25 March 2009

Rational Bicycle Frame Stickers

If you fancy advertising your freedom to choose whether or not to wear a helmet - and/or your freedom from fearmongering and emotional pornography - here's a sticker from Copenhagenize.com. I figured that it was high time that those of us who feel secure in the traffic, ride safely and sensibly - not to mention those of us who have actually read the science - had the opportunity to take a sticker stance. The scare merchants get so much press, so this is a quiet little statement for the rest of us.

Actually, it's three stickers for the price of one. Not surprisingly, bicycle frame stickers are not standard on online print shops, so I use a bumper sticker template and you get to cut the stickers into three for placement on your bicycle. They're available from our little online shop.

Alternatively, you can choose the Danish text version, which I've made for our family's cargo bike. Oh so exotic and cosmopolitan.

There are some other general frame stickers available in the online shop as well, as well as all the rest of it.


Sean said...

I generally like your stickers, but I think this one misses its mark. It's a mandate; not a promotion of choice or freedom.

It's similar to something like "drug free school zone" or "no parking zone" signs that appear here in America. They have one meaning: "no drugs," "no parking." It's not open for debate or decision.

Your sticker is the same. I think different copy would have worked better.

electric said...

your north american market

A nice sticker for the people of Copenhagen.

workbike said...

I can see Sean's point. Perhaps 'This cyclist rides helmet free' would be an idea: a statement of my intent without appearing to mandate the behaviour of others.

Mikael said...

interesting points. thanks for that. the point is that the cyclist HAS made a decision and isn't shy about it.

but workbike's angle is cool.

jb said...

can you make a combo Danish/English one? that would be cool to have one on each side, sort of a trans-Atlantic partnership.

kiwehtin said...

Something like "Hjelmfri ok sikker"/"Helmet-free and safe" would be an even stronger statement, I think.

Just got involved in a renewed helmet debate over at Treehugger this past week after the skiing death of Natasha Richardson, a British actress. The usual helmet promoter there used it as an excuse to pull up all his old postings including an over the top and dishonest German helmet campaign poster with a cyclist with an egg as a head, which was smashed with its yolk and whites all over the asphalt. He took that one down after a howl of protest from readers but the others all stayed up, no matter how much they had been rebutted by readers' reactions, including mine.

One guy started flinging insults at everyone who put up arguments showing up the unjustified helmet hysteria. I put up links to pages showing helmet use in skiing and cycling had no effect on injury rates (and even one study showing how head injuries had increased with increased helmet use) and how similar circumstances and statistics were for pedestrian, household and in-car head injuries. He didn't give a fig, just said he shouldn't have to pay a nickel when I got hurt...

It's like arguing with a brick wall.

Anonymous said...

Let's tear that wall down, Kiwehtin. :)
The "I shouldn't have to pay for you" argument is ridiculous. If the helmet promoters were really consistent they also would refuse to pay for helmetless car drivers/pedestrians or extreme athletes. I find their selective "logics" highly annoying.

Anonymous said...

Bad karma for sale. Buy it, stick it on your bike. It would be a shame if you fell.

Anonymous said...

Treehugger has become one of the foremost greenwashing sites on the net. It does not surprise me they took a strange lilt on Ms Richardson's death.


lagatta à montréal said...

Oh yes, as you can imagine the helmet zealots came out here (more in the English-language media; it really doesn't register in the French media) since the accident was in Québec.

I don't think downhill skiing (which I've never done and which doesn't appeal to me) is at all similar to utilitarian cycling in cities or calm countryside. I've only done cross-country (Nordic) skiing and any time I've fallen I've never hit my head.

I'd prefer a sticker along the lines of the labour health and safety campaigns: "Eliminate the danger at the source", when employers were trying to force workers to don uncomfortable, unwieldy safety gear rather than eliminating work hazards.

Don't necessarily mean eliminating cars (though personally, I wouldn't mind) but certainly downsizing the space they occupy.

The same day as Richardson's accident, more than one person was killed in car crashes here.

Mikael said...

"i shouldn't have to pay" line is ridiculous.

these people 'shouldn't have to pay' for emergency services cutting the corpses of 40,000 dead motorists out of their crashed vehicles each year, in America, not to mention them rushing out to hundreds of thousands of accidents.

but they don't seem to have a problem with that.

Adrienne Johnson said...

I have been toying with putting this sticker on the back of my son's seat on my bike, just to see the reaction. Could make for some interesting preaching :D

Mikael said...

take a photo of it!