Elle Macpherson's child bicycle bungle
This is how the UK's Daily Mirror described the incident:
...Elle Macpherson is not exactly a model mum - as she cycles along with her son perched precariously on the handlebars.
Elle, 44, seemed oblivious to the dangers as she laughed and chatted with [son] Aurelius Cy while weaving through busy West London streets... [more]
The Guardian's Simon Jenkins however had a different opinion:
Elle Macpherson deserves a medal...
The press are idiots to condemn the model for cycling without a helmet. The real villains are over-active traffic managers
...Macpherson was probably the safest cyclist in London that day. Like the mayor [of London] , Boris Johnson, she is signed up (I guess by instinct) to the Wilde-Adams theory of compensatory risk assessment. By not wearing a helmet, she lowers her risk threshold and thus rides more carefully. She commendably cycles rather than drives a car and protects her child, who cannot manage his own risk. The society should give her a medal, not insult her. The press were idiots.
By chance, this week sees the publication of another tome in the mountain of evidence that Britain's safety culture is making us increasingly unsafe. Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic collates a mass of evidence about how we drive cars and use roads. It demonstrates the extent of mendacious brain-washing inflicted on the public by health-and-safety lawyers, bureaucrats and sellers of expensive equipment...Galileo had the same trouble with the Inquisition. I say give Elle Macpherson a Galileo medal. [more]
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