{"id":152550055,"date":"2009-11-01T15:00:55","date_gmt":"2009-11-01T15:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=152550055"},"modified":"2009-11-01T15:00:55","modified_gmt":"2009-11-01T15:00:55","slug":"think-about-raging-bulls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=152550055","title":{"rendered":"Think about raging bulls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;<br \/>\nColville-Andersen\u2019s second goal is to \u201calways sell bicycles positively\u201d.  He compared the marketing of bicycles to that of cars:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cYou never hear them [car industry] talking negatively about their product at all.  Never.  They\u2019ll never tell you that driving is considered to be the most difficult task homo sapiens have had to master.  This is actually true, hunting mammoths is nothing compared to driving a car.  They\u2019ll never tell you that the level of dangerous hydorcarbon particles in the air are actually higher inside the car than if you ride a bike next to them\u2026 They never tell you your risk of head injury is higher in a car than on a bicycle and at no point have we ever seen the car industry promote motorist helmets.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>A key to making cycling mainstream, according to Colville-Andersen, is to address the dangers of the automobile.  He equated the car with a bull running around a china shop.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cSomeone has let a sacred bull in society\u2019s China shop\u2026 We can all agree that there is a bull in the china shop, we can all be realistic and think the bull\u2019s not going anywhere (it\u2019s gotten too big to fit out the door now).  So we bubble wrap all the pieces of expensive china and meanwhile the bull just knocked over eight shelves in aisle 9 and took a shit on the floor.  It\u2019s strange, we\u2019ve developed this fantastic capacity to completely and utterly ignore the bull.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Continuing with the bull\/car comparison, he said that knowing that there\u2019s a bull in the china shop, people should do something to \u201climit its destructive capabilities\u201d such as \u201ccastrate it to make it calmer, tie it down, or build a fence around it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Colville-Andersen\u2019s third goal is to simply address \u201cthe bull\u201d, meaning, if cities really want to attain high levels of bicycle use, they must begin to acknowledge that the cars are causing havoc and their power and dominance on the urban landscape must be reigned in.<\/p>\n<p>On a similar note, Colville-Andersen said he dreams about a day when cars have warning labels similar to those mandated on cigarette packages:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cImagine if we woke up and all the cars had warning labels on 30% of their surface area [that&#8217;s the law for cigs]. Imagine what would happen to the mindsets of our population.  After two months you\u2019d have people opening their garage, looking at the car, looking at the bike and saying, \u2018I\u2019m not going to risk my life, I\u2019m taking the bike\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The role of the bicycling \u201csubculture\u201d was also addressed by Colville-Andersen.  He feels that in order to \u201cmainstream bicycling\u201d it needs to be re-branded as a \u201cnormal, borderline boring transport option.\u201d  To do this he feels like cities should \u201cfocus less on subcultures\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bikeportland.org\/2009\/10\/30\/want-to-be-like-copenhagen-think-about-vacuum-cleaners-and-raging-bulls\/\">https:\/\/bikeportland.org\/2009\/10\/30\/want-to-be-like-copenhagen-think-about-vacuum-cleaners-and-raging-bulls\/<\/a>oldId.20091101150055930<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; Colville-Andersen\u2019s second goal is to \u201calways sell bicycles positively\u201d. He compared the marketing of bicycles to that of cars: \u201cYou never hear them [car industry] talking negatively about their product at all. Never. They\u2019ll never tell you that driving is considered to be the most difficult task homo sapiens have had to master. This &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=152550055\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Think about raging bulls&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152550055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152550055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=152550055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152550055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=152550055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=152550055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=152550055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}