@freiheit Two ways. For policymakers, point out that safety is keeping potential cyclists in their cars, which increases congestion, road maintenance costs, &c. Only positive action can break the vicious circle. In a public response to potential and actual cyclists, use any stats you have to show how safe cycling really is, and how even after you count the marginal risk, cyclists live much longer than non-cyclists on average because of the health benefits.

@DanHulme Not riding is riskier than riding.

@freiheit Exactly! But most people don't know that. So as a bicycle advocacy group, the answer is always to say that.

@DanHulme I think our response is going to be trying to straddle a fine line between "some of the bad things he describe are exactly why we're trying to get that Vulnerable Road Users Ordinance passed" and "seriously, it's not that dangerous, here's some real data about how it's not dangerous, and many cyclists report never getting any kind of harassment at all."

yeah

if you can get the two halves of the response to the two groups who need to hear them, so much the better :-)

@DanHulme Our county board of supervisors is having (had already?) a hearing today about passing the ordinance for the unincorporated parts of the county. :)

good luck (or good having had luck already)

I nearly asked a question today, but decided it was too fluffy

(one city in the county passed a version of the ordinance, another has it in the study phase to be voted on in a couple months... only 7 more government bodies to convince to at least formally consider it...)

wow

that sounds even worse than British red tape

there's 9 incorporated cities in this county

we don't really have per-county laws

The county and each city each have some kind of elected group ("board of supervisors", "city council") that would need to vote on it. The bigger ones have to agree to let staff study the proposal, wait for the staff to do their thing, then actually vote on it.

There's restrictions on what kinds of laws counties can enact, and subtly different restrictions on what cities can enact...

In particular, none have any power to change what's a criminal or non-criminal act on the public roadways, so the "Vulnerable Road Users Ordinance" aka "Anti-Bicyclist Harassment Ordinance" is all civil multiplier stuff. Similar to what the city of LA and a couple other cities in California passed over the last couple years.

oh, I see

I recall seeing signs in California saying things of the form "traffic fines are doubled in ... areas"

is that the kind of thing?

@DanHulme I think the traffic fines thing is actually a state law. Construction areas, that kind of thing...

what is a "civil multiplier", then?

Lawsuit

yeah, I understood the "civil" part but not the "multiplier" part. What does it multiply?

A fine is a criminal infraction type thing. Civil means "sue somebody". multiplier meaning "triple actual damages" or actually "triple actual damages or $1000, whichever is larger".

OK, we don't have anything like that

you just have to go to central government and get new criminal offences, or harsher penalties for existing ones

US has a lot of levels of jurisdiction. :)

but that doesn't help because the police already think that (e.g.) banning a driver for running red lights is too harsh, so they never ticket for it

well, good luck anyway

@DanHulme thanks. :)

@DanHulme Revise "considering" to "have passed": pressdemocrat.com/article/20130312/articles/… :)

cool