Michael Graham Richard, 5 March 2010, Canada: TreeHugger - Cars & Transportation (bikes) via World Streets

World Streets has a great interview with Morten Lange, the head of the Icelandic Cyclists' Federation  . Part of the interview is about Iceland-specific things, but most of it applies to cyclists everywhere. It's a good read, check out some highlights below or read the whole thing here.

The best part of the interview, in my opinion, is the myth-busting. Many things should be improved to make cycling better: Some of it has to do with infrastructure (more and better bike paths, bike racks, bike hooks on buses and trains, etc), but a lot of it has to do with perception. Many people think that biking is a lot more dangerous than it actually is.

Number 3: Cycling is dangerous.
People often think that the traffic is intimidating and loud, and they have heard about accidents. But statistics that claim cycling is more dangerous than driving a car are looking at a per kilometer basis, which is not a fair comparison.

People will not go as far by bike as by car, so what you should compare is the danger on a per hour basis or per trip. And then there is virtually no difference between the danger in cycling and going by car. And of course cyclists pose much less danger to others. If cycling replaces car driving for short and medium distances, we get calmer traffic and we will all be safer.

Photo: Flickr, CC

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