“It’s the latest fake viral film from our car-centric Danish Road Safety Council. Slowing chipping away at Danish bike culture without worrying about facts and science.”
— Mikael Colville-Andersen, publisher of Copenhagenize.com
Mikael Colville-Andersen, proprietor of the globally renown blog Copenhagenize, says a video of Danish cops handing out hugs and helmets to bike riders is nothing but the “latest fake viral film from our car-centric Danish Road Safety Council”.
In a post on his blog this morning, Colville-Andersen calls the film “helmet propaganda” and says the motivation behind it is to sell more cars by placing a focus helmets and the dangers of cycling.
Colville-Andersen is well-known, not just for his excellent coverage of Danish bike culture, but for his opinions about helmets being far from necessary — especially in Denmark, “the world’s safest bicycle nation”. He writes:
“It’s funny and well-made. But imagine what good they could do if they used their energy to promote cycling instead of making cycling appear dangerous here in the world’s safest bicycle nation. Instead, they are quite keen on selling cars.”
I hear where Colville-Andersen is coming from, but I when I watched the video (and decided to publish it yesterday) it was the hugs, not the helmets, that grabbed my attention.
Helmets, lights, or donuts, regardless of what’s passed out, I would still love to see the hugging spread to our shores.
What do you say Officer Pickett (he’s the Portland Police Officer who is also vice-chair of the city’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, our official community liaison, and recent winner of the BTA’s Alice B. Toeclips Award)?