To the German car drivers club:
May I record my gratitude to you for the lurid ill-fitting plastic jacket you sent Middle Son through our local school last month. I’m not sure how large you think children are when they start school, or what you think they’ll be called upon to do: the reflective ‘Traffic detective’ written on the back is somewhat cryptic to say the least.
He will not, however be wearing the jacket unless we have an urgent need to be spotted by a helicopter rescue team. Middle Son’s backpack has a much more subtle design, yet still manages to have enough reflective material to be visible from space and frankly if your members can’t see it, then they really shouldn’t be storming about the village in their big cars. Mind you, as they seem to be incapable of seeing the big reflective sign with the black ’30km/h’ on our street, or the or the 2 metre (6 foot) long ’7km/h’ painted on the roads nearby, I’d suggest a large minority could do with getting their eyes tested anyway.
Your claim that you “want children to be safe” is a great way to make parents feel guilty unless they force their children into these coats, but it hardly adds up as we know that the best way to keep children safe is to keep cars well away from them or have stringent speed limits, and yet the mighty Google shows that your organisation is often quoted as opposing such measures.
This is hardly a surprise: you are after all a car owners club, not a child protection society, and as such your main concern is to promote the ‘rights’ of your members. They in turn seem to feel that anything on the road that is not a motor vehicle is trespassing on their territory.
Call me mister cynical if you will but the jackets you hand out look like another attempt to reinforce the message that pedestrians are only really allowed on roads -or pavements- under protest, and that anyone venturing out into the Sacred Space For Cars* must be dressed like a radioactive teletubby, and stay out of the way of the Very Important Drivers. If children are injured by a Very Important Driver it’s their own fault; in fact, they should really stay indoors, well of the way, or go to school in their parents car.
So the jacket will stay in the cupboard, but thanks anyway.
*Which apparently includes pavements/sidewalks.
15 comments
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October 15, 2011 at 6:14 pm
Jos Helmer
Like your post and couldn’t agree more.
The same behaviour in other countries, e.g. Sweden
Rgds
Josef
October 17, 2011 at 11:48 am
Andy in Germany
Thanks for the comment…
Not sure if I should be happy I’m not alone, or depressed that they’re trying it on elsewhere as well…
October 16, 2011 at 9:40 am
Zweiradler
Great. I can’t think of a better description than “radioactive teletubby” either.
Nico
October 16, 2011 at 10:19 am
the_big_smile
I really share your oppinion.
My elder daughter got a jacket like it, too.
I like the thought of the “radioactive teletubby”, too!
Maybe, I’ll write a post about the jacket soon.
October 17, 2011 at 11:49 am
Andy in Germany
@Zewiradler: Thanks for the comment: I wansn’t sure if Teletubbies were that well known in Germany…
@Big_Smile: my goosness, they’re sending them out all over the country? I can’t imagine what that would cost. What really annoys me is that the schools have agreed to give these coats out, giving the appearance that it’s somehow government approved and therefore carrying authority. I thought schools were places to learn, not get brainwashed.
October 19, 2011 at 10:16 pm
the_big_smile
Andy, I am sorry to tell you, but school is not place to learn. It is only to get brainwashed!
For a long time I suspected it, but since I am father of two girls I KNOW it!
The brainwash starts in Kindergarten and goes on at school.
October 17, 2011 at 10:18 am
Kim
Ah, yes, the Taliban approach to road safety, why is the motor industry so keen on promoting this idea? Could it be they want to deflect attention from the damage that their products can do if used irresponsibly. Ignore where responsibly really lays and blame the victims…
October 17, 2011 at 11:55 am
Andy in Germany
@Kim. Thanks for the link, that’s a reat blog post, and quite correct. Here in Germany the driver is theoretically held responsible in the event of an accident with a child, but that doesn’t stop the car lobby from fighting.
Worse still, here about 25% of the workforce are employed by the car industry directly or indirectly: That’s one heck of a lobby…
October 17, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Frits B
Some weeks ago (September 22) there was a “stapdag” in Belgium on which children should walk or cycle to school. Imagine what they got presented with:
http://www.hbvl.be/limburg/bilzen/extern-stapdag-in-vrije-basisschool-t-scholierke.aspx
I saw an item on the news where all children wore helmets whereas accompanying parents/teachers did not. Compare that to this, one day earlier in Holland:
(we don’t do “stapdagen”, we have them schoolday).
October 18, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Andy in Germany
Thanks for that: my goodness but we’re srupid in our ‘civilised’ world. I wonder why no-one looking at tha wonders why ‘walking to school’ is somehow so strange you have to have a special day for it, or how we got to the point where our streets were so dangerous that children have to be issued wth safety equipment to move out of doors…
October 19, 2011 at 10:04 am
Frits B
I should have added that this Assen video is part of the reports on a visit to Holland by the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain this September:
http://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/node/2126
And where I write “we have them schoolday” I meant to say “we have them on school days”.
October 21, 2011 at 4:02 am
perthcyclist
Wow. As if the motor-club in Germany doesn’t have enough roads to drive at high speeds on? We recently spent some time cycling around Europe and out of France, Germany and the Netherlands, Germany was by far the worst cycling environment. Even in Australia you don’t have so many roads that are forbidden for cyclists to travel on.
October 21, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Andy in Germany
Hello PerthCyclist, thanks for your comment:
Where in Germany were you? It’s sad that you came to that conclusion. Germany is a federal country and cycle provision is generally the responsibility of the local authorities so it can vary depending on which decade the local politicians think they’re in. Unfortunately a lot do hink it’s the 60′s and cars will rule forever.
The other thing is that if you live here you know ehre you can ride and in a lot of cases there are alternatives. like the place I took this picture, for example.
There is a lot to be desired in these routes and yes, it would be handy if you could tell this without local knowledge, but they are there…
Of course I’m comparing my experiences here to the UK, where cycling is far, far more dangerous.
October 24, 2011 at 10:22 am
Andy in Germany
@The_big_smile: Fair comment. I understand that schools are basically about making people obey and be predictable and skilled to serve the industrial machine. Seth Godin (who is not a socialist/anarchist by any means) talked about this recently:
“Our current system of teaching kids to sit in straight rows and obey instructions isn’t a coincidence–it was an investment in our economic future. The plan: trade short-term child labor wages for longer-term productivity by giving kids a head start in doing what they’re told.
Large-scale education was never about teaching kids or creating scholars. It was invented to churn out adults who worked well within the system.”
Source: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/09/back-to-the-wrong-school.html
This is no surprise and I’m not angry about that: What angers me is the way the schools are prepared to be mouthpieces for whatever corporate interest wants to use them, without considering the issues or motivations behind them.
October 24, 2011 at 11:58 pm
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