Flashback to the 1940s for Scary Safety Rules

I came across this old brochure on Retronaut at lunch and no wonder so few Americans let their kids ride bikes, if this is what they have been peddling since 1940. You are not even allowed to look up at an airplane or some car will mow you down. Skull fracture and death awaits you at every turn. Nothing has changed, except now they would add, "Alice wasn't wearing a helmet." It isn't for the faint of heart; never have you seen so many heads smashed in and sweet young kids killed. And those pesky kids almost always deserve it, turning left without warning, running into the backs of trucks with dropped tailgates, looking at airplanes.

And it is so totally this kid's fault, hitting that bad pavement so that the poor car didn't have time to avoid or brake. He deserved everything he got for being there in the road in front of that car.

And really, the kid deserves the right hook for not getting out of the way of the oil tanker overtaking him on the corner. It is like that through the whole guide; a scary tale of what happens if cyclists get on the roads that clearly belong to cars.

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