Northwest Portland State Representative Mitch Greenlick says he has gotten hundreds of emails over the past 24 hours—all about his bill to ban kids younger than six from being carried on bikes.
First of all, Greenlick isn’t a transportation guy. He’s a public health guy. He doesn’t ride a bike in Portland (“Oh, no,” he says, when I ask. “I’m 76 and I weigh 275 pounds.”) but has spent his whole career doing health research. In a statement on the bill (pdf) he just sent out, he compares biking with kids to the old status quo of driving without seat belts:
My children were born in the late 1950s. Back then we would put the three kids in that back of a station wagon and let them bounce freely around the car while we traveled the country. It never occurred to us that we were putting them in danger… By the same token I do not believe there is a parent in Oregon who would want to risk the safety of their young children if they really believed it was risky to put them on a bicycle.
- Wikicommons
- Mitch Greenlick
A recent OHSU study of bike injuries in Portland sparked Greenlick’s idea for the bill. The study shows that 22 percent of regular cyclists suffer some sort of injury annually, anything from a skinned knee to an ER-worthy broken bone. For some reason, Greenlick’s statement this morning gets the numbers wrong (he says 30 percent suffer an injury), but either way he says the point of his bill is to start a discussion about the safety of riding with kids.
“The intention is to begin this discussion, not to have a hysterical discussion. The fact is that they have this blind faith, bicyclists believe they’re immortal,” says Greenlick. “I hope that the least that come out of this is a public health committee study of the situation.” The representative says he has yet to hear of any bike crash involving a child, but that the one thing that’s clear is more study is needed.
While he supports Safe Routes to School, the program that helps kids walk and bike to school, he thinks the widespread biking with kids that happens in countries like Denmark occurs under much different, safer circumstances than exist in Portland. “They’re not riding down the side of Broadway on a slippery morning,” says Greenlick.
UPDATE: SE Portland Representative Jules Bailey, who fondly remembers being strapped to a seat on the back of his dad’s bike growing up in Portland, disagrees with the bill. His take below the cut.
Rep. Bailey is the guy who pushed last session for the Idaho Stop Law for bikes. Like Greenlick, he’s gotten a flood of emails over the past day about this proposed law.
“I appreciate where Greenlick is coming from, he wants to make the transportation system safer for children,” says Bailey. “But we don’t ban kids from cars, we make cars safer for kids.”
What about the argument that this bill will provoke more study of the issue and get some real facts? “We know pretty well what we need to do to make the streets safer for bikes,” says Bailey, pointing to strengthening vulnerable road user laws and improving bike infrastructure.
So, uh, why not work to make our streets safer rather than pushing back against families wanting to enjoy a healthy, fun activity together?
He’s right: it’s much safer to just plop your kids down in front of the television.
Here’s a 74 year old skateboarding, Mitch. Get on a bike and try it out. You can have fun and lose some of that weight and get healthier! I rode with both my kids to their school, 2.5 miles away, each day. The kindergardener did it 4 times a day on a teeny bike, as she only had 1/2 day kindergarten and we had to go back and pick up her brother at the end of the school day. When riding with kids, cars tend to give you a wide berth. I would think kids who ride every day are way healthier then kids who get driven to school.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvmWk7hCWz8
What is comparable to a seat belt on a bike is a helmet, and all kids under 16 are already required to wear a helmet when riding on a bike in Oregon, so what are we talking about here…
The choice isn’t between cycling and putting ‘your kids down in front of the television’ – a nonsensical comparison.
It should be between riding bikes with kids and riding in auto traffic with them.
I don’t even have words for how stupid this is.
Just rename the bill: “The no babies OR bikes bill”
Bicyclists do not think they’re immortal. If you want to avoid having a hysterical discussion, it would be advisable to stop making ill-informed blanket statements.
“It should be between riding bikes with kids and riding in auto traffic with them. “
D, your comment is unresponsive. This is very much a choice as I laid out, since it’s a ban on riding with kids on your bike or in a bike trailer. And it actually has nothing to do with auto traffic, because a kid in a bike trailer on the Springwater Trail or the Esplanade would be just as illegal as a kid in a bike trailer on SE Powell.
The choice is indeed between being able to take your kids on your bike or not being able to take your kids on your bike. This is a mystifying approach, given the widespread and growing popularity of family biking events such as Sunday Parkways and Kidical Mass in this town.
“I’m a public health expert! I weigh 275 pounds and can’t ride a bike!”
@Reymont, Or, also, “I’m an old douche bag the confuses solid, reasonable legislation with just making people do what I think is right based on my own ill-informed opinions.”
Cyclists are perfectly aware that they are taking a mortal risk. For many of us, it’s actually why we cycle:
Cycling is a solution to transportation mortality, not the problem.
@Reymont: LOL, pretty much.
@Raymont: Well said.
Who is this corpulent moron?
Why does he feel a need to regulate something he seems to know so little about, even to the point of getting his statistics wrong?
Anyone down for a protest ride with the kids? Let this non-contributing, disconnected bubble of flab know how the constituents feel.
Also, he can greenlick my balls.
Oregonometry – I know and agree with you, that’s why I said ‘should be’
@D– Ah, got it. Misread your response.
@Fruit Cup
I smell a Zoolander reference in your Greenlick my balls comment…
I think there’s a very clear cut difference between what I do on my bike that might look like I think I’m immortal and what parents do on their bikes with their 6 and 3 year olds in tow. I would NEVER do some of the things I do if I had kids along for the ride.
“The fact is that they have this blind faith, bicyclists believe they’re immortal.”
Not a fact, actually. Decidedly lacking in fact. Let me tell you about the visualization exercises I engage in as I bike along, picturing all the novel ways a given traffic situation can kill me.
Also, what Nat_a_nat said.
I would guess the Rep. Greenlick’s primary interactions with people on bikes occur when he’s out driving. And he’s more likely to be driving around on arterials rather than the quiet side street many bike riders prefer. So when he thinks “bicyclists” he’s thinking the “strong and fearless” -type riders who are more likely to brave streets with fast-moving cars. They, I suppose, might seem as if they think they’re immortal, but it’s just as likely that they way they ride – right out in the lane, part of traffic – is more likely to keep them alive. It’s safer. But even with that being the case, they’re not as likely to ride out there with kids.
Maybe Rep. Greenlick doesn’t understand these things. That’s the most charitable explanation I can come up with for his stating non-facts as fact.
The idea that cycling is unsafe is simply wrong. Statistically, cycling is no less safe than riding in a car, and for shorter trips, the numbers say that cycling is safer. And cycling doesn’t increase one’s risk of heart disease.
Yes, cycling has a tiny amount of risk, but driving has the same risk. If we avoided all activities because they had a tiny risk, we’d never go anywhere, and we’d probably never risk stepping outside of the hospital in which we were born.
People have to travel. Cycling is a valid, safe and healthy way of doing it.