When I first say this woman locking up her bicycle, my impression was that the Minnie Mouse bow on the helmet looked silly. But later, it struck me as eminently practical, at least from an urban cycling point of view. Yes, she shouldn’t have to make herself more visible, and yes, victim blaming should have no place in our public conversations about urban traffic. For the latest iteration of this, we have the December 26th rollover in downtown Toronto that injured 8 pedestrians, killing one of them. Toronto police const. Tony Macias drew flack when commenting on the accident and advising pedestrians to “keep their eyes open.”
But given that many drivers don’t pay attention, and given that the cars they drive can be lethal to those who aren’t in them, and given that existing infrastructure favours those lethal cars, I can understand if someone wants to use a Minnie Mouse bow to make themselves more visible. Certainly, Toronto’s Vision Zero program isn’t doing any good.
I’m disinclined to say Tony Macias engaged in victim blaming. Criticism here strikes me as misplaced. It’s the same form of argument that was leveled against John Lennon when he said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. When the media pressed him to recant for being disrespectful, his response was: but it’s true. We may not like that pedestrians need to “keep their eyes open.” But they do need to keep their eyes open, and we can’t very well hold Tony Macias responsible for that. If we want to assign responsibility, we need to look at this from a broader perspective that takes into account matters like urban design and social attitudes towards transit. For now, put a bow on your helmet.
