I’m sure it will all work out in the end, but I’m not liking the way this is developing (Not faulting the storytelling folks, but it feels too close to too many real world situations)
What stats I like to point out to overcautious anti-cyclists is that here in the Portland Metro Area (Oregon) that when a pedestrian gets hit and killed (except for hit and runs) it typically lucky if the story gets a blurb on the front page (I’m guessing about 12-18/year). Bicyclists in the same situation will often get an article above the fold (0-9/year). Motorists and their passengers, unless some serious aggravating situation is involved… are “lucky” to get more than a single paragraph buried somewhere in the local news section… (guessing about 365/year). Driving/riding in a car seems to be the behavior most likely to get you killed.
good! this kind of blatant “horse with blinders” mentality needs to be exposed for the stupidity it is! there is too much of it available to need to make it up!
We have friends who do tall bikes & bike trailers & stuff with their little kid. He could ride a two-wheeler down (shallow) steps before he was 3. At some point they were biking near their home when he was a toddler, with him in a trailer, and someone called cps on them. All my feelings about the worse-than-uselessness of cps aside, what an awful thing to do.
Likewise here. And I’m an American. Part of it is that I’m old enough (62) to remember when it wasn’t like this, when you had the freedom to ride and were weird enough in doing so that people couldn’t get over their amazement fast enough to start being meddlesome.
Please take this as feedback to Rick and other web developers. The site looks great in Safari, Chrome, Opera Mini, and Volt (web browsers) on my IOS 5 devices.
This is your classic cheap shot TV show here in Australia. We have a few, but this one (and it’s main competition at the same time, on a different channel) is the worst.
When I see/hear concerned citizens and experts like this, I wonder what their childhoods must have been like? Somehow I don’t imagine them on BMX bikes or building tree forts. It is also interesting that it is just taken for granted that drivers will be inattentive, careless, and downright scofflaws.
On a slightly different subject, Did you notice that all the characters in that video had an odd accent?
I agree with McQ — it is interesting how these people are so concerned about what could happen if she were to be struck by an inattentive driver. Good on ya, mate. But instead of addressing the problem (inattentive/scofflaw drivers), they focus on her for being on the road in the first place and insist that “the laws be changed”? Wrong, friend.
Then they have the chutzpah to show a demonstration video of what could happen to a bike trailer in a 60 kmh (35 mph) crash to try to prove their point. I won’t bother linking to any videos of vehicle crash tests because there are just scads of them out there, but a crash at a similar speed involving two motor vehicles isn’t going to be pretty either. While it may not result in serious injury or loss of life, it’s still going to run into several thousands of dollars/pounds damage.
On the other hand, this is Australia, which gave us not one, not two, but *THREE* “Mad Max” films which had the underlying lesson that he who had the most powerful vehicle was the ultimate power. I suppose old habits are hard to break.
Did you notice the references to the low profile? Then they do their demonstration with a nominal flag. Even if there were any validity to their demo, the real life mom took great pains to ensure eye-level visibility of the trailer. Anybody who missed seeing that has no business on the road!
By their arguments. pedestrians should definitely be prohibited from any mixed use, such as crossing these busy streets! Imagine a busy mom with her tots trailing like ducklings. Even holding hands, they are vulnerable to all of the threats identified in the video.
That was incredibly offensive. Those yahoos are promoting a form of careless stupidity that dangerously masquerades as care and thought. Not only are they promoting a nutty kind of stupidity, but they’re making it sound like science!!! Worse than anything I’ve seen in North America and I thought we had the worst motorheads around. Look out Aussies, you’re infested!
In the UK (and I guess throughout the civilised world) bus drivers are professionals who have to pass a more stringent driving test – so a cyclist in a shared use bus lane should be at less risk than out there with the less qualified car drivers. Of course, if the car drivers invade the bus lane, the risk increases. I noticed one of the cars in the Aussie video was in the bus lane…
The comments in the video are so off the wall that I wonder if the whole thing was first broadcast in the spring; say around about 1st April?
I haven’t yet seen any ads for the Volt, Smart Car, or Leaf touting their safety ratings. (OTOH, the Mini Cooper is a 4 star little car – but it isn’t built for fuel economy.)
If bicycle companies spent as much on advertising in papers and on TV as automobile companies, we’d hear less about bike accidents and more about walking and sailing accidents.
The RSS feed isn’t working for me either. Also, page layout I see is mostly fine in Safari on my iPad, except the four Facebook/twitter/RSS/YouTube icons get shifted and overlap the black menu at the top of the page.
Liking the work and can’t wait to see how it resolves, some great changes might result. As a mom biking 2 kids on streets-get this all the time. People yell more when I have my kids, which freaks them out. Luckily I don’t think anyone has ever called public safety on me. Though I did get pulled over once -he was just curious about why I was biking in the street with a child, very polite.
Why do some people think they know better how to raise “your” family than you do?
Pull the log out of your eye instead of worrying about the splinter in mine!!!
Just leave me alone……
I know it is only a comic strip, but the nosy old shrew lady has me seeing white with rage already. Grrrr. Calls to mind all the things Uncle Bill Burroughs had to say about the type.
This makes me so angry. About two years ago a babysitter reported me to children’s services for transporting my son in a bike cart. She’d only had my son in her care for two days and was well aware we were pedal powered before taking him on. In Ontario they need to check in on every call, so I had to go through the nerve racking visit from a social worker. In the end she told me she wished she had the motivation and guts to give up her car and that it was not child endangerment to use a bike cart and followed up by launching an investigation against the sitter. She said the only issue could have been around helmets, but that if we didn’t have one for the little guy their office could supply one.
Moral of the story: bikes are an acceptable way to transport kids… In Ontario at least
This sort of nonsense is literally KILLING our children.
Children are actively discouraged (or in a few cases) prohibited from cycling or walking to schools. Instead, ginormous SUV’s are used to ferry their bloated bodies to schools and elsewhere.
I cannot recall ANY kids with Type-2 diabetes when I was growing up. Yeah, some of us were ‘husky’, but nothing like the epidemic today.
No kidding. Geez, I managed to “survive” childhood in the pre-Socialist-Liberal Nanny State days; no helmets, no pads, no “helicopter” supervision, no cell phones, and no busybodies.
Goddess save us all from busybodies and Mrs. Grundy!
Hey, Thistle, shake it off and get on with living. Attempting to please every ignorant commentator can only lead to madness. If you get a call from the DPS consider it an opportunity to provide a lesson on safe cycling.
The mom with the kid makes me nervous. I will admit it. She seems very aware of her surroundings, but knowing the stupidity of car drives (me included at times), I wouldn’t do it with my daughter. And yes, the laws do need to change, but not against the cyclist. Good grief, if I get hit at 35mph, on my bike, I’d be in a world of hurt. It’s the disc jockey who needs to change…
Now, a month or so ago I was sitting at a light, waiting to turn right. A man crosses the street (left to right) on his bike. Crazy busy dangerous road. But, he’s a grown man. No biggie. Then 30 feet behind him comes this little girl pumping her little legs! Had to be around 6ish? Bike was too big, she had no helmet (it’s a law for kids her in Columbus) and he isn’t protecting or paying much attention. I cut the other cars off, to get behind hear and out in the middle of the lane to try and protect her. As I catch up with dad, I ripped him a new ass like I have never. Granted yelling at him wasn’t the most productive way to communicate. But, I was so scared for the little girl. Just because it is her right to be on the road, doesn’t mean she should. I make safety decisions all the time.
Cycling on US streets, though more dangerous than cycling on the streets of more bicycle friendly countries, is a safer than average activity in life. That is, at 12 mph, the amount of time one would have to spend cycling on the streets in order to have a 50% probability of dying in a cycling accident exceeds the actuarial life expectancy of an American at birth. Note that that is time spent cycling, not time being a cyclist. Riding with lights at night and not riding in the street against traffic further enhances cycling safety significantly.
What the statistics don’t say, at least no study I’ve seen that uses sound methodology (I’m a grad student studying statistics and have read many studies on the topic), is that bicycle helmets enhance cycling safety.
What a meddlesome B*tch! Thistle is a Super Mom!
well … at least she didn’t try to use her mobile phone while driving.
She’s old, ofcourse she still has a land line.
Yep. All it takes is one busybody to ruin things for everyone!
I hope that old lady got whats coming for her. After what she did to Thistle’s daughter, that is unforgiveable.
I’m sure it will all work out in the end, but I’m not liking the way this is developing (Not faulting the storytelling folks, but it feels too close to too many real world situations)
What stats I like to point out to overcautious anti-cyclists is that here in the Portland Metro Area (Oregon) that when a pedestrian gets hit and killed (except for hit and runs) it typically lucky if the story gets a blurb on the front page (I’m guessing about 12-18/year). Bicyclists in the same situation will often get an article above the fold (0-9/year). Motorists and their passengers, unless some serious aggravating situation is involved… are “lucky” to get more than a single paragraph buried somewhere in the local news section… (guessing about 365/year). Driving/riding in a car seems to be the behavior most likely to get you killed.
“…feels too close to many real world situations…”
good! this kind of blatant “horse with blinders” mentality needs to be exposed for the stupidity it is! there is too much of it available to need to make it up!
We have friends who do tall bikes & bike trailers & stuff with their little kid. He could ride a two-wheeler down (shallow) steps before he was 3. At some point they were biking near their home when he was a toddler, with him in a trailer, and someone called cps on them. All my feelings about the worse-than-uselessness of cps aside, what an awful thing to do.
Fortunately, this is not yet conceivable here. Some aspects of the American culture really frighten me, you know…
Likewise here. And I’m an American. Part of it is that I’m old enough (62) to remember when it wasn’t like this, when you had the freedom to ride and were weird enough in doing so that people couldn’t get over their amazement fast enough to start being meddlesome.
The comic is obscured by the page header which displays on top of it, on my droid browser
Please take this as feedback to Rick and other web developers. The site looks great in Safari, Chrome, Opera Mini, and Volt (web browsers) on my IOS 5 devices.
Story arc commencing!!!
*Groan*
This is your classic cheap shot TV show here in Australia. We have a few, but this one (and it’s main competition at the same time, on a different channel) is the worst.
http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8524906 (Hopefully you can see this in other countries – this was aired only 3.5h ago.
When I see/hear concerned citizens and experts like this, I wonder what their childhoods must have been like? Somehow I don’t imagine them on BMX bikes or building tree forts. It is also interesting that it is just taken for granted that drivers will be inattentive, careless, and downright scofflaws.
On a slightly different subject, Did you notice that all the characters in that video had an odd accent?
I agree with McQ — it is interesting how these people are so concerned about what could happen if she were to be struck by an inattentive driver. Good on ya, mate. But instead of addressing the problem (inattentive/scofflaw drivers), they focus on her for being on the road in the first place and insist that “the laws be changed”? Wrong, friend.
Then they have the chutzpah to show a demonstration video of what could happen to a bike trailer in a 60 kmh (35 mph) crash to try to prove their point. I won’t bother linking to any videos of vehicle crash tests because there are just scads of them out there, but a crash at a similar speed involving two motor vehicles isn’t going to be pretty either. While it may not result in serious injury or loss of life, it’s still going to run into several thousands of dollars/pounds damage.
On the other hand, this is Australia, which gave us not one, not two, but *THREE* “Mad Max” films which had the underlying lesson that he who had the most powerful vehicle was the ultimate power. I suppose old habits are hard to break.
Welcome back to the good ol’ days,
Did you notice the references to the low profile? Then they do their demonstration with a nominal flag. Even if there were any validity to their demo, the real life mom took great pains to ensure eye-level visibility of the trailer. Anybody who missed seeing that has no business on the road!
By their arguments. pedestrians should definitely be prohibited from any mixed use, such as crossing these busy streets! Imagine a busy mom with her tots trailing like ducklings. Even holding hands, they are vulnerable to all of the threats identified in the video.
Those Mad Maxs are great movies! But obviously the vehicle of the apocolypse will be a bicycle. Like my Fargo…. better stock up on Schwalbes!
That was incredibly offensive. Those yahoos are promoting a form of careless stupidity that dangerously masquerades as care and thought. Not only are they promoting a nutty kind of stupidity, but they’re making it sound like science!!! Worse than anything I’ve seen in North America and I thought we had the worst motorheads around. Look out Aussies, you’re infested!
In the UK (and I guess throughout the civilised world) bus drivers are professionals who have to pass a more stringent driving test – so a cyclist in a shared use bus lane should be at less risk than out there with the less qualified car drivers. Of course, if the car drivers invade the bus lane, the risk increases. I noticed one of the cars in the Aussie video was in the bus lane…
The comments in the video are so off the wall that I wonder if the whole thing was first broadcast in the spring; say around about 1st April?
Just Tracie Grimshaw and text – no article for me
IE8/Win7/etc
What’s next? Going after Mom’s driving subcompacts as opposed to massive SUV’s.
No shortage of stupid.
I haven’t yet seen any ads for the Volt, Smart Car, or Leaf touting their safety ratings. (OTOH, the Mini Cooper is a 4 star little car – but it isn’t built for fuel economy.)
The Tesla-S is supposed to be the safest automobile ever sold. 5 star ratings all around.
Maybe the Tesla is safe as nobody dared drive it in trafic in case it gets damaged and it costs them a lot for repairs?
(That is a joke btw)
Is the RSS feed working? My reader hasn’t gotten any updates since the new website format started.
I re-subscribed in Google Reader. That got me updates in my RSS feed again.
That did the trick, thanks.
If bicycle companies spent as much on advertising in papers and on TV as automobile companies, we’d hear less about bike accidents and more about walking and sailing accidents.
The RSS feed isn’t working for me either. Also, page layout I see is mostly fine in Safari on my iPad, except the four Facebook/twitter/RSS/YouTube icons get shifted and overlap the black menu at the top of the page.
Still working on mobile / pad layouts… but if you resubscribe to the RSS using the button at the top of the screen, it should work again.
Liking the work and can’t wait to see how it resolves, some great changes might result. As a mom biking 2 kids on streets-get this all the time. People yell more when I have my kids, which freaks them out. Luckily I don’t think anyone has ever called public safety on me. Though I did get pulled over once -he was just curious about why I was biking in the street with a child, very polite.
Ruh Roh!
Why do some people think they know better how to raise “your” family than you do?
Pull the log out of your eye instead of worrying about the splinter in mine!!!
Just leave me alone……
I know it is only a comic strip, but the nosy old shrew lady has me seeing white with rage already. Grrrr. Calls to mind all the things Uncle Bill Burroughs had to say about the type.
This makes me so angry. About two years ago a babysitter reported me to children’s services for transporting my son in a bike cart. She’d only had my son in her care for two days and was well aware we were pedal powered before taking him on. In Ontario they need to check in on every call, so I had to go through the nerve racking visit from a social worker. In the end she told me she wished she had the motivation and guts to give up her car and that it was not child endangerment to use a bike cart and followed up by launching an investigation against the sitter. She said the only issue could have been around helmets, but that if we didn’t have one for the little guy their office could supply one.
Moral of the story: bikes are an acceptable way to transport kids… In Ontario at least
As far as safety is concerned, riding public transit is the safest, bicycles are next, personal automobiles are 4x as dangerous as riding a bicycle.
This sort of nonsense is literally KILLING our children.
Children are actively discouraged (or in a few cases) prohibited from cycling or walking to schools. Instead, ginormous SUV’s are used to ferry their bloated bodies to schools and elsewhere.
I cannot recall ANY kids with Type-2 diabetes when I was growing up. Yeah, some of us were ‘husky’, but nothing like the epidemic today.
And we walked and cycled everywhere.
No kidding. Geez, I managed to “survive” childhood in the pre-Socialist-Liberal Nanny State days; no helmets, no pads, no “helicopter” supervision, no cell phones, and no busybodies.
Goddess save us all from busybodies and Mrs. Grundy!
Hey, Thistle, shake it off and get on with living. Attempting to please every ignorant commentator can only lead to madness. If you get a call from the DPS consider it an opportunity to provide a lesson on safe cycling.
The mom with the kid makes me nervous. I will admit it. She seems very aware of her surroundings, but knowing the stupidity of car drives (me included at times), I wouldn’t do it with my daughter. And yes, the laws do need to change, but not against the cyclist. Good grief, if I get hit at 35mph, on my bike, I’d be in a world of hurt. It’s the disc jockey who needs to change…
Now, a month or so ago I was sitting at a light, waiting to turn right. A man crosses the street (left to right) on his bike. Crazy busy dangerous road. But, he’s a grown man. No biggie. Then 30 feet behind him comes this little girl pumping her little legs! Had to be around 6ish? Bike was too big, she had no helmet (it’s a law for kids her in Columbus) and he isn’t protecting or paying much attention. I cut the other cars off, to get behind hear and out in the middle of the lane to try and protect her. As I catch up with dad, I ripped him a new ass like I have never. Granted yelling at him wasn’t the most productive way to communicate. But, I was so scared for the little girl. Just because it is her right to be on the road, doesn’t mean she should. I make safety decisions all the time.
So far so good navigating the new Web site. Thanks for all the work to save the old comments.
Also, is there any way to add a “dislike” button for comments? It’s an old topic, but one worth considering.
(P.S. I used the search feature for “dislike” and it pulled up 45 matches IN THE COMMENTS! Fantastic!)
Any argument for it not being safe is an argument for cars being dangerous.
http://www.sydneycyclist.com/forum/topics/child-endangerment-verbally-abused-filmed
An Australian commercial television station appears to have done precisely this to a cyclist towing a trailer with a child to create television.
I cannot stand righteous people, they tend to be the source of all evil
Do not mess with the Moon Man, he’ll come after you
flip through the next few strips from here
http://yehudamoon.com/20101119/
What do the stats say?
Cycling on US streets, though more dangerous than cycling on the streets of more bicycle friendly countries, is a safer than average activity in life. That is, at 12 mph, the amount of time one would have to spend cycling on the streets in order to have a 50% probability of dying in a cycling accident exceeds the actuarial life expectancy of an American at birth. Note that that is time spent cycling, not time being a cyclist. Riding with lights at night and not riding in the street against traffic further enhances cycling safety significantly.
What the statistics don’t say, at least no study I’ve seen that uses sound methodology (I’m a grad student studying statistics and have read many studies on the topic), is that bicycle helmets enhance cycling safety.