This week we speak with Noa Bayanan.  Noa is the Director of Federal Policy for the People for Bikes, and she helps us unpack the America’s Recreation Act of 2022.  This a bi-partisan piece of legislation that was introduced in the Senate in November of last year.

This bill provides for additional recreation opportunities and facilitates greater access to federal public lands

In it, there are two bills that pertain specifically to bicycling – one that helps to open up and connect “long trails” and the second that frees up some time and hassle for tour directors, ride directors, and even race directors who are tasked with the permits required to use state and federal lands.

My second guest is Steve Magas – The Ohio Bike Lawyer.

While I intended to just sort out the crash statistics for Ohio, hoping to be able to extrapolate them across the country, we actually do a lot more than that, diving into some of the reasons that fatalities – which were very high in the 1970’s began to decline until the early 2000’s – then began an upward trajectory.

In 2021, 21 people were killed on our roadways while riding their bikes.  In 2022, it was even more devastating when the total rose to 28.

Attorney Steve Magas has been tracking the statistics on fatalities as well as noting other pertinent facts in Ohio and Kentucky for many years.  In our conversation, Steve gives us some very important and detailed information about what is and isn’t important when it comes to being involved in a crash in addition to some observations about how and why things are so much worse these days.