Vancouver Critical Mass
tips for cycling from drivers
This is probably the best video ever. A lady driving around in a Rhodes Car giving cyclists helpful hints!
(you have to click to get rid of the ad, unfortunately)
Labels: "stupid bike lane", car cult, carfree, public space
posted by VanCM Blogger @ 4/16/2008 11:19:00 pm
5 Comments:
At 12:05 pm, April 18, 2008,
Meredith said…
To whom it may concern,
Chris the biking penguin appears to be missing (last seen in Portland Sunday the 13). If you have any information regarding his where abouts please contact the White Rock RCMP.
We are very worried.
At 10:43 pm, April 20, 2008,
Anonymous said…
what? are you serious? Have you posted this on velolove list or MC3/fixgear forums? That's very distrubing. I hope he is OK.
-rusl
At 10:31 pm, April 21, 2008,
VanCM Blogger said…
Yay! He is found!
http://www.fixedvancouver.com
/Forums
/showthread.php?t=1658&page=2
[quote]...Sorry for the confusion. I went away to get away, amongst other things, and kept on getting phone calls, and I hate the phone, so I stopped answering/shut it of, until I got back (and I didn't use the Internet while I was away).. I'll make the appropriate messages. (I thought work was joking when I called to say I was back and would be in Sat AM as usual, and they had wondered what happened to me).
Thanks all, but I didn't bring back enough Sparks to thank you that way, so I'll figure out another method.[quote]
At 12:49 pm, April 25, 2008,
Anonymous said…
I enjoyed the video-- surprisingly funny-- and as one who bikes and rollerblades, I can empathize with much of it. I've also been denied service on my bike and blades at late-hour drive-throughs where walk-in was closed (mode-of-transport discrimination? ;).
Anyone ever looked into the global statistics of motor-vehicle accidents causing serious injuries and deaths? Apparently, it's whopping.
At 12:22 am, May 03, 2008,
VanCM Blogger said…
Car crashes (`Accident` is a political word trying to hide the constant and predictable...) indeed kill a lot of people. I think there are stats on the CarBusters website in the freesources section. But you can also look at various online government safety/statistic agencies to get more specific and accurate figures.
By my figuring Canada loses about 3000 lives directly to crashes every year. That's about 300-400 in BC. That does not include indirect deaths from various pollutions nor global warming, social decay etc. It also does not include injuries. I think that serious reported injuries are generally about 10x greater than fatalities on average. And many are not reported so maybe double that... as things become less serious. But you know that sore knee that seems irrellevent after the fall can really be debilitating after a few years of ill health.
In the USA the numbers are about 40,000 for the whole nation.
Interestingly those numbers (fatalities) are very constant. Even as more drivers clog the roads. Safety initiatives such as seatbelts and speed programs must make a differance - but this is offset by more driving. Also the proportion of pedestrian/driver (innocent/guilty!) varies by I don't know how. My theory is that there will be more pedestrian deaths in the future as more people cycle and walk - the danger of cars is partially hidden because people don't walk or cycle in the suburbs or much of the city right now. But we will catch up with developing world casualities. The driver/passenger deaths are going to decrease more as more airbags and things coddle the driver at the expense of the world around them.
By my figuring - looking at this US safety statistics website: Cars are the leading cause of death for most of us: ages 1-50 (very roughly). Basically accidental deaths are the leading cause of death, and only a small number of accidental deaths aren't from cars. It's hard to gauge because they don't quote their statistics to indicate the trends we are looking at but roughly that tread of #1 killer for both genders age 1ys-50ish. It varies by age group somewhat but only the babies and over 50 having disease starts to "outkill" the cars. Cars also kill and maim a huge number of babies and the elderly but disease kills slightly more overall. Because most people die of disease at an advanced age, cars are not the biggest killer overall, but then 100% of people die of something so that kind of covers it up.
It's outrageous! One quote I've heard compared US soldier fatalities in Vietnam to car deaths. Cars kill many more faster of course: 40,000/yr vs 58,000 over a war longer than a decade.
Newspapers use to cover most car crashes but gave up on that years ago.
Now crashes are cleared away very quick and mostly reported only on the traffic report. Crashes are normal.
I wouldn't beleive how insane it is if it weren't true: this is bad fiction.
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