Driven by Greed
by Richard Ballantine
More than a few cyclists have an instinctive adversion towards money-making and the economics of profit. It is not that they necessarily dislike money per se, or think it is the root of all evil; the feeling arises from a practical awareness of the danger to cyclists from cars -- and an understanding that cars exist and are encouraged less for the good of society and more so car manufacturers and car-related industries and services can make money.
Profits for the businesses collectively known as the road lobby come at a stiff price. In Britain, 5,000 people a year die in road accidents. Worldwide (for many road lobby firms function on a global scale), cars cause 500,000 deaths and 15 million injuries annually. The cumulative total since the introduction of cars is some 30 million dead and perhaps a billion injured.
It is not easy to wrap one's mind around such figures. They are too numbing. Like other events of mass mortality such as wars, plagues, floods, disease, and famine one can only hope that these things won't happen to you.
Yet when you ride a bike, the fact that cars are dangerous is inescapable. You also know that bikes are just the opposite -- economical, efficient, inoffensive, and precious little danger to anything or any one. At some point you have to wonder: how come? Why cars and not bikes and decent public transport? And sooner or later the answer comes: it's the money.
A clear-cut illustration of the auto industry's capacity for ruthless profit-making was the infamous Pinto, a car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. The Pinto had a badly designed, exposed and therefore vulnerable petrol tank. When a Pinto was struck lightly from behind by another vehicle, the tank was prone to rupture and spill petrol over the exhaust system. At the same time, the collision would jam the car doors closed. As a result, in an inordinate number of commonplace minor rear-end shunts involving Ford Pintos, the vehicles burst into flames and incinerated the hapless occupants. It was proven in court that the Ford Motor Company had known all along that the Pinto petrol tank was defective, but did not perform the design changes necessary to make the car safe because they did not want to stand the expense -- and I don't mean just the manufacturing cost. Ford calculated the potential cost of lawsuits for loss of human life against the profits from sales and then deliberately and knowingly continued to make and sell a death-trap.
These are the kind of folks who now promote vehicle 'safety' in the form of seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, bull bars, and tank-like cars, all features that may benefit car users, but make cars even more dangerous to cyclists and pedestrians. Imagine: what would be the effect on safety if motorists were forced to sit in seats protruding from the very forefront of their vehicles, protected, like cyclists, by no more than their shirts?
Such a question seems to beg reality. Our car-based transport system is so massive and ubiquitous, it seems inevitable. We must have cars, say the road lobby and the government in chorus, because that's how things are; otherwise, jobs will be lost and the economy will fail and all will be lost.
Funny, but at various times in history those kinds of arguments have been used to justify the continuation of slavery and trading in human beings, economic servitude and the exploitation of labour, and a subordinate, second-class status for women. Does anyone think we would now be better off if we had slaves, children working in the mines and sweatshop industries, or women as chattels of men? The argument for car-based transport that "that's how things are" and otherwise "the economy will fail" is complete poppycock. In fact, by making cars the mainstay of transport, we are damaging the economy and of course ourselves.
In this kind of context, bikes are instruments of social and economic revolution, and cyclists are natural outlaws. People who are cycle advocates handle this status differently according to their individual natures and stages in life: some are aggressive and combative, others are polite and diplomatic. Either way, both groups operate by a more or less common assumption: big money talks. To hobble the road lobby, humanity and morality have to take precedence over profits. The error that this can lead to, in oversimplified terms, is that cycling should be anti-money.
Not so. Money and profit-making
have their own power, be it for good or bad, and for purposes of this discussion
the bottom line is: cycling is commercially viable. As experience in other countries
shows, instituting cycle-based transport systems produces greater general economic
vitality. Moreover, cycling is a profit-making activity in its own right. We
still have miles and miles to go, but cycling and the cycle industry are growing
apace. It is now more possible than ever before to earn a capable or even generous
living in cycling, in a wide variety of employment positions and businesses.
More and more people can afford a life-long involvement with cyclingÐand that's
exactly the kind of commitment we need for true change. So by all means celebrate
the thriftiness of bikes and cycling, but understand, too, that money and profit
are also essential tools for making a better world.
© Richard Ballantine
Cycling Plus, November 1998