Although collisions with vehicles remain a serious danger to the lives and physical well-being of cyclists, the main danger is less visible. Air pollution is slowly killing far more cyclists than are being more rapidly killed by the vehicles we are forced to share the roads with. Diesel in particular is a major life-shortener. Where the hit-and-run driver may be found after claiming to go and get an ambulance and may have to pay for the action, the impersonal addition of poisonous particles to the commonly owned air we breathe cannot be attributed to any particular agent. This kind of mass poisoning seems to be permitted by law.Image: Air hunger, public urban art, Frankfurt
