Bike helmets and the road to fascism

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      I refuse to wear a bike helmet for many reasons, the first and best reason being that a man has his pride.

      This will never be good enough in a city with a puritanical streak as long and wide as Vancouver’s, of course.

      Here, the benefits of a decent hairstyle always have to be weighed against the probability of receiving yet another drive-by road safety lecture from a sanctimonious prick in a cancer-spewing death-machine. (“Where’s your helmet, idiot!?”)

      Then there’s all that hand-wringing over “the burden on health care” and jerry-rigged statistics about traumatic head injury, all of it ridiculous when you consider how efficiently humans have been slaughtering each other in their gas-powered status symbols for the last six decades.

      Speaking of slaughter, I was reading Joseph Howard Tyson’s The Surreal Reich to my eight-year-old last night when I came across an interesting passage. Reflector discs, it seems, were first patented by Anton Loibl, an officer of the SS, and then used to fatten the coffers of the Ahnenerbe when Himmler made them mandatory for all bikes in 1938.

      “And this is how authoritarian bike safety by-laws lead to fascism,” I explained to my daughter. “Now, you sleep tight, my little one.”

      It’s important to read to your kids.

      Comments

      24 Comments

      David

      Dec 31, 2013 at 12:34pm

      Go visit GF Strong Rehab Centre, in Vancouver. Not being able to walk for the rest of your days, or having limited speech capabilities, might make you think twice about your need to be 'fashionable'.

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      ted

      Dec 31, 2013 at 1:20pm

      David, did you read the article? How many motorists have been in a similar state, or dead in GF Strong or other hospitals? Might make you think twice about using a motorized vehicle. Full stop.

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      HellSlayerAndy

      Dec 31, 2013 at 1:29pm

      Yo David
      Com'on...new rule.
      If we are going to use people in traction wheels at GF Strong as props for our 'scared straight' morality, can we at least say the cut off should be old people in shower stalls and bike riders.
      Let's save it for really good things like the idiots that will be jumping off of cliffs at Lynn Canyon tomorrow or long boards chumps tackling the majestic mountains of New Westminster's road system?

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      Larry

      Dec 31, 2013 at 1:36pm

      Or, the need for safe cycling facilities.

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      James Blatchford

      Dec 31, 2013 at 1:47pm

      Our nephew had the same attitude over seat belts...we still miss him.

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      jj

      Dec 31, 2013 at 2:09pm

      yet, you would expect the healthcare system funded by everyone else to pay for any head injuries you receive?

      One one hand you are saying its your choice, but on the other hand you are taking the choice away from those who dont want to pay healthcare bills for stupidity.

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      Coiffure over Safety?

      Dec 31, 2013 at 2:16pm

      I hope the author is comfortable giving up any claim to a publicly-funded healthcare system should he (or his child) be head-injured in an accident.

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      westcoastboi

      Dec 31, 2013 at 3:09pm

      Darwin award nominee...

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      Jmh

      Dec 31, 2013 at 4:41pm

      "Heute Vancouver, morgen die Welt!"

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      Cars

      Dec 31, 2013 at 6:35pm

      Ban cars. Problem solved.

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