I have often analogized on this blog the risk of driving a motor vehicle in a pedestrian-rich urban environment to that of firing a gun in the same kind of environment. Ray opened my eyes. Driving poses a far, far greater risk. You can’t kill multiple people with a single shot of a gun, like that drunken/drugged mother in Westchester killed all those kids. You can’t put down a gun and have it kill people while you aren’t operating it, like that van that hopped the curb and killed those kids in Chinatown. How can we regulate guns so strictly in the city–and rightly so–without recognizing the need to regulate driving even more strictly?

Another point of equal importance was made by the panelists: each time a new cyclist goes out on the road, his or her family and friends become potential allies in the fight to protect vulnerable road users. Cy Vance mentioned his own son commuting by bike in Manhattan as a powerful factor motivating his concern for the safety of cyclists and pedestrians. Cyclists understand about “safety in numbers” on the road, but there is a “strength in numbers” effect for each new cyclist that is equally important to the cause of cycling.