More calls to ban bikes from US roads

Hot on the heels of our story last week about the US state of Colorado looking to ban bikes from country roads, another US state – Iowa – is following suit: or at least, the locals are moaning. A group called "Citizens for Safety Coalition of Iowa" have started an online petition to ban bicycles on 'farm to market' roads - that's basically all highways except the interstate, which bikes aren't allowed on anyway.

The spokesman for the body, Van Meter resident Dan Jones, says the coalition is just a group of neighbours who have come together to protest after a number of accidents on local roads. "We're tired of it, we think that the bicyclists should be held to the same laws that motorists are. They should have to have their license and insurance, anything that I've ever known that's been on these highways has to have insurance on it," explains Jones, without going on to explain how a ban on cycling would achieve those aims.

Jones bemoans the fact that it's especially hard for drivers of agricultural vehicles to pass cyclists, and says that bicycles are choosing roads over bike paths because the paths are full of walkers who slow the bikes down."we're running 55 miles-an-hour in a 3,000 to 5,000 pound vehicle", says Jones. "I don't think their odds are very good, I think they'd be a lot safer on the bike paths." Certainly they'd be safer from Jones himself, given his attitude to vulnerable road users.

Anyhow, the petition has been set up, and not surprisingly it wasn't long before a counter-petition appeared, proposing a ban on all motor vehicles on the same highways. Which, of course, you're welcome to sign. We have...