Till now, in the case of forcing everybody to put on foam bicycling hats, one nation has stood tall and stood alone:
Properly, not alone precisely, in addition they had their model of Canada to maintain them firm:
In fact, since implementing this sagacious laws, each Australia and New Zealand have change into paradigms of bicycling for transportation, whereas the helmetless lots in nations just like the Netherlands and Denmark have lengthy since deserted the bicycle in favor of safer and extra sensible conveyances:
I used to be completely joking once I wrote that final bit, however then I discovered that video and apparently the Dutch do like our pickup vans, go determine.
In any case, now a 3rd nation proudly rises to completely don its polystyrene dunce cap:
Nonetheless, in contrast to Australia, the place they’re virtually as passionate about bicycle enforcement as they’re about annoying cutesy slang phrases, Japan is merely making helmet-wearing a “obligation of effort,” which seems like one thing you’ll be able to principally ignore, like when individuals let you know to “Keep secure!,” or your dental hygienist tells you to floss higher:
Positive, no matter.
Apparently Japan has a wealthy historical past of constructing dumb however toothless bicycle legal guidelines that folks with frequent sense cannily disregard:
Banning individuals from carrying two children on a motorcycle makes about as a lot sense as banning them from doing so in a automobile or on a subway prepare. If something, it’s much more harmful to hold a number of children by automobile, since they change into exponentially extra irritating and distracting, and but it’s simply as straightforward for the motive force to hurry. In the meantime, the extra children you’re carrying on a motorcycle the safer you’re, because it turns into more and more troublesome to pedal with every one, and after strapping the fifth or sixth child to the bike you’re often going to finish up strolling it anyway–otherwise you’re going to expire of duct tape, whichever comes first.
Sadly although it sounds just like the Japanese are additionally inveterate salmoners:
Although even that’s arguably defensible since driving and driving on the left facet of the street is towards the legal guidelines of physics and nature.
Talking of locations that aren’t the US, issues aren’t going too properly in Portland:
There was as soon as a time when Portland was “North America’s bicycling capital” and individuals with an aversion to working and showering had been even forming religions round it:
However now the one place the place individuals nonetheless speak about Portland is Portland, and since 2014 fewer and fewer individuals are commuting by bike:
Whereas extra are commuting by automobile:
So why is that? Properly, one idea is that fewer individuals are driving and extra individuals are driving as a result of fewer individuals are driving and extra individuals are driving:
Sensible.
One other idea is that wealthy individuals are shifting in and don’t know that bicycles exist:
I dunno, appears to me there have all the time been loads of well-off bike-riding douchebags in Portland…although Rapha’s North American headquarters did transfer from Portland to Bentonville a number of years in the past, so that might clarify the drastic discount of their numbers.
Or perhaps it’s simply that the bike lanes are filled with feces:
That is anecdotal to make certain, however I actually wouldn’t overlook it as a root trigger–particularly if the feces is human, which, this being Portland, it virtually actually is.
In the meantime, right here in New York Metropolis our advocates extra rarefied issues to complain about–just like the individuals sustaining our large bike share system:
He’s not likely “forcing” you to do something. I hate it when individuals say “Simply go round,” however, like, he’s servicing the Citi Bikes, so…perhaps simply go round? You may all the time dismount and use the sidewalk in the event you really feel like cautiously venturing into the road for 5 seconds is definite dying.
By the best way, this is identical advocate who was lately rear-ended by a Fred:
And whose subsequent Twitter rant turned fodder for this doofus I discussed in my newest Outdoors column:
With advocates like these, who wants enemies?
