Photo: goamsterdam.about.com
Most younger people fully enjoy listening to music as they ride their bike on the street or simply going for a walk. It gives a new dimension to a simple walk or bike ride, by supplying a user-chosen soundtrack to go along with the atmosphere of any given place.
While it may be genuinely pleasurable to do so, it also has downsides, when it comes to pedestrians and bicyclists safety out on the streets of the world’s cities, so much so that Israeli authorities are considering the banning of headphone-wearing, while walking or riding one’s bike. The problem is that people who listen to music in their headphones tend to be more unaware of their surroundings, and thus they are sitting ducks for motorists in a hurry.
You know the scenario: man drives car, he spills his coffee, he looks down to analyze the amount of staining and he fails to notice the biker going along in front of his car at 15km/h (9mph) and the inevitable happens. With Israel becoming a global destination for bicyclists, and with bike-sharing programs and with lots of people in the bike-state of mind, their Ministerial Committee for Legislation is proposing, apart from banning the wearing of headphones while biking or walking, the closing of streets at night so that they are more bike-friendly, along with the creation of more bike lanes and safer entrances and exits to these lanes.
Another new requirement to be introduced along with the law itself, is the necessity of maintaining a distance of 1.5m (5ft) between motorists and people on their bikes on the road. If the law passes, Israel will be a world first country to adopt such a drastic law, however it could spark other bike-friendly countries’ interest - Holland anybody?
Story via haaretz.com
You know the scenario: man drives car, he spills his coffee, he looks down to analyze the amount of staining and he fails to notice the biker going along in front of his car at 15km/h (9mph) and the inevitable happens. With Israel becoming a global destination for bicyclists, and with bike-sharing programs and with lots of people in the bike-state of mind, their Ministerial Committee for Legislation is proposing, apart from banning the wearing of headphones while biking or walking, the closing of streets at night so that they are more bike-friendly, along with the creation of more bike lanes and safer entrances and exits to these lanes.
Another new requirement to be introduced along with the law itself, is the necessity of maintaining a distance of 1.5m (5ft) between motorists and people on their bikes on the road. If the law passes, Israel will be a world first country to adopt such a drastic law, however it could spark other bike-friendly countries’ interest - Holland anybody?
Story via haaretz.com
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