Unfortunately most cycling advocates generally do a very poor job in this area. It's all well and good to submit papers to government officials as to "why the community would benefit from cycling" but that isn't going to get Joe Sixpack out of his car in the near future. Nor, for that matter is the continual promotion of cycling as "dangerous" that seems to happen so often.

I say, start promoting cycling as "safe" (a more accurate description than dangerous in my view). Start promoting the fact that in even moderate traffic (which is about all we get here on the Gold Coast) it's going to be considerably faster than driving. Then start talking about how much money one can save by riding rather than driving. These are things we simply do not hear from most advocacy groups.

As I mentioned in another thread, Tim Shaw made a fortune by selling steak knives in Australia. He did this by highlighting the positive aspects of his steak knives, not by highlighting the dangers of steak knives. It's about time a few advocates followed his lead.