Originally Posted by
bmike
JF agrees with you!
Well, sort of.
In reading it he goes into great detail about a CPSC (and lots of other agencies with acronyms) case dealing with reflectors and pedals and other issues... but hasn't updated the parts on Bicycle Traffic Law Revisions and Bikeway Design and Bike-Planning Standards. Odd that the 'environment' JF alludes to is primarliy legal and theoretical in framework... arguments between manufacturing interests and consumers and not "out there" in the world of streets and cars.
Thank you very much for reminding me that I needed to complete that article.
It really isn't odd that when I discuss changes in the cycling environment over the last thirty years I am referring to specific actions of government. Operating on the road hasn't changed much in that time (except that the traffic smell has been much reduced by the actions of both government and industry), but the actions of government have been attempts to impose on competent adult cyclists the operating principles and the equipment that government heretofore felt appropriate for incompetent child cyclists using "toys or other articles intended for use by children", in the words of the authorizing law. The last thirty years have been a story of government, motivated by ignorance of cycling and intention to do the work of motorists while humoring the anti-motoring activists, has produced a program for bicycle transportation that is utterly incoherent. How many of you will understand this?