I waited a few days to have my say on the topic of bicycle deaths on the road.
When a tragedy like that of Davide Rebellin happens, it is easy to fall into rhetoric, and we risk quickly forgetting what happened.
I am firmly convinced that what has happened, and continues to happen, is the result of a largely wrong road culture, excessively do-gooder and tolerant towards of the arrogant and presumptuous motorist.
I go by bike practically every day, it is my means of transport, I have traveled in various European countries and in various Italian regions, what I have observed is that where cycling is more developed and specific regulations or signs have arisen, motorists they have more correct behaviors.
In fact, I am not surprised to read the condolence message from Giorgia Meloni who greets the cyclist who defended the flag as if he had died of old age. On the other hand, what can the Prime Minister do to try to change things?
In Italy in 2021 there were 180 deaths among cyclists on the roads, but we only manage to have a strong fist against the raves, there are too many motorists, don't you want to lose votes right now?
He could even die in a few months, perhaps it would be simpler to discuss a law that required cyclists to be within a meter and a half of overtaking. That eliminated that stupid single file rule among cyclists: now it's so convenient to get past them without invading the other lane.
On the other hand, if there are potholes, ravines, walls, and the cyclist gets seriously hurt, the competent body will take care of it. For now, cutting the 94 million allocated to cycle paths seems like an excellent start to me.
But I don't think the problem is just legislative.
Let's face it, cyclists annoy everyone a bit.
When we are on the road, Sunday at 11.45 and we have to get to the refuge and I find that group of cyclists going up at 6 km/h, and I risk the polenta getting cold, who hasn't had that instinct to throw them away? in the field below? On the other hand he is human.
I took a look around social media to find some really hilarious memes, because they have that power to bring out what we really think, and we're not ashamed of leaving it public because the majority thinks more or less the same way.
I quote Silvana Giardina (just one example), who describes herself in her bio as "for friendship and respect", under the post "the sheep understood and the cyclists didn't" writes: "Yes... they believe they are the masters of the road...and then if someone gets hit it's still the driver's fault."
Someone else hopes for the passage of a truck, due to some fault of the mother, who among other things is always mistreated in Italy.
I believe that this hatred is casual, it could have been any other category, but on the one hand there is a bit of athletic envy, and on the other a lot of street ignorance. They taught us to look left and right before crossing at the pedestrian crossing, but what we didn't understand is that we do it as a precaution, not because we have to give way to the car.
If we think about it, it is a vehicle that we have been made to idealize, it would have given us that sense of freedom and power and this clouds road interpretations.
I happen to read stories of motorists who, on provincial roads with a speed limit of 70km/h, encountered cyclists after a bend and had to work miracles to avoid hitting them. But if there had been a landslide, a tractor, a cow, a broken down car, the gabibbo... what would he have done?
Is the problem cyclists not in single file, or you taking a blind curve at 70 km/h?
In my opinion, the mere fact that we are in a car makes us confuse the word limit with right, and therefore the cyclist who takes away my right to go at that speed is in the way, plus he does it for fun, the asshole: it's him the arrogant one.
So, in the country of "we love each other" we hear about tolerance on the road, or other respectable concepts that don't stand up for a single reason: the cyclist dies, the motorist's polenta gets cold.
In this regard, the bourgeois vision of Giangiacomo Schiavi's letter in response to Beppe Servegnini in the Corriere della Sera makes us understand the superficiality with which journalism treats the phenomenon, relegated to an aesthetic role of the city, in which the cyclist is mostly the one bring sushi: "and they're not just foreigners" conveys the detachment with which people who don't travel by car in Italy are treated. Journalists often inform themselves, if they have to talk about cyclists it is enough to rely on hearsay and public opinion which is not wrong.
I thank those who managed to get to the end.