A review on Roads Were Not Built for Cars by Sean Harrison, via Safe Cycling Australia. I just finished this book last week, I took my time digesting it, it has a lot of information and is very well researched. It focuses mainly on the UK (as you would expect given the authors origin) and the US with European references and the occasional Australian references. What was my take on it? Cyclists have surprisingly made inroads into many things that we currently take for granted and below I have summarised some points of note. To gain a full understanding of my take you really need to read the book, it is available via soft copy through Amazon and next year a free online PDF version will be available (see below). So what did I take from it: Cyclists were the campaigners for a road network. In the UK, tollways (turnpikes) existed first, but fell into disrepair as the steam train age took over, when the high wheeler and the safety bike took off, cycling advocacy through the CTC took off and cyclists developed the first roads, then sealed roads. Many of the processes developed by cyclists are still in use today for road making and some of the major roads in the UK are still based on the old roads using the substructures laid back in the 1800s. Tarmac is a construct of Tar used in the old days and the Macadam (a cyclist) process of road building. Cyclists and the cycling companies were the first to develop production line manufacturing, long before Henry Ford (a cyclist until his dying days), he just popularised it. On this note, most modern car manufacturers can trace their origins back to either bicycle manufacturing or the use of bicycle components in their first motor cars. This includes Carl Benz (first Autocar based on English bike parts) and Henry Ford (bike components sourced from US manufacturers). Without bicycle manufacturers driving innovation, we would not have pneumatic tyres, ball bearings, light weight components and tubing, differential gears, roller chains, the list goes on. All of which without, the car would either not exist or would take some time to eventually evolve to what we have today. As a result of constant innovation of the above (1800s), bicycle manufacturers drove annual marketing exercises to convince people to upgrade to the latest technology in bike development every year, sound familiar? This is the precursor to modern marketing techniques and possibly planned obsolescence. Early 1900s commentators predicted the impact the car would have on society with regard to health, deaths, suburban sprawl. Their predictions are very accurate and scarily so close to the mark you have to wonder at how we ever let this happen. Cyclists have been campaigning for cycling specific infrastructure since the birth of the safety cycle either to protect themselves from motorists or to protect other road users (horse and carriages) from them. Think the judiciary are getting it wrong now and victim blaming is a new phenomenon? It has been happening since cars were outnumbered by around 20,000,000 to 40,000 in the UK in the 1930’s and continues to happen now. The LAW (League of American Wheelmen) in the US was such a powerful advocacy group in its heyday, it could actually tilt presidential election outcomes. LAW at one time would have offices in presidential campaigns in order to follow and influence outcomes. Marketing mail campaigns were developed by cyclists as LAW’s membership was so big it needed automated mailing services in order to communicate to its members in a timely manner. Nowadays it’s just so passé to get a message out with email, forums and social media (like Facebook). Most motoring groups, journalists, industry journals, racing car drivers, advocacy groups etc. were started by cyclists are they moved across to motor car use. Though many retained their love of cycling (Henry Ford rode into his 70’s if I recall) and kept it up, sadly that is not the case now in the modern era. Some of these people even served as both cycling and ,motoring duties concurrently Electric cars were the first mass produced cars, it’s only the development of the simple “explosion engine” that popularised modern motor cars in their current form. It was assumed that as motor car ownership increased and pervaded society, cycling would actually disappear altogether. These are just some of the take outs I have from the book. roadswerenotbuiltforcars/ Carlton Reid, the author wants to ensure that there is no barrier to his book being used as a reference so hence making it available next year online as a PDF free. The book was funded was funded via Kickstarter. So instead of motorists putting down cyclists, its time they thanked them for the roads they drive on and the cars they drive on them. Without bicycles, cars probably would not exist.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 11:47:10 +0000
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