I think another issue for melbourne (at least a few years ago when I was last there) was that it’s the law to wear a helmet but of course the public bikes don’t have them. So you need to take your own with you when you travel
I was referring generally to humanity’s tendency towards being lazy and self-absorbed rather than specifically bike sharing and the Chinese.
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Late Stage Communism !?
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If they are truly public bikes, then it is the public who decides where they should be. Bureaucrats should be kept in a zoo somewhere where they can live out their power fantasies without bothering people.
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There is now a range of five dollar bike helmets, partly supported by advertising. You can buy them from vending machines close to the public bike stands, or at 7/11 stores. Of course that makes it hard to justify charging $600 for a high end versions of the same lump of foam.
Edit: also some people have started to leave their cheap helmets with the bikes when they are finished with them, so you don’t always have to buy one.
Edit2: Its part of a general problem here that the people who build bicycle facilities don’t actually ride bikes, and therefore don’t see obvious problems with their designs. It took years for the helmet problem to be addressed, and the general impression is that the operators are perfectly fine with their customers breaking the law by not wearing helmets.
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Post-scarcity economics
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Unless there is sufficient incentive to return them, they will be treated like the wrapper from a Big Mac (巨無霸)
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That is a use of the Segway I haven’t seen before. What the gluteoandantication?!
Tell me this sold tons of tailed blouses with motorized tails, and that it meshes with the Clean India campaign, someone!
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Big Mac is actually called Royale with Cheese in China.
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It failed in Melbourne because of the combination of homicidal drivers, lack of effective sanctions for vehicular killings and the damn helmet law.
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I disagree with you about the helmet law, which I think is a good thing but I agree with you on driver and the lack of effective sanctions against the killing of bicycle riders.
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Und neunundneunzig Luftballons?
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I like this song for some reason. Will have to check her other stuff out. Thanks!
I don’t use it here because there’s a 1 hour limit before you get charged extra.
I respectfully disagree, I think helmet laws are not a good idea at all. They discourage people from cycling by signalizing that cycling is a dangerous activity, which it isn’t. (For a sense of perspective, walking the stairs is much more dangerous than cycling.)
The helmet law in (some parts of) Australia apparently has slightly reduced the number of cycling-related head injuries, but at the cost of drastically reducing the number of people who cycle at all, such that the reduction in number of injuries may just come from much less distance cycled.
And fewer people cycling (and driving instead) is bad not only for the climate, but also from a health point of view: every-day cycling as a moderate activity is healthy. So, on a society level, any lives saved by mandatory helmet-wearing may very well be countered by the lives lost or shortened due to an inactive lifestyle of the population.
If you do not want people to cycle, impose a helmet law. If you want people to cycle, build proper cycling infrastructure. (To see what proper cycling infrastructure is, see http://www.aviefromthecyclepath.com.) Nobody wears a helmet in the Netherlands, and it has the lowest number of cycle injuries per distance cycled in the world (apart from those countries where this rate is zero undefined, because nobody cycles).
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exactly this.
there was a fatality during a professional race in the 80s and the governing body, the UCI, enacted a helmet rule for all sanctioned races. This mentality trickled down. Then as now (though the tide seems to finally be turning) the real money in bicycle sales, the sales that keep a bike shop afloat, stems from the race market. Helmet sales can really boost a sale. All of a sudden, cycling was a dangerous activity. But these riders whom the UCI were trying to protect were dudes with tree trunks for legs who are capable of hitting 40mph on a flat who are aggressively trying to pass each other. “But-but, remember back to the days before helmets were considered mandatory and all those senseless deaths?” Yeah, me neither.
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I see pretty flowers.
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Do you mean the government one or Obike (the chinese style one). Obike is pretty new, don’t think it’s been round long enough to declare it’s failed. It’s a lot more convenient for me.
This. I always wear a helmet when riding and encourage others to do so (or at least I would if I was an ass-hat that interfered with other people’s personal decisions), but I am increasingly and now vehemently against helmet laws. Your points are all valid. The one that resonate most with me is the signalling of cycling as an inherently dangerous activity. It simply feeds the prejudice that motorists have that cyclists somehow have it coming if they have the temerity and courage to mix it with cars. “I can’t be held responsible for killing that cyclist. They were doing something that is so inherently dangerous that they have to wear a helmet. What did they expect?”
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New South Wales is heading that way. Dunc has effectively fined all but the most passionate cyclists off the road altogether.
