[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > What neither contains is research and market development money for > better bicycles, which would be high up my wish list. > > I am talking about this kind of entirely human powered vehicle that's > significantly faster than ordinary bicycles > > http://www.sunrider-cycles.com/foto-video/index.php > > which I'd love to buy (certainly if it sold for less than 4900). I'd > say this a classical case of a market failure, where there is no > market because small series production and development costs are too > high, and where the state could create one given enough initial > incentives.
I've been meaning to write about this for some time, so Heiko's prompt is a convenient nudge. Every so often someone comes up with a new "transport revolution" - there was the Sinclair C5, the Segway, and numerous bicycle designs and power attachments such as http://revopower.com/ . Generally they are touted as solving the oil crisis, global warming and urban congestion all in one. But in practice these "solutions" actually seem to spend their miserable short existences looking for a suitable problem to solve. The inconvenient truth is that the world is not waiting for a better bicycle to solve its transportation problems, or even a better motor vehicle, and Michael's post points out one of the reasons why. The other reasons include the inherent laziness of 95% or more of the world's population, habit, social pressure and status. I like to think that many of these factors can potentially be changed, but they will certainly not be changed by a "better bicycle" that shaves perhaps 20 seconds off your 20 minute commute. I'm sure they make good projects for engineering students, but I am amazed that people devote so much time and energy to solving a problem without actually thinking about what the problem is! (Perhaps it is overkill, but for the sake of completeness I might as well point out that the vehicle Heiko is interested in would undoubtedly be /slower/ on my commute.) James --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
