Quintessential

If you ride a bicycle in Sydney on a daily basis, and you aren’t a complete nugget, then statistically speaking you can expect to come off at least once every 18-24 months, usually through some fault of your own making.

Most accidents aren’t reported because they involve the cyclist, his/her bike, an embarrassing slip of attention and minor nuisance injuries.

Which is why, dear reader, helmets are such a good idea. Just last night I missed seeing a skinny ditch between the road and driveway and was very surprised when my front wheel disappeared, sending me right over the bars.

Minor injuries ensued. But it was the head smack on the pavement that got my attention. Had I not been wearing the helmet then I would have been in hospital as we speak, battling head injuries.

I once lived in Holland where these self-inflicted injuries are very rare. The difference is Holland’s extensive and well thought through (and smooth) cycling lane infrastructure.

By comparison we live in cyclo-cross territory, dodging holes, ditches, lumps, cars, pedestrians, cops and many other things. It’s the equivalent to driving your car on goat tracks with random roos jumping out at you.

Just this morning I read another of those articles (http://bit.ly/2aeSgmT) that use a form of pseudo-rational thinking to attack the NSW government’s general anti-bike stance (and associated laws and removal of bike lanes, etc).

These quotes by the head bureaucrat got my attention:

“Our road environment is significantly different. We’re on a pathway to changing the road environment, particularly for commuting on cycles. Our culture of cycling has been different, a different history to those locations that you’re talking about as well.”

“I think the context in other countries is significantly different. If their evidence doesn’t lead to these sorts of public policy changes then that’s terrific. Our evidence has led us to these public policy changes.”

What the government is doing is reducing the number of cycle lanes and doing nothing to making the random accidents (like the one I just had) less frequent. Noting this, they are also enforcing helmet wearing and conformance to road rules to minimise the risks related to cycling.

That seems rational to me. They probably did an ROI on investment into cycling infrastructure and decided it was useless, relative to say an investment into public transport.

And this being the age of entitlement, they couldn’t of course just say this. No, they have to weasel word around the issue, thus enraging the thin-skinned self-serving cycling community.

All up, it’s a quintessential first world problem.