➡️ Tragically, British rider Finlay Tarling has died at just 19 years old after a serious accident during the eighth stage of the Volta a Portugal. Tarling was involved in a head-on collision with a vehicle that was not connected to the event. The cyclists union is calling for better helmets. Now, road cycling is indeed a very dangerous sport, and personal safety equipment is important, albeit at the bottom of the hierarchy of hazard control.
But other sports are dangerous too, for example downhill skiing. And if, say, a bear got in the skiing course and caused an accident, I think the response would not be the requirement for better bear-proof suits, but to make sure no bears could ever again come near the course during a competition.
➡️ A couple of news items that are seemingly unrelated: Top album releases linked to rise in fatal crashes as ‘distracted’ drivers access music; and an official review in England and Wales found that victims of road traffic collisions feel ‘forgotten by system’, with offenses not treated with the seriousness they deserve. Both point to something very well explained in this paper by Ian Loader: we all treat driving as inherently safe – both drivers (who think they can safely drive and do something else at the same time) and the legal system (who lets offenders off lightly). Loader’s paper is very easy to read, and if you’d rather listen to him explain it, he was a guest on the War on Cars podcast.
I wanted to pick one thing from the paper that I found particularly insightful: we should be treating the driver-car as an agent that is different than just a person or just a car, and it is this driver-car hybrid who is responsible for road violence. (It’s analogous to gun violence: it is not guns on their own or people on their own who kill, it is people-with-guns.) The paper suggests that in responding to careless/dangerous driving, the first thing we should do is disassemble the dangerous hybrid: separate the driver from the vehicle.
Besides the legal implications, I like the idea of the driver-car hybrid as it explains the behavioural change that happens to people when they get behind the wheel (brilliantly shown in 1950’s Goofy Motor Mania cartoon), which leads to road rage against …lollipop ladies, and fights over parking spots.
This of course got me thinking about bicycles and whether riding them changes our behaviour too. What do you think: is the rider-bicycle a different kind of hybrid as well?
➡️ Como mayor bans bikes in city centre after being hit ‘by one of these beasts’. I can think of a much worse beast to ban from the city 🤔
➡️ Finally, excellent news from London: a study has found that the ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) led to better lung size and function among London children, reversing the damage done by exposure to pollution. Just a reminder: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, received a lot of personal abuse for the introduction and expansion ULEZ. This is what true leadership looks like:
“Introducing and expanding the Ulez involved some incredibly difficult decisions. I never took them lightly, but I knew that – as mayor – I could not stand by while Londoners young and old lost their lives to a problem it was within my power to solve. For years, politicians and pundits opposed to the Ulez have cynically sought to turn questions of public health into a crude culture war. Today, though, it’s clear that we’re winning the battle against toxic air in the capital – and it’s London’s children who are reaping the rewards.”
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