Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right Lega party and transport minister has proposed a reform of the traffic road code.
The reform is focused on increasing penality for the types of collisions that have a large echo in the media, such as when the person responsible was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, but in reality it risks increasing the main factor in road mortalities: speed.
In fact the reform will limit mayors’ ability to create new cycle routes or car-free ‘school streets’, or to keep polluting cars out of city centres. It also restrict the possibilities to deploy speed traps.
Campaigners held demonstrations in dozens of Italian cities last week, calling for the reform to be scrapped and re-written in consultation with bereaved families.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.it/post/7041224
This may be surprising, but people do things for reasons that make sense to them. Like, that’s what everyone always does. If cyclists aren’t using a bike path, there’s a reason for it. The possible list of reasons is immense and varied. But it’s not your business to criticise them for it, because fundamentally if it was designed so that using it was clearly their best option, they’d be using it.
Punishing them for not doing it is a fucking terrible idea that completely misses the point.
And while we’re at it:
Studies suggest cyclists break road rules at roughly the same rate as drivers. However, their reasons for doing so are very different. Drivers break the law to save themselves a few seconds and because they don’t consider the consequences (to other people’s safety) concerning. Cyclists break the law because for various reasons it is often actually safer if they do so.