{"id":1817,"date":"2004-11-09T10:49:17","date_gmt":"2004-11-09T15:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/?p=1817"},"modified":"2004-11-09T11:17:19","modified_gmt":"2004-11-09T16:17:19","slug":"why-does-john-milloy-hate-cyclists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2004\/11\/09\/why-does-john-milloy-hate-cyclists\/","title":{"rendered":"Why does John Milloy hate cyclists?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It looks like the Ontario Legislature is squeezing in compulsory bicycle (and rollerblade, scooter and skateboard helmets) through a private member&#8217;s bill. The sponsor is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.johnmilloy.com\/\">John Milloy<\/a>, Liberal MPP for Kitchener Central.<\/p>\n<p>The bill&#8217;s proper name is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ontla.on.ca\/library\/bills\/381\/129381.htm\">Bill 129, Highway Traffic Amendment Act, 2004<\/a>, and is described as:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The Bill amends the Highway Traffic Act  to make it an offence for any person to use a skateboard, a scooter, in-line skates or roller skates on a highway without wearing a helmet.&nbsp;&hellip;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Wearing a helmet doesn&#8217;t save as many lives as having more people on bikes would (source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.magma.ca\/~ocbc\/fatals.html\">Helmet Effect Undetectable in Fatality Trends<\/a>, compiled from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tc.gc.ca\/roadsafety\/stats\/menu.htm\">Transport Canada<\/a> data) . It interferes with utility cycling, where the bicycle is an integrated part of urban mobility, and doesn&#8217;t need special clothing or restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>John Milloy&#8217;s apparent motivation for this bill was the death of a friend in a rollerblading accident on the Rideau Canal. While I&#8217;m genuinely sorry that this happened, I don&#8217;t see any <em>bicycle<\/em> or <em>highway<\/em> involved here. I wonder if Mr Milloy is indeed a cyclist at all?<\/p>\n<p>It looks like this bill will be discussed at a panel next Monday, so there&#8217;s very little time to act. What you can do:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Follow the steps in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.magma.ca\/~ocbc\/campaign.html\">OCBC Anti-Bill 129 Campaign<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t know who your MPP is? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.electionsontario.on.ca\/fyed\/en\/form_page_en.jsp\">Find your electoral district<\/a>. (Mine&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/lorenzo.ontarioliberal.com\/\">Lorenzo Berardinetti<\/a>.)<\/li>\n<li>Read these, provided by <a href=\"http:\/\/respect.to\/\">Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists<\/a>:\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cycle-helmets.com\/\">Mandatory bicycle helmet law in Western Australia<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cyclehelmets.org\/1068.html\">Commentary on &#8220;A case-control study of the effectiveness of bicycle safety helmets&#8221;.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lesberries.co.uk\/cycling\/helmets\/helmets.html\">John Franklin&#8217;s Bicycle Helmets Page<\/a>. John Franklin, author of the wonderful book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lesberries.co.uk\/ccraft\/ccraft.htm\">Cyclecraft<\/a>, is sceptical.  (I reviewed Cyclecraft for <a href=\"http:\/\/velovision.co.uk\/\">VeloVision<\/a>; here&#8217;s the archived PDF copy: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbancycling.com\/essays\/3books.pdf\">Three Books About Biking<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.magma.ca\/~ocbc\/\">The Vehicular Cyclist<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Is it coincidence that the countries with more and safer cycling are where fewest cyclists wear helmets? <\/p>\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t help their cause that advocates of the bill support assaulting cyclists. Michael Prue, MPP for Beaches\/East York, was quoted in The Star as saying:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There isn&#8217;t a day goes by that I don&#8217;t see someone on the streets of Toronto, an adult, with no helmet on their head, and I want to get out of my car or off the sidewalk and I want to grab them and I want to shake them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Why don&#8217;t you get out your car, Michael, and do something sane, like ride a bike?<\/p>\n<p>This bill does nothing to support cycling skill, and will waste police and legislature time. If they really want to do something for cycling in Ontario, how about:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>automatic fault on the motor vehicle driver until proven otherwise, as in some European countries.<\/li>\n<li>wide right lanes (<em>not<\/em> bike lanes) required on all new urban roads.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It looks like the Ontario Legislature is squeezing in compulsory bicycle (and rollerblade, scooter and skateboard helmets) through a private member&#8217;s bill. The sponsor is John Milloy, Liberal MPP for Kitchener Central. The bill&#8217;s proper name is Bill 129, Highway Traffic Amendment Act, 2004, and is described as: The Bill amends the Highway Traffic Act [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[77,1867,867],"class_list":["post-1817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bike-stuff","tag-bike","tag-helmet","tag-stupid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQNZZ-tj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}