This is a bicycle blog, so I figure I should post a bicycle photo every once in a while.
Bicycle News
New York Assemblyman Michael DenDekker withdrew his controversial bike registration bill after heavy criticism. He’s calling instead for increased enforcement of existing bike laws.
Placer County, California (which stretches from the eastern suburbs of Sacramento up into the Sierras to Lake Tahoe) has a Bucks for Bikes program. You can get up to $200 toward the cost of a new bike after attending a bike clinic. Via.
Everybody’s pretty excited about the Los Angeles Bike Plan.
George Will strangely believes public transportation promotion is a commie plot, while heavily subsidized roads with everything that entails (mandatory licensing and registration; huge government bureaucracies to build, maintain and oversee the infrastructure; more government bureaucracies to address public safety, health and environmental consequences; billions of extra dollars just to police the system; a military infrastructure larger and more expensive than the rest of the world combined just to ensure the system keeps running, and so on) is somehow freedom. Ezra Klein has a somewhat more balanced view, IMO.
In Communist China, meanwhile, authorities combine technology and the road system to keep tabs on their citizenry.
Overopinionated’s NAHBS awards: Best Imitation of Last Year’s “Best of Show,” Finest Application of Paint to Hide Shoddy Work, Most Expensive Townie, Most Cryptic Dialect, etc.
Bike advocacy and ethnicity.
Cycling to LaGuardia, with much discussion afterwards.
Carlton is writing a book on road rights and posts about changing attitudes about cars from the turn of the century.
Bike Hugger has a cool new messenger bag.
James has his thoughts on NAHBS 2011 at Bicycle Design.
Orange man on bicycle hit by truck dies. 🙁
Range Rover does a concept bicycle.
Sorry, GEICO, but I don’t trust bicycle safety info from auto insurance companies, though the supposed effort to “increase the number of [University of Florida] students who wear helmets while driving” sounds interesting.
Lodi has California’s third highest rate of bike-vs-car collisions for cities their size. That city’s solution to reduce the accident rate? Ticket kids who ride without helmets. Because helmets magically reduce your chances of getting hit. Right. As far as I know, there’s no bicycle advocacy anywhere in San Joaquin County beyond a mountain biking club and a group of road cyclists in Stockton.
That stupid licensing bill died a well-deserved death. I saw a bumper sticker that read “If you like taxes, then you’ll [heart] New York” apropos.
Also, I don’t think making kids wear helmets, while a good idea, is going to change the laws of physics. If they fall off their bike, they are better protected; if they get hit by 3,000 lbs of steel, it’s not making a significant difference.