[dc-critmass-list] Crit Mass and WABA...and Baltimore Alley Cat...

[Michael Ross]

Here's a note I sent to WABA yesterday, re:  helmet
laws:


Dear WABA,

We have laws in DC which ban guns, prohibit cell 
phone use while driving cars, outlaw lanldlord 
discrimination, require public school spending 
equity, mandate exclusive bus and bike lanes, 
require 25 mph or slower speed limits throught 
the District, especially downtown, prohibit car 
tailgating, prohibit motor vehicle stopping in 
bike laws or double parking , prohibit standing 
and idling a car or truck or buson a downtown 
street, a 15 mph limit on the bike trails and the 
Mall roads,  AND helmet laws for those under 16 
years of age.  NOT ONE OF THESE  LAWS ARE 
ENFORCED.  I dare say they are close to 
unenforceable; and, to use a favorite descriptor 
of President Bush, are "bullshit."

Why would any thoughtful, practical person -- 
with all the challenges facing sane land use, and 
sustainable and fair economic/cultural 
development in DC --  GIVE  A DAMN ABOUT HELMET 
USE FOR ADULTS ON BICYCLES??!!!!!!!

Eric Gilliand was at the screening of Contested 
Streets in Takoma Park a few weeks ago:   how 
many cyclists did he see wearing helmets in
Copenhagen, Paris or London?...

WABA, dont scratch where it doesn't itch...and 
don't let the NPS bully you either:  they've 
demonstrated ZERO visionary leadership.

Best,
Mike

PS:

Meanwhile -- and talk about irony! -- WABA 
champions the law (sic) which doesnt require 
track bikes (fixed gear) in DC to have 
brakes.  Why?  WHO KNOWS??!!  By at least one 
order of magnitude is a cyclist at greater risk 
by riding a fixed gear in DC without a brake than 
they are not wearing a helmet.  I saw that as a 
former semi-professional bicycle racer with a 
small amount of track experience;  as someone who 
knows Marty Nothstein and knows he would never 
ride a fixed gear on the street!;  and because of
this:



Fixies outlawed?

By John Stevenson
There's been a bit of hoo-ha in various bike 
forums around the net in the last few days about 
a case in Portland, Oregon where a rider was 
fined for not having a separate brake on her 
fixed-gear bike. According to bikeportland.org, 
bike messenger Ayla Holland was ticketed on June 
1 and charged with violating Oregon Revised 
Statute (ORS) 815.280(2)(a) which states:
A bicycle must be equipped with a brake that 
enables the operator to make the braked wheels 
skid on dry, level, clean pavement. strong enough to
skid tire.
Ms Holland's lawyer Mark Ginsberg attempted to 
argue that a fixie's transmission constituted a 
brake. The judge was having none of it, and in his
decision said:
"The brake must be a device separate from the 
musculature of the rider. Take me for instance. I 
don't have leg muscles as strong as a messenger
 how
would I stop safely?"
This has led to some rather alarmist talk about 
the future of fixies. "Will the cops now feel 
emboldened to go out and ticket everyone on a 
fixed-gear? Are fixed-gears now essentially 
illegal? Are fixed-gears truly a public safety 
hazard?" asks Jonathan Maus in bikeportland.org.
Well, no. The issue here is a badly-written piece 
of legislation being interpreted by a judge so 
that it achieves its aims, rather than what the 
absolute letter of the law says.
A fixed-gear bike with no brakes cannot stop in 
as short a space as one with a front brake, 
because only the rear wheel is providing the 
braking force. As a vehicle on the road, it's
therefore clearly less safe.
This is a matter of simple physics. In the third 
edition of Bicycling Science, David Gordon Wilson 
demonstrates that the maximum deceleration of a 
crouched rider on a standard bike (that is, not a 
recumbent) on a dry road is 0.56g. Try to brake 
any harder than that and you go over the 
handlebars, which is the limit condition, as the 
limit from tyre adhesion of vehicles that don't 
pitch over (tandems, recumbents and cars) is about
0.8g.
If you brake with only the rear wheel, according 
to Wilson, the limit is 0.256g, because braking 
effectively shifts your weight forward, reducing 
the load on the rear wheel to the point that it 
skids at that deceleration. Once a tyre is 
skidding, its braking effectiveness is reduced 
because you no longer have sticky solid rubber in 
contact with the road, but a lubricating layer of 
molten rubber. (Which incidentally demonstrates 
that the Oregon legislation was written by 
someone with no clue at all about bikes.)
Therefore, however good a fixie rider is, 
stopping distance is roughly doubled without a 
front brake. In practice, it's probably more than
that.
In some jurisdictions, better-written laws make 
this issue moot. In the UK, for example, the law 
requires a bike to have two independent braking 
systems. I used to ride a fixie in the winter in 
the UK, and I knew quite a few fixie riders who 
dispensed with a rear brake on the grounds that 
the transmission was a braking system, but I 
never met anyone daft enough to have just a rear
brake.
This judge has clearly decided to ignore the 
letter of the law in favour of enforcing its 
obvious intent, that bikes have at least one 
maximally effective brake. That's the sort of 
thing judges are handy for: turning idiotically 
badly-written legislation into rules that make sense
in the real world.
All that fixie riders have to do to conform is 
slap on a front brake; hardly rocket surgery, and 
a long way from fixies being suddenly illegal. 
And to fixie riders who are about to reach for 
the email to defend riding brakeless fixies, I 
refer you to Cmdr Montgomery Scott: "You canna change
the laws of physics!"




 
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