The Life-Sized City Blog

TEST I took part in a radio debate last week. Four guests and a journalist. In that forty-five minutes, I experienced a number of things including, but not limited to, the anti-intellectualisation of our society, emotional propaganda, alternative facts, manipulative and selective choice of facts, The Culture of Fear and the negative branding of cycling. You might expect I was on American or Australian radio. Nope. I was a 12 minute bike ride from Copenhagenize Design Company’s Copenhagen office - at Denmark’s national broadcaster, DR, on their flagship radio channel P1 Debat . The occasion was a debate about bike helmets. The week before, a Danish media personality, Mads Christensen , tossed out a remark on a television programme about how he let his kids decide for themselves, at the age of eight, if they wanted to wear a bike helmet or not. His comments were simply based on rationality about real or percieved dangers in society. Nevertheless, they generated a great deal of d...

Nice with a bit of activism and rationality on a Saturday. Thanks to our reader Jochen, who sent us some photos from the streets of Germany in reaction to a campaign from the German Ministry of Transport, above. Next to a photo of Darth Vader the text reads: "The saga continues, thanks to the helmet. Works in every galaxy. And on the bicycle." This set cyclists and activists to task. Billboard in Bonn: "Now I'm single... thanks, helmet." Photo: Jochen  In a country where only about 10% of cyclists wear plastic hats, the Ministry of Transport decided to chuck some taxpayer money into a campaign. A lazy move from politicans whose ignorance about the importance of encouraging cycling, building infrastructure and the health benefits of a cycling population has now been broadcast to the planet. They are basically using taxpayer money to advertise how ignorant they are. There's the first problem with their campaign. The choice of Darth Vader is as str...

It's no secret that I spend some of my time talking about how to promote cycling positively and built into that is, of course, the discussion of helmets. Those of you who have read this blog for a while are well versed in my opinions. And it's times like this I happily link to the first TED talk I've done . One of the points of in the discussion is risk compensation. The idea that if we have this perception of protection we become less risk adverse and push ourselves a little bit harder. It's a tough nut to crack. I've had discussions with intelligent friends were I've highlighted how most head injuries happen inside of cars - even with airbags and seat belts. I explain how an Australian government study suggested that motorists be made to wear head protection and I happily find photos of the motorist helmet developed by the University of Adelaide and Monash University on my smartphone to show them. More often than not, the people I speak with or interested ...

Last year, a proposal for bicycle helmet legislation was tabled here in Denmark. Copenhagenize Design Co. and Bicycle Innovation Lab promptly gathered a list of experts and we sent an open letter to all the members of the Danish parliament - and to the Danish press. The bicycle helmet law was defeated! Rationality prevailed. Here is the letter we wrote to the papers and to every MP in the parliament. The letter is also online here, on the Copenhagenize Consulting website . Experts: Vote no to the mandatory bike helmet proposal and strengthen public health! Danish experts in traffic, mobility and cycling recommend that all members of the Danish Parliament vote NO to the proposed bicycle helmet law. You should vote NO to mandatory bicycle helmets in Denmark because: - Denmark is the world's safest bicycle nation, along with The Netherlands. - Cycling levels are falling and mandatory helmet laws further reduce the number of cyclists. We need MORE cyclists, not fewer. ...

And so the nightmare that summarises the Culture of Fear reaches the shores of Denmark. Two political parties announced yesterday that they will push for a bicycle helmet law for under 16s. A proposal was defeated in the Danish Parliament back in 2009 , when rationality was still something politicians possessed, apparently. Danish readers can check out Cykelhjelm.org for a crash course in knowledge . The Radical Left and the Socialist Peoples' Party are behind the proposal. The traffic "safety" spokesman for The Radical Left - Jan Johansen - said to Danish Broadcasting: " We are of the opinion that we must make our children as safe as possible when they are in the traffic ". What the Radical Left and the Socialist Peoples' Party AREN'T doing is making our streets safe. They are NOT proposing to follow in the footsteps of over 80 European cities and creating 30 km/h zones in densely populated areas or proposing traffic calming measures in o...

Laughed out loud more than once.

Since posting about mass-produced motoring helmets and later Protective Helmet-ish headbands for motorists I was curious to learn more about the latter, produced at the University of Adelaide. It's taken a while but I finally recieved the study done in 2000 at the Road Accident Research Unit at the U of Adelaide , called CR 193: The development of a protective headband for car occupants (Andersen, White, McLean 2000) . A chap at Road Safety Policy, Department of Infrastructure & Transport in Australia was kind enough to send a link to the Australian Government website wherein the study is presented. I don't think cyclists should be bullied with helmet promotion and threatened with legislation when there exists a very real and present danger to car occupants. I think that the car lobby as well as the general population should be presented with more data and facts about the dangers of driving. It's only fair and logical. From the Australian report we can ...

Cartoon by Roald Als in the Danish newspaper Politiken . It reads: "You're free to play..." I just don't get this Vanity Myth. No matter how hard real bicycle advocates work at getting people onto bicycles there is always a little group of people - let's call them The Fear Minority - who claim that the primary reason for people not to wear bike helmets is... vanity. That's it. Period. People who ride bicycles without a plastic hat are vain. They do so merely because of their hairdo or image. They are egocentric and arrogant and, as this little group of fear merchants will have you believe, they are shitting on the rest of society by acting so selfishly. Seriously... is that all they got ? Is that the best they can dream up? The Vanity Myth is the singlemost telling clue that The Fear Minority are quite desperate. They are acutely aware that they don't have any conclusive scientific evidence to show, so they start a personal attack and attempt t...

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...

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...

Here's a campaign from South Africa. A chain of fashionable cafés - Vida e - have placed these signs on their doors. No helmets. The amusing blog 2 Oceans Vibe posted about this campaign against socially unacceptable behaviour such as wearing a bicycle helmet whilst dining. Here's a shot of the door of their Kloof Street establishment in Cape Town. 2 Ocean Vibe also has an ironic, ongoing theme where readers send in photos of other shocking examples of what they deem "socially unacceptable behaviour". Generally focusing on people wearing those helmet thingys indoors. And 2 Ocean Vibe also reports about another establishment that refuses to serve 'cyclists' in 'cyclist clothes'. "Due to numerous complaints from customers..."

Cool, light and comfortable. Let's just get one thing straight right off the bat. This is a real product, produced in Australia in the 1980's by a company called Davies, Craig . And I'm so pleased to know it exists. Chris from the CTC - Cycle Touring Club - which is Great Britain's cyclist advocacy group with 130ish years behind it, has this helmet in their offices and my mate Chris was kind enough to send me photos of it. I can't describe the calm that has now settled over my soul now that I know true safety exists. The box reads: "You have made a sound decision to purchase your Davies, Craig Motoring Helmet. Wear it and don’t feel self-conscious. Driving even for the most proficient is dangerous. Ultimately, motoring helmets will be commonplace, but in the meantime, you will be a leader whilst those who may consider your good sense misplaced, will follow." Finally, with the quality Motoring Helmet, we can now begin active advocating of helm...

Forty years of working hard to create the World's Cycling Capital and, it seems, we're throwing it all away. All over the world the bicycle is booming. Sales are up in the most unusual places after 'The Summer of the Bicycle', the oil crisis and the global economic meltdown in 2008. Even in Holland, where everyone owns a bike already, many companies are reporting increases in sales. Some of the larger companies are up 15%. If we look at Denmark, the numbers for bicycle sales in 2007 are not reassuring. According to the industry organisation for bike retailers - Danske Cykelhandlere - the numbers are expected to be down 5%. When I spoke with them the man tried to brush off the negative numbers by saying that Denmark has had a few years with high sales increases so a fall wasn't a problem. However, many other countries have experienced increases over the past few years, too, so there goes that theory. When pressed about bike helmets, he quoted word for word th...