Troubling Ad Campaign From the Delaware DOT

How To Kill A Bicyclist

There have been an alarming number of driver vs. bicyclist incidents in the past few months. The trend has been reported in many newspapers including the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Violence occurred at two recent critical mass rallies; one in Seattle and one in New York where a policeman intentionally pushed a cyclist off his bicycle. A video of the New York incident is posted on Youtube.



The disturbing part of the news coverage from a cyclist’s perspective is that most of the articles portray the cyclists as the villain. The United States is an auto-centric nation, so I understand why the coverage is slanted in favor of the drivers. However, I was alarmed to see that the State of Delaware (the home of Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden) which should try to ensure a safe environment for all citizens despite their selected mode of travel, issued a press release explaining how to kill a cyclist. It tells drivers how fast they need to drive in order to achieve a kill. Thanks Delaware.

In the above picture from the Delaware Neighborhood Speeding Campaign, the bicyclist is shown without a helmet despite the fact that Delaware enacted a helmet law for children under 16 in 1995. Clearly there is a rogue element in the Delaware Department of Transportation that is out to get bicyclists. Hopefully, Joe Biden will not be introducing this to the Democratic Party platform. After all, Obama is a cyclist.

Source: Bicycle Spokesman