Originally Posted by
Machka
That's what gerv is suggesting. Isn't it? Bike to work ... bike to get groceries ...
Well thank goodness there aren't very many people with your attitude or no one would want to ride a bicycle ... or exercise ... or do much of anything
Unfortunately it is this very attitude that makes people avoid this forum ... and avoid the idea of being car-free or car-light. One can only hope your post is some kind of [very weird] joke.
Or if not ... do you consider yourself an abject failure? By your own comments ... you are.
Fortunately there is a much better approach ... the encouraging approach. Everyone has a choice of how they want to transport themselves from one point to another. Many times, using a motorised vehicle is the best choice, but if a person could walk/cycle or drive, and either method would work just as well ... and if that person chooses to walk/cycle for that particular trip ... great!
But they are not failures if they happen to choose to drive ... it's just simply a choice that they have made.
I would rather see people be encouraged to walk/cycle. Show them that walking or cycling to the shop, the tourist attraction, work, etc. is a good choice for various reasons.
But don't criticise and call them down if they don't make that choice. What a poor way to convince anyone to do something.
Gosh, this sure is a negative post by somebody who claims to be positive! I'm sorry you have to call me names and mock me, but ok. It's certainly not the first time you've used a negative campaign against me and others you disagree with.
To start with, I'm not aware of any evidence that bike to work campaigns actually have a measurable impact. If anybody does know of any evidence, I would love to take a look at it.
Personally, I don't think the positive approach has worked well. When I go to bike to work stuff year after year, I always see the same people there. It boils down to what ILTB calls preaching to the choir. These programs are fun and I have certainly enjoyed the free breakfasts over the years. All the hoopla makes the people who already bike to work feel great about themselves, but I don't see it persuading many new people.
When you look at public service advertising [PSA] campaigns over the last few decades, very few have worked.
You need very strong motivators to get people to modify engrained habits.
Lady Bird and the crying Indian didn't get very many people to stop littering in the 1960s, although these famous PSA campaigns did make non-litterers feel nice. $100 littering tickets (a negative) were what actually cut down on littering.
Thirty years of PSAs barely changed the number of people using seat belts. Again, it was new laws that required seatbelt use that got people to use them.
Similarly, MADD decreased drunk driving by pressuring the justice system to be stricter, not by sweetly persuading drunks not to drive.
I'm not sure how these experiences with littering, seat belts, and drunk driving apply to getting more people to commute or shop on bikes. I doubt if they will ever ticket people for driving.
My guess is that the best things to try are 1) improvements in bike infrastructure and removing barriers to cycling, along with 2) non-coercive methods of discouraging car use.
I have no idea if a negative PSA approach would work, but I'd like to see some communities try it as an experiment. If it doesn't work they could go back to the feel good approach, even though that probably doesn't work either.