Cute Boy Horse

What nonsense! The Netherlands had almost no cycle infrastructure whatsoever until the 1980s. It was a highly car dependent country, to the same extent the USA or UK is today.



What caused this to change is that the dutch have a long tradition of militant political struggle, this movement in particular was called Stop Murdering Children. If you tried anything like it in the USA you'd get tear gassed and beaten to within an inch of your life.

Likewise British cycle infrastructure doesn't really exist. "national cycle network" is just a few tiny signs and a map you can buy. Rather than build seperated lanes like in proper countries they instead just let local councils have a go at modern art with bollards and curbs. Nothing useful, or honestly, even comprehensible.

For example, here is what sustrans actually uses as a promotional image:


And if a bumpy sidewalk full of poles and pedestrians isn't your thing, we have a fine selection of... whatever this is?

RobbieTunes

Please explain. I'm missing the connection between militant political struggle, Stop Murdering Children, and infrastructure for bicycles. I've read articles that implied the Dutch had it right all along.

I don't mind being wrong, but two pictures and your post have me confused. My experience with the Netherlands is limited to Hans Brinker, a lady named Maria and "A Night of Watching."

Bang0Bang00

The left-hook skinny commuter bike accident - in some cities, being injured avoiding a car making a dangerous action, even without physically touching the car at fault, is still a legal and claimable injury.

A beautiful quote from a expert researcher regarding separated bike lanes: "would you take sidewalks away from pedestrians and tell them to walk on the roads? It's the same concept with separated bike lanes."

Some cities actually implement meaningful bike lane infrastructure, and then change it if it sucks in it's first iteration. It's possible to do bike lanes properly. There are good examples out there.

Here's a reason to wear a helmet: making it that much harder for the insurance company or lawyer building a case against paying your injuries.

Seriously people. A more sensible conversation is whether or not helmets should be mandated for motorists (yes cars - a leading cause of head injuries) as opposed to justifications to take a cycling helmet off.

If you prefer to be on the side with the lawyer citing studies that show increased cycling injuries while wearing a helmet, good luck with that.

Stadjer

Yes and no. Early in the 20th century the Dutch embraced the bicycle very fast and very enthousiastically, and the Dutch cyclist club became huge and, together with the government they pushed, arranged a lot of cycle paths in the countryside. After the war and the rebuild, the Dutch embraced the car even faster and more enthousiastically, because there was little time to adapt in a dense country where a lot of people kept cycling too, conflict came fast and hard too. Especially because kids used to play on the streets an cycle a lot, which became very dangerous. The movement that protested that called itself, with typical Dutch finesse, 'Stop the Child Murder'. That was a turning point, only just in time because government was already flattening old inner cities and to make room for highways and car parking.

RobbieTunes

Thank you a lot. Much clearer now

crank_addict

>>>>Dutch cycling culture<<<<

>>>Laws by country<<<


Head scratcher, consider the State of Illinois and having NO helmet law for 'motorcyclist', though a passenger in the rear seat of a car not strapping a seatbelt on -can be fined. My head hurts thinking of the law makers.

Cute Boy Horse

It is rather simple. Dutch people got very tired of their country being built around the car, because people were getting ran over all the time, particularly children. They engaged in a militant political struggle, which was at times quite violent, in order to change this. The name of this movement was simply it's slogan - "stop murdering children". The politicians were scared out of their minds by this anti-car movement and began granting more and more radical concessions.

Whatever articles you've read are written by ignorant people who should, to be honest, shut up.

Stadjer

I don't believe the 'stop child murder' movement was violent, no doubt there were a few ruffles when they blocked roads so the kids could play. But there was also the rise of the squatters, which was a more radical anarchist movement that protested the demolition of old neighbourhoods and demanded housing instead of real estate speculation, so they just occupied empty buildings to live there. They were prepared to and did face tear gas, batons and even tanks.

I think what made the matter tip towards cycling was the general climate in the Netherlands in the 70's. Besides the hippies and the radicals there was this large majority of 'respectable citizens' with still pretty conservative family lives and normal careers and normal cars who might have been skeptical, but weren't hostile towards new ideas and were prepared to listen, and didn't mind a bit of civil disobedience in case they were convinced. The Dutch have always embraced any new kind of transport, a lot of the respectable citizens just didn't want to trade one form of transport for another, but wanted all of them and keep what they already had. Also they wanted to keep the street as a playground and the luxury of kids cycling to school themselves. They won't have helmetless cycling taken away from them either.

Appearently it's often a bit too difficult for journalists to get it right when it's about a foreign country with it's history in a different language. I'm not impressed with the article in crank addict's link either. Clearly the writer(s) mean well but want to make it about government and politics, cycle lanes especially, but it doesn't and didn't work like that.

Velognome 

Visit a Brain Trama Unit lately?

There is a difference between fear and risk assessment, sometimes events occur that change our assessment

Cute Boy Horse

I said "at times" - would have been better to say "sometimes". There was definitely a few good punchups now and then over it, but you are right to say there was no explicit programme of political violence in Stop Child Murder. It is easy enough to scare a career politician in local government without it.

The problem is properly researched journalism basically doesn't exist anymore. It's obsolete, so long as people stay reading the page long enough for the adverts to load, the article does it's job. The other purpose is to give people pre-packaged opinions that the rich find convenient. That's why they unbanned telegraaf so fast.

I think your objection to "making it about politics" is strange. Everything is politics. It shapes your entire environment and everything you have the opportunity to, or have to do. Especially when it's transport. Policy change there is very serious because a shift from one kind of model to another can have a lot of money tipping the scales. In the UK in the 60s there was a transport minister who owned a major road building firm. He shut down half the railways, told everyone they'd be replaced by motorways and handed the contract to build them to his own company. Few years later when rumours spread that he was going to be targeted by tax fraud investigation he fled the country in the middle of the night, and never came back until he died.

madpogue 

It's also important to remember that movements like these are often infiltrated by "agents-provocateurs", people sent in to intentionally destabilize what are otherwise fairly well-mannered social change processes. And of course, some news of "violent (protest, opposition, what have you)" is often just outright faked (cf. the new of "violent protests" in Madison in 2011, with footage showing palm trees in the background....). No idea if either would apply in this case.

Cute Boy Horse

If it's to do with street protests dutch police don't bother with spycraft. Back in the 60s they rioted and beat up thousands of bystanders when someone dropped a smoke bomb at Beatrix' wedding. Then the week after they smashed up an art gallery that was showing evidence of the brutality, as well as all the people visiting it. But I think with stuff like CPN, anarchists, even modern day SP as well as stuff like all the different environmentalists, yeah, bacon walks among us.

Stadjer

Fear for disorder, fear for 'the street' and it's power to influence was pretty rational for a politician in the 70's. Probably in that climate there was also the fear that the moderate disobedient civilians would be pushed towards the radical and violent and unite. But it wasn't all about fear, politicians were concerned with the side effects of their car policies too. These protesters weren't angry young men and women who wanted to change the world, these were parents and children who weren't anti car, who had their own traffic engineers, who made plans and just wanted to get some of the good things from only 15 years ago back, who had a lot of support or sympathy among normal people. Obviously they had a sense of urgency and were prepared to do illegal thins, but they wanted to talk and start making things better. The sensible thing for social democratic politicians was to talk and work with them.

In general if I read articles from foreign media about subjects I happen to know about, it's so often wrong it makes me doubt the accuracy of articles about subjects I happen not to know about. There are the media with an agenda to misinform. But there also the ones like this who appearantly mean well but are still cherry picking the stuff that fits a pre-existing narrative.

Yes, but there was also a genuine belief that the car was the future, and to be honest, when on the bike in the rain, wind and cold that doesn't feel as simplistic as it was.

What I mean with making it about politics it that this article mentions bicycle education in schools like that's what teaches children to be cyclists, like it's a matter of government policy. That's just not the case, I believe it's a good thing but it's not very important because they have already learned from their parents and friends. I wouldn't call teaching children how to ride political. And there's this obsession with cycle lanes, a matter of policy too that could easily be translated to cycling advocacy elsewhere, but it's only a part of the infrastructure and the infrastructure is only a part of the cycling. For example in my home town were one of the most radical and successful cycling policies of the 70's was implemented it wasn't about cycle lanes at all.

Cute Boy Horse

I agree with you here. For the rest, again, you've a separation in your mind between "politics" and "other things", and that's a fake separation. Politics is total

Bang0Bang00

Good!

And this is where you lost me. Mountain biking or road, to think you have any say in what's going to happen when **** hits the fan is laughable. A helmet is the last line of defense when all other options have failed, potentially through no fault of your own.

It happened to me. Pretty low speed impact, head was fine (thanks helmet!). I'll probably spend the rest of my life dealing with whiplash through my back and neck.

As resilient as the human body can be, to think one can suffer any serious injury and see no change in your bodily function is naively optimistic... bordering stupid.

Don't live in fear, just live in the real world.

Cute Boy Horse

Bicycle helmets are also the worst line of defense. To be honest "bicycle helmets" don't exist, at least in Europe. They're regulated to pass a test simulating an adolescent skateboarder falling over. Yes, really.

A lot of people fall off bikes while wearing a bike helmet, bonk their head without much injury, and see their helmet cracked open. Then they go "wow! The helmet saved me!". No, the helmet was overloaded and disintegrated, and all that energy that the helmet couldn't take went right into the skull. The helmet only helped a tiny amount, and you were lucky you didn't hit your head hard enough to kill you because it would still have killed you. Likewise, if the helmet doesn't crack, then you didn't hit anything hard enough to need one.

The only real head protection in a vehicle accident is one specifically made for that situation. For more information visit your local motorcycle dealer.

What I really want is knee protection. I've fallen off many times, and always landed on my knees, never on my head, and as a result they're in terrible shape. Doctor says they won't get better. Oddly enough the one time they're not in pain nowadays is cycling, even if they're still making weird sounds.