Every day you share the street with other people who walk, use a wheelchair, ride a bike or drive a motorcycle, a car, a van, a truck, etc. There is a myriad of ways of moving from one point to another. I like to think it as a pyramid regarding the protection each group should have. On the bottom of this gradation, there would be walking people and wheelchair users since each and every person belongs to this group and are the most vulnerable. Next, bikers and skaters would take up the second step. They go faster than most of walkers. This fact determines they should ride in a different, separate space in the street in order to avoid accidents and troubles. Then, we have the motorcycle drivers. Obviously, the speed they reach is the higher up until now, but they are fragile compared with car drivers. It is no difficult to imagine who would be worse off in an accident between a motorcycle and a car. On the top of this pyramid I put car, van and truck drivers. Since they move in the heaviest machines, the potential damage they can cause in road accidents is the most important. Indeed, it is common that most of deaths in road (at least in Western countries) are car drivers.

The use of a helmet when riding a bike is always a controversial issue. Some people argue that it can save your live in an accident. Some politicians have pushed its use with specific laws just to follow the previous point. Curiously, the same politicians do not ride bikes. They prefer driving cars. They also think helmets are a kind of titanium armor, able to stop bullets and space rockets. I think the statement is false in most of the cases. The true key is that the helmet does not save your life in a car accident, the car speed does. Studies show that the more car speed, the more probability a cyclist has to die. The probability a biker lives in an accident driving the car at 50 km/h or approximately 31 miles/h is less than 10% and it diminishes as car speed increases. Moreover, the low speed bikes reach, normally bellow 25 km/h or 15.5 miles/h, makes it unnecessary. The helmet use is compulsory in some countries and areas. What was its impact on the number of biker use the next months after approving by law? They have discouraged bikers to use the bike.

To sum up, forcing bikers to wear helmet is not a correct way to improve bike use or reduce cyclist deaths. It is better to force cars to drive slower, not to mention the fight against climate change.

There has been a recurrent discussion among bikers who live in large cities regarding which infrastructure is the best to ride. On the one hand, we have bike line and on the other one the whole street. Both sides offer points in favor and against. Cyclists who ride on a bike line enjoy a dedicated space for them which is respected specially in the cases in which it is separated by a physical barrier from pavement and car lines. They feel this separation as a privilege with a potential effect on avoiding traffic accidents. This fact encourages those who are learning to ride and makes bikers who do not want to ride at high speed happy. It seems to say “Hey, we drive a vehicle, but we live in a peaceful manner not as the pollutant cars”. On the contrary, pro-street bikers say “Hey, we drive a vehicle, so we are traffic and must share the street”. They feel traffic has to be calmed down, not by cornering them but by forcing cars to reduce speed as bike do not usually reach high speeds as cars do. This type of cyclists often complain about the facts that bike lines often zigzag and their surface imply deficiencies, whereas streets often follows direct lines with better asphalt. Which position is the best? Neither, it all depends on the particular circumstances of infrastructures and the way of thinking of every biker.

Biking in a city with a huge car usage feels like a struggle, like a war for the future with clear enemies and allies, and here are some of them.
Our allies:

• Polite people
• Nature lovers
• 99.9% of the people
• Health conscious people
• People who love their life
• Progressive urban designers
• Politicians aware of the potential to win votes

Our enemies:

• The stress level
• Tight schedules
• Closemindedness
• Driver’s cellphones
• The lack of empathy
• Any drug taken before driving

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