86. Roads, rights, and rage: Tom Andrews and Peter Chambers on the dilemmas of cycling_TMBTP

Urban Broadcast Collective

Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, and on the rise of Anti-Semitism in Europe, recounts a joke popular after the first World War: “an anti-Semite claimed that the Jews had caused the war; the reply was: Yes, the Jews and the bicyclists. Why the bicyclists? Asks the one. Why the Jews? Asks the other”. To Arendt the joke illustrates how scapegoating is understood: if bicyclists seem self-evidently harmless, this incongruity shows deep-seated rationaliation of bigotry against Jewish people. (The book goes on to examine identity, rights, and nation states - or it seems to, Elizabeth has only read 50 of 700-ish pages). In the context of nowadays Australia, the bicycle ‘joke’ resonates less and seems even less funny. Actually it’s hard to believe it was ever funny, but most jokes go flat with time. Cycling issues are divisive both on Australia’s roads and its internet forums. In this episode Elizabeth speaks with two researchers interested, in effect, in questions of “why the bicyclists?”: why are Australians so angry about cycling? Tom Andrews is a PhD student in law at the University of Melbourne writing on the history of criminal procedures. Dr Peter Chambers is a senior lecturer in criminology, global crime and boarder security at RMIT University. They have a shared interest in conflicts between cars and vulnerable road users and recently published an article in the Conversation, “Rising cyclist death toll is mainly due to drivers, so change the road laws and culture”, examining statistics on deaths on Australian roads: 1,222 in 2017-18, with 1,100 due to driver inattention. They are critical of responses focused on high-tech sensors and separated infrastructure: arguing these disavow statistics on causes of cyclist deaths and ‘bake in’ infrastructure for paying less attention. Debates downplay real people and causes of injuries, in favour of anecdotes and hypotheticals – “once saw an X”, “what if a Y”. This contrasts with how other sectors –eg. aviation- respond to risk. It also poses questions. Tom recounts a literally frothing-at-the-mouth encounter with rage about cyclists-“there’s nothing about that level of anger that is easy to explain”–and how a comment moderator told him “in Australian media if you publish a piece on violence against women, or about cycling, there will be a rush of aggressive comments”. The episode discusses how ‘third rail’ cycling issues tap into questions of culture, history, and jurisprudence (how people discuss and understand rules). In criminal law, a separate set of offences for driving was introduced because of reluctance of juries to convict drivers of manslaughter. In civil law, prior to Victoria’s no-fault personal injury insurance, when injury occurred as a result of cars people had to go through the (stressful, costly) general legal system for compensation. Registration in large part pays for TAC insurance, proportionate to risks of injury from different motor vehicles. How does this relate to frequent calls for cyclists to be registered? Is a bike an unregistered vehicle? Peter semi-facetiously suggests arguments for cyclists to be registered are less interested in specific implications for rights and responsibilities than “cyclists should be registered…and then put in camps”. It’s a rambling chat touching many third rails – helmets (“in Australia it’s easier to imagine touching someone’s car as a form of assault to the person, than it is to imagine trusting people to make informed decisions about risk and headwear”), liability (strict versus presumed), parking, property, rights to public space, colonialism and land appropriation, gender, f-bombs, ‘boulie tacks’. And Big Lebowski quotes (“at least it’s an ethos”).