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Bikes vs Cars: why it’s war between cyclists and drivers on city streets
In Toronto, they’ve painted over the bike lanes. And in São Paulo, a cyclist got his arm torn off by a car that didn’t even stop … We knew it was bad on the world’s crowded roads, but a new film reveals it’s a fight to the death
The trailer for Bikes vs Cars, a new film by Swedish documentary-maker Fredrik Gertten
Zoe Williams
Zoe Williams
@zoesqwilliams
Sunday 3 May 2015 09.40 BST Last modified on Monday 11 May 2015 15.51 BST
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Fredrik Gertten is a Swedish documentary-maker: he made a film about the banana industry, and then he made a film about being sued by the banana industry. He has recently been anointed one of Sweden’s “top environmentalists” – which, although the title is fairly broad, has got to be good. And he has now made Bikes vs Cars, which is as confronting – though I don’t think you’d call it exactly confrontational – as you would expect.
I have, give or take, mainly peddled the line that it’s not a war between the two-wheeled and the four-wheeled: how could it be, when a lot of us are both drivers and cyclists (and sometimes, inevitably, also pedestrians)? It seemed to me, much as it does on the road itself, safer not to be adversarial. This film’s message – from the streets of São Paulo to Los Angeles, via the toxic situation in Toronto – makes it plain that a war is exactly what it is: cities are designed for cars and are hostile to bikes. And cars are not designed for life.
“Car dependency,” Gertten says, “is a disease for society. If you’re dependent on having a car every day, you have lost your freedom. It’s very sad. Most people are unhappy in traffic. The people who bike their cities, they become city-lovers. When you’re in a car, you don’t see the city, you are only watching the road. On a bike, you can see the sky, you can see the trees. People get to know their countries in a different way.”
The way he describes it, which comes across even more intensely in the film, is not so much a clash between bikes and cars as a battle of love and hate. How do you know the contours of where you live? Do you dart across them like an urban hummingbird? Or do you crawl sightlessly along them in a tank?
Car, oil and construction industries understand we need to change, but their business depends on the fact that we don't
Fredrik Gertten, film-maker
“I’m trying to say that what we have out there is not a natural development,” adds Gertten. “Sometimes we believe that traffic is a natural thing, like water. But it’s actually man-made. So the whole LA segment of the film is partly about how it all started and then, of course, what we are up against when we want to change our cities. Because the car industry, the oil industry, the construction industry – they all understand that we need to change, but their business depends on the fact that we don’t change.”
Plenty of appalling tragedies beset cyclists in his film, which has just been released in selected UK cinemas. Memorably, for sheer gruesome detail, there’s a man in São Paulo who had his arm torn off by a car. The driver didn’t stop, drove another five miles, dropped off a friend, then tossed the arm in a creek. The bikers of the city had a vigil for him; they were expecting 1,000 people, but didn’t get them. As one of the campaigners says ruefully: “In reality, Facebook is a fake recruiter”, which I think anyone who’s ever tried to organise anything can get behind. But for all that, at the end of the film, it’s the car-drivers you feel really sorry for. It just looks so miserable, so choked, so futile, so wasteful: not of the planet’s resources, but of your actual life. In São Paulo, commuters spend an average of three hours a day in traffic. Los Angeles looks like a patient with a chronic disorder: when the roads seize up, the citizens are paralysed. In the city of the go-getter, they may as well stay in bed.
As the statistics on car use thunder out, with already bursting capital cities facing huge growth in demand and afforability, a picture comes into focus: maybe this is it, the point at which perpetual growth meets the limits of the Earth. I always thought it would be something more elemental, like food or minerals, but transport seems to be a few rungs up on the hierarchy of needs. The vivid absurdity of trying to cram more and more cars into the same crawling, dystopian channels makes the case for sustainability without even trying. “I don’t even think it’s about growth or not growth,” Gertten says equably. “Growth needs to be sustainable to be counted as growth, otherwise it’s just destroying things.”
The film-maker is adamant that the bike movement is not a leftist movement. “New movements can’t really be defined by the old terms. In a way, I made this film for people who started to bike and then got politicised. You had, I think, nine deaths in one month in London. These non-political people start to bike and then start to ask themselves, ‘Why is this so poorly designed? Why aren’t cities designed for me?’”
My heart bleeds when I hear [a cyclist] gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day
Rob Ford, ex-mayor of Toronto
But if cyclists can’t be classed as left, the anti-cyclists – embodied in the full technicolour unloveliness of Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014 – can’t be classed as anything other than the ultimate right, people who see the makers and holders of money as the engine of all that is worthwhile, who must be appeased, prioritised, obeyed. The footage of the mayor is the most striking political segment of the film. “Roads are built for buses, cars and trucks, not for people on bikes,” he says. “My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”
Given what we now know about his crack habit, it’s possible that Ford didn’t truly mean this and was just high. But it has not been without consequence, Ford’s preference for the machine over the man, his mission to “end the war against cars”. A cyclist is hit every seven hours in Toronto, as cycle lanes have been painted over – to give the message, basically, that cycling is weird.
A man lights candles beside a "ghost bike" memorial in London. Facebook Twitter Pinterest
A man lights candles beside a “ghost bike” memorial in London. Photograph: Alamy
How is it possible to hate cyclists so much that you grieve sarcastically when they die? Gertten recalls a Sheffield study “looking into why people are irritated by cyclists. They talked about the queue culture. When you sit in a line of cars and you see these cyclists going by, you have so much time to watch their wrongdoings. It really pisses people off. It makes people very frustrated to see how easily bikes can move.”
And he adds this emollient word about the ur-cyclist, the one who it is OK to dislike, whether you’re on crack or not: “CEOs who also go by bike – they do it because they want to be healthier, and also they’re turning 50 and thinking, ‘Oh shit.’ Fifteen years ago, they would have bought a motorbike. My general message to everybody is that you should love people who can afford a big car but who buy a very expensive bike with funny trousers. Because they create a real climate effect – they donate space on the street.”
What does Gertten think of London? “It’s partly lovely and it’s partly scary. In cities where they don’t have a real bike infrastrucutre, you always end up in a street where you’re swimming with the sharks.” I hadn’t been on my bike since January for exactly this reason. But once I saw the film and realised that, even though I also drive, there’s a battle going on between me and people who hate me for reasons of their own unhappiness, I thought: sod the sharks.
• Bikes vs Cars opens the UK Green film festival today, 3 May, at the Rio cinema, Dalston at 3pm, and is also showing today in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheshire Oaks, Inverness, Leicester, Nottingham, Oban, Saffron Walden and Welwyn Garden City. See ukgreenfilmfestival.org for screening times nationwide from 3-10 May
Further details of screenings worldwide at: http://bikes-vs-cars.com
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/03/bikes-vs-cars-film-war-cyclists-drivers-fredrik-gertten-interview?CMP=share_btn_fb
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mercedes contra bici
Hoy he acabado mi entrenamiento por Cartagena (Murcia) en el hospital primero, y después en el cuartel de la guardia civil.
Esta es la historia de un mundo loco, en el que la gente ha perdido el rumbo y la cabeza. Una historia sin sentido, en la que ruedas tranquilamente por una carretera secundaria, y ves venir 4 ó 5 coches en caravana, de pronto aparece un tipo con mucha prisa en un mercedes, y decide que aunque yo venga de frente y no tenga espacio donde resguardarme, él tiene más prisa que nadie, y no va a frenar.
Así que decide adelantar de una sola vez a todos los coches que le estorban, importándole un pimiento los gritos y gestos que le hago con el brazo para que me vea. Me saca de la carretera y pasa por mi lado a unos 120km por hora, en una carretera de a penas 80 de límite, y lo único que puedo hacer es cagarme en toda su familia, en su calavera, y en la madre que tuvo a bien traerlo a este mundo...
Asustado, maldiciendo que me apasione este deporte, continúo mi marcha. - "Una nueva anécdota que contar a mis amigos ciclistas"-, pienso.
Solo que la historia, no ha hecho más que empezar.
El mercedes vuelve, me saca de nuevo de la carretera y me arrincona en la cuneta, un tipo joven, con cara de loco, y enorme, de unos 100 kilos de peso, se baja y jura que me va a matar, o mejor dicho, rematar... puños cerrados y empieza el espectáculo. Me defiendo como puedo, interpongo la bicicleta, encajo los golpes, suelto alguno, hasta que me empuja y caigo en una zanja, patadas...
Antes de irse, me deja un recado claro: como me vuelva a ver por la carretera me revienta. Coge mi bicicleta, la lanza por los aires, y yo la escucho chocar contra el suelo
(pobrecica mía, eso me ha dolido más que los golpes).
Al dar la vuelta de nuevo y seguir su camino, se despide tirándome una botella que lleva en el coche...
Es entonces, y sólo entonces, cuando la gente de una nave que había al lado viene a ayudarme. Sé que lo han visto todo, pero no se han atrevido a intervenir. Les pido el tlf. para que puedan hacer de testigos, pero todos me dicen que no lo han visto bien, y que no quieren líos... Creo que el tiparraco les ha infundido el miedo suficiente para que se mantengan al margen. La humanidad, me encanta.
Resultado, animicamente jodido, físicamente con contusiones en el cuello y el hombro, lesión cervical y lumbar, y un dolor de cabeza estupendo, pero bien, sobreviviré.
Materialmente un desastre, gafas partidas, casco rajado (menos mal que ha sido el casco el que se ha encontrado con ese puñetazo y no mi cara), maneta del dura ace di2 doblada y para el arrastre, cambio trasero rayado, bici rayada, cristal del polar rayado, garmin 910 desaparecido...
Sabéis qué? en cuanto el cuerpo me lo permita estoy otra vez en la bici, será más pronto que tarde. Nadie me va a hacer cambiar mi vida, ni una de mis pasiones.
Mañana bien temprano estoy en Martos a arreglar todo y a seguir adelante.
Aunque la verdad, no entiendo nada, ¿qué hay dentro de la cabeza de esta gente que está dispuesta a llevarse a alguien por delante porque tiene prisa, porque no quiere esperar, porque nada le importa?
Nos veremos en unos días en el juzgado, y espero que la justicia sirva para algo.
Ah sí, he cogido la matrícula... Mercedes dorado 8768BPK, por si alguien le conoce o se lo encuentra.
NOTICIAS SOBRE EL TRISTE INCIDENTE DE AYER:
La guardia civil me ha llamado para decirme que el tipo que me agredió ayer, ya está localizado, y que tendrá un juicio rápido el próximo jueves 2 de julio. Espero que le caiga todo el peso de la ley.
Aprovecho para dar las gracias a los cientos de personas que me han escrito para ver cómo estoy, ha contactado gente de toda España, e incluso Argentina. Lo importante, es que estas cosas no vuelvan a suceder, que todos nos concienciemos de la responsabilidad de conductores y ciclistas en la carretera. El tema de la agresión, las lesiones y daños que me causó este animal, será un juez quién decida qué hacer con él.Gracias a la comunidad ciclista y a todos los amigos.
https://www.facebook.com/toni.pena.9/posts/10207387451510127:0
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Pep Sanchez Delgado
No salgo de una y me meto en otra, hoy por los suelos antes de llegar a casa.
Atropellado en Taradell (Osona) mientras entrenaba en bici de carretera, por suerte nada importante, que nadie se preocupe.
Señora de unos 70 años, me adelanta y rompe el retrovisor derecho (Range Rover Evoque) con mi espalda, me tira al suelo, rascadas en codo, cadera y golpe en el gemelo, daños varios en bici...
Incapaz de pegarle la bronca al ver su preocupación, aunque reconozco que tanta rabia acumulada e impotencia por tantas muertes ciclistas, hacen que me levante corriendo a darle una paliza.
Me asusta mucho su justificación "creí que pasaria, pero la calle era muy estrecha", mucha gente desconoce la obligación de respetar el metro y medio y lo peor, es que ven una bici y la primera reacción es adelantar, cuando deberian frenar.
Con miles de kms en muchos años, es la primera vez que me atropellan, he tenido mucha suerte, dentro de población y a baja velocidad, unos 40km/h (coche).
ENCIMA DE LA BICI VA UNA VIDA.
#RESPETO
https://www.facebook.com/pepsanchezdelgado?fref=nf
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BOGOTÁ 25 JUN 2015 - 11:06 PM
Intolerancia: Taxista golpea a un ciclista e intenta llevarse la bicicleta
Un motociclista grabó el momento en que un taxista intenta subir la bicicleta al vehículo al parecer luego de que el ciclista le ocasionara un rayón en el carro.
http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/bogota/intolerancia-taxista-golpea-un-ciclista-e-intenta-lleva-video-568596
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DUDAS ANTE UN ACCIDENTE DE BICICLETA. Todos los pasos a seguir
ACCIDENTES CAUSADOS POR UN VEHÍCULO A MOTOR: LOS PRIMEROS MOMENTOS
Primero.- Identificar al causante
Segundo.- No moverse.
¿Y por qué llamar siempre al 112?
¿Por qué la presencia de la Autoridad?
¿Por qué la presencia de la ambulancia?
màs informaciòn en el blog
http://ceciliobenito.blogspot.com.es/2015/01/accidente-ciclistalo-que-se-debe-hacer.html
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