Summary of "Don’t make bicyclists more visible. Make drivers stop hitting them."

The article "Don’t make bicyclists more visible. Make drivers stop hitting them," from The Washington Post explains how roads have been taken away from cyclists and pedestrians and instead given full authority and right to the automobile.

The reason for this change, the author Eben Weiss notes, is because the risk of drivers injuring others is more important than the safety of cyclists and pedestrians. In this manner, Weiss views "risk" as a manipulative term. Risk is subjective and can be used to manipulate a situation in favor of a more popular or economically prosperous group. In this situation, that popular group is the automobile industry and car drivers. To confirm this hypothesis, Weiss explains how more legislature is being placed to punish cyclists and "jaywalkers" in order to dissuade their type of transportation to favor the automobile.

One of Weiss's primary examples is how helmets are becoming mandatory for all riders. Certain legislature requires all adults to wear helmets when riding a bike, although it appears this legislature is to minimize the risk in which cyclists face, it is actually to minimize the risk drivers face. With mandatory helmet laws, the responsibility for a biker's safety is on themselves since the government warns for protective headgear - this takes away any responsibility on behalf of the government to perform expensive reconstruction for bikers.

Not only does legislation like this shift responsibility onto the cyclist, it makes riding a bike seem less appealing. Statistics showed that the more helmet laws there were, the fewer cyclists were out biking. Therefore, the argument can be made that the only people to blame for a lack of bike riding is the biker themselves - since all they have to do is listen to the government's safety warning and wear a helmet.

The manipulation of the term "risk" does not end here. The automobile industry goes a step further and asks that cyclists spray themselves with glow-in-the-dark ink to make them more easily seen to drivers. Again, this puts the pressure on cyclists to make sure drivers see them, as opposed to training drivers to be more observant at night and beware of bikers or building bike lanes on the roads.

The risk at stake for drivers is held in higher authority and importance than the risks cyclists and pedestrians face when using the road - a place in which all forms of transportation are meant to be welcome. The reason for this risk division is because changing infrastructure and maintaining traffic laws can be expensive and time consuming. Additionally, the more people who ride bikes, the less money automobile companies make from eager car buyers. Economically speaking, prioritizing the risk of drivers also includes prioritizing the risk of economic decline. This makes "risk" a tricky and slippery concept. One Weiss finds to be manipulative and dirty.