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...

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.

One of our readers in Australia, Peter, sent us this article written in 1989 by Alan A. Parker. It's an interesting backward glance to the days when Australia were debating mandatory helmet laws. The latter half of the article is interesting. In it, the author discusses motoring helmets and, indeed, calls for them. I found this bit to be enlightening: "There is an embarrassing silence from the police and the police unions about their willingness to enforce bicycle helmet laws but, in the closing days of 1987, they went public with the proposal that motorists should wear helmets which they regard as a worthwhile change in the law that they are prepared to enforce." Hadn't heard that one before. That the police went public backing motoring helmets. A little piece of the puzzle falls into place. Our article from back in May 2009 about Australian motoring helmets - "The World's First" - produced by Davies Craig was greeted with chuckles at first....

Here's an interesting film by Mike Rubbo, documentarist turned bicycle advocate, who traveled north to Darwin, Northern Territory to explore the territory's unique bike helmet excemption law. The Northern Territory mandated helmet use along with the rest of the country in the 1990's. Like the rest of the nation, they saw cycling levels drop. In an attempt to get people to ride again, they repealed - or rather adjusted - the law and allowed for helmet-free cycling on footpaths and bike paths. The result? It's in the film and in Mike's post over at his SitUp-Cycle.com blog . It's been 20-odd years since I was last in Darwin. Maybe I could find a travel agency specialising in Rationality Destinations and get me a ticket to the 'top end's' bicycle paradise.

A resident of Vancouver, Canada has started a new church. The Church of Sit Up Cycling. Cycling 'enthusiasts' have long exhibited a passion for their hobby or sport that resembles religious observance. Now the realm of worship has come to the aesthetic art and act of regular citizens riding upright bicycles. We like this theological uprighteousness. Reverend James Twowheeler is the 'nom de plume' of the church's founder. As stated on the church's website: Wearing their normal work and play clothes is an essential religious practice of members of the Church of Sit-Up Cycling. This may or may not include wearing plastic hats. Believers wholly endorse the use of such accident-preventing safety measures as lights, bells, height, strict compliance with traffic signals, a leisurely pace and the use of dedicated cycling streets and lanes. Reverend Twowheeler discovered a potential loophole in British Columbia's Motor Vehicle Act . British Columbia is one ...

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...

When it rains, it pours. A little while ago I blogged about how there appears to be a growing resistance against bike helmet laws around the world. Then I got word from my network of a couple more developments. Mexico City repealed their bike helmet law back in February 2010. Let's face it, it wasn't much of a law since there was little enforcement and it was, essentially, unenforceable. Back in 2008 there was a bicycle count including over 26,000 cyclists and 93% of them didn't feel the need to wear a helmet. The main reason for the push to repeal the helmet law was the upcoming implementation of the city's bike share system, Ecobici . The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy [ITDP] were instrumental in getting the law repealed but there was also support from within the city government. Back in December I blogged about how the helmet law in Israel was up for repeal , as well. From what I've heard the lobbying was successful and adults are no longer...

Tel Aviv Cyclists, by Thomas Schlijper. Last year Israel implemented an all ages helmet law for it's citizens, despite the fact that helmet laws appear to becoming less popular over the past couple of years. The Ministerial Committee for Legislation has now decided to support a bill that would modify the law to exclude adults cycling in urban areas from being forced to wear a helmet, The Jerusalem Post reports. Israeli Coalition to support helmet-less bike riding within cities The Ministerial Committee for Legislation threw its support on Sunday behind a bill which would remove the requirement for adults to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle in the city. The bill, sponsored by MK Sheli Yehimovich (Labor) repeals part of the Helmet Law which was passed last year. Instead of requiring a helmet for intra-city riding, Yehimovich's bill would leave that decision up to the adult rider. Children, those riding off-road or those biking between cities would still be required to wear a ...

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 ...

Australian cyclist goes to court to fight ticket for cycling without a helmet. Cyclists have been fighting for their rights for more than a century. It has largely been an uphill battle but in some countries, like Denmark and the Netherlands, political lobbying has paid off and the bicycle is a main feature on the urban landscape. Much of the battle has been waged from the grassroots angle. In Australia there is a woman named Sue. She has always cycled and when Australia passed mandatory, all-ages bike helmet laws in the 1990's, Sue kept on cycling while many Australians parked their bikes in the garage. Despite the helmet laws, Sue continued to cycle without a helmet and she has never felt as though she needed one. It took the better part of 15 years before Sue was finally stopped by the Austalian police earlier this year and ticketed for not wearing a helmet. After the formalities, Sue struck up a conversation with the policemen: "One of the policemen expressed interest in w...

My son is no longer at risk of being labelled a criminal! This slipped under my radar while I was out travelling - ironically out promoting cycling positively . A Danish political party - The Socialist People's Party proposed a bike helmet law for children under 12. And right here in the world's safest cycling nation where it has never been so safe to cycle. I posted about this party's position previously here on Copenhagenize.com and their four Safety Fetishists; Pia Olsen Dyhr , Anne Baastrup , Karina Lorentzen Dehnhardt and Ole Sohn [with Morten Østergaard from Radikale Venstre providing extra Orwellian Newspeak]- put the law proposal through the political machinery, ending with a vote on May 28th, 2009. The Socialist People's Party, together with a small party called Radikale Venstre [they're probably just happy someone asked them out to play] voted For and the rest of the Folketing [Danish Parliament] voted soundly Against. For: 21 Against: 90 Abstained: ...