NEWTON'S OPTIC:MINISTER FOR Transport Noel Dempsey might as well save the €500,000 he has promised for better bicycle parking at public and private premises. For the far more reasonable fee of €499,999, this column can offer security staff the following five-point plan to deal with the bicycle-parking menace, writes
NEWTON EMERSON
1. Health and Safety
Your gut feeling is correct. Parked bicycles are a serious health and safety issue. Anywhere a bicycle is left is by definition a way into a building and is therefore an emergency escape route which must not be blocked by a bicycle. A bicycle propped up against a wall or resting on its kick-stand presents as many protrusions and tripping hazards to passersby as a bony woman with a fashionable handbag or the elbow of a small child answering a mobile phone. It should also be noted that in the 140 years since their invention, the total number of fatalities caused by bicycles falling over while nobody was riding them remains suspiciously unknown.
2. Security
Worldwide, since the first recorded incident in 1939, bicycles have been used in about 30 bomb attacks. In the same period, cars have been used in some 30,000 bomb attacks. But that is completely different.
Clearly, it is the bicycle chained up in the concourse that poses the most likely terrorist threat to your manky provincial shopping centre. By all means, urgently examine the suspect vehicle for tell-tale wires or ticking noises. Then call the police, the army and the local media. Everyone will want to see how clever you are.
3. Cleanliness
A bicycle brought inside in wet weather can leave dirty marks on clean floors. This is unfair to cleaning staff who are only trained to mop up wet footprints.
Any comparison between the marks left by a bicycle and the marks left by a wheelchair is a hate-crime and should be radioed in to your control room at once.
4. Property Damage
Bicycle handlebars end in sharp spikes which are designed to scratch paintwork, crack tiles and break glass. Bicycle kick-stands are fitted with rubber feet which leave an indelible black mark on any type of paving or flooring.
Bicycle chains are coated in a toxic oil which is specially formulated to drip constantly.
In short, if a bicycle is parked in any manner anywhere either inside or outside your building, it will destroy any horizontal or vertical surface made of any material.
5. It’s Policy
If a person attempting to park a bicycle cannot be forced to see sense on grounds of health and safety, security, cleanliness or property damage, then you have no choice but to inform them that bicycles are banned from your premises as “policy”. This is a special word which negates all need for further argument or explanation. You can emphasise its power by touching your earpiece and nodding seriously while you repeat it.
The cyclist will immediately realise that, far from being some minimum-wage monkey in a polyester uniform with a plastic name-badge, devoid of all initiative and denied any responsibility, you are in fact a person of considerable importance whose authority is not to be questioned.
Once something is declared to be an official policy, there is no doubt that it will happen. To this, Mr Dempsey himself could certainly attest.