or not. That has changed radically. We think that we could borrow freely from the health warnings now found on cigarette packs around the world. In order to be tho...
Read more