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Topic: Maybe This Time, the Bikes Won’t End Up in the River

In 2013, Rome pulled the plug on its bike share program after it ran out of money and cars kept double-parking in front of its bike racks. Last year, a Hong Kong company gave up after many of its green bicycles ended up in the Tiber river. Months later, a Singapore company bailed after Romans stole the yellow bikes and broke them down for parts.
2013年，由於經費用盡，加上老有汽車並排停在單車架前，羅馬終止了單車共享計畫。去年，在旗下許多綠色自行車落得葬身台伯河的下場後，一家香港公司打了退堂鼓。數月後，一家新加坡公司在羅馬人偷走其黃色單車並拆解拿走零件後，也離開了。

Rome has been a bike share wasteland, but Uber says things will be different for the shiny new red bikes it has introduced all over the city.
羅馬一直是單車共享難以生存的荒原，但優步宣稱，它在全市推出的閃亮紅色新單車會讓情況改觀。

“We’ve tested ours on Rome’s cobblestones,” said Michele Biggi, manager of Uber’s Jump electric-bike program in southwestern Europe, who added that previous competitors’ bikes weren’t up to the city’s demands and “could have fallen down with just a gust of wind.”
優步南歐地區Jump電單車計畫經理米歇爾．畢吉說：「我們已在羅馬的鵝卵石街道上做過測試」，並指以前競爭對手的單車未達到城市的要求，「可能光是一陣風吹過就倒下了」。

He has big plans for the Uber bikes, he said, which “will change Rome and give the city a new lifeblood.”
他說，他為優步單車制定宏偉計畫，這「將改變羅馬且給這座城市注入新的生命力」。

Uber and its competitors have already introduced similar pedal-assisted bikes and electric scooters in Paris; London; Lisbon, Portugal; Brussels and other cities that in several cases are overrun with rolling menaces. (Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, has decried “the scooter anarchy.”) But Rome, the first Italian city to get Uber’s electric-bicycle service, is not any other European city.
優步及其競爭對手已在巴黎、倫敦、里斯本、布魯塞爾及其他城市推出類似的助力單車和電動滑板車，而其中有些城市狀況連連。（巴黎市長安妮．伊達戈曾譴責「滑板車無政府狀態」）。然而，第一個獲得優步電動自行車服務的義大利城市羅馬，可不是任何其他歐洲城市。

Rome could be a bike-share dream in one respect: There is no shortage of demand. The city has only two finished subway lines (a third is perennially under construction), and buses come late, fail to show up and occasionally explode.
從某方面來說，羅馬可以成為共享單車的夢幻國度：不乏需求。該市只有兩條完工的地鐵線路（第三條一直在興建中），而公車則會晚點、不出現，偶爾還會爆炸。

Driving on the city’s notoriously clogged streets is a nightmare. Parking is worse.
在這個城市塞到爆的街道上開車有如噩夢一場，找地方停車更會要了老命。

But the obstacles to a bike share program are daunting: Rome’s infamous potholes, its mounds of uncollected trash, double-parked cars, a strong vandal spirit in place since the actual Vandals sacked Rome, and a local resistance to change and physical exertion.
Rome’s embattled mayor, Virginia Raggi, urged Romans to show that the city is civilized after all.
但單車共享計畫遇到的阻礙也令人生畏：羅馬惡名昭彰的路面坑窪、成堆待收的垃圾、並排停放的汽車、自真正的汪達爾人洗劫羅馬以來就一直存在的強烈破壞精神，以及當地人對改變和體力消耗的抗拒。陷入困境的羅馬市長拉吉敦促羅馬市民，以行動證明這座城市畢竟是文明的。

“If we don’t want these bikes to be badly treated, guess who it is up to?” Raggi said at the Uber bikes’ unveiling Oct. 21. “Romans themselves are the first defense against degradation.”
拉吉10月21日在優步單車發布會上說：「如果我們不希望這些單車受到虐待，猜猜要靠誰呢？羅馬人自己是抵禦毀壞的第一道防線。」

The company is introducing a fleet of 2,800 bicycles that can be left practically anywhere, and they seem to be everywhere.
該公司正推出總數2800輛的自行車隊，使用後幾乎隨處皆可停放，而它們也似乎無所不在。

But not all Romans are fans. “Rome Is Gross” a well-known social media feed decrying the city’s degradation, has posted complaints about the high price of the Uber bikes, which cost 50 cents to unlock and then 20 cents for every minute of use. That is about the rate charged by car-sharing services.
但並非所有羅馬人都很喜歡。譴責城市退化的著名社交媒體消息「羅馬讓人噁心」抱怨優步單車收費高昂，解鎖價格為50美分，每用一分鐘收費20美分，這跟汽車共享服務費率差不多。
Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/347676/web/#2L-16028705L

Next Article

Topic : Bike-promoting Belgian minister finds own cycle stolen

A Belgian minister arrived by bike to a news conference to promote cycling on Tuesday, only to find it had been stolen when he left half an hour later.
週二，比利時一位部長為了推廣騎自行車，騎單車至新聞發佈會現場，半小時後離開，卻發現自己的單車被偷了。

Ben Weyts, minister of mobility for the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders, unveiled a plan to invest 300 million euros （$320 million） in cycle lanes until 2019, as part of a wider program to promote alternative modes of transport.
班．維茨，荷語法蘭德斯區的交通部長，推出一項斥資3億歐元（3億2000萬美元）在2019年前興建自行車專用道的計畫，作為範圍更廣泛的推廣替代性交通模式的一部分。

"We left the bike in racks at the station and locked it," a spokesman for the minister said. "When we got back half an hour later, it was gone."
「我們把單車停在停車架上，還上了鎖，」該位部長的發言人說。「當我們半小時後回來，車就沒了。」

While Belgium is a country obsessed with cycling as a sport, cars are the main method of commuting to work, leading to some of the worst road congestion in Europe.
比利時仍堅信騎自行車是一種運動，汽車還是通勤上班的主要工具，使得比國的交通壅塞情況在歐洲數一數二。

The minister had to call his driver to pick him up from the station in Halle, just south of Brussels, the spokesman said, and hoped police would discover the bicycle thief with the help of security camera footage.
發言人說，部長只好打電話給他的司機，要司機到位於布魯塞爾南部的哈勒自行車站接人，自行車只能指望警方透過監視器影像的協助找出小偷。
Source article: http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/paper/1079689

Next Article

Topic: Bicycle helmets can prevent injury and death

While riding a bicycle in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District on Oct. 15, author Chen Ro-jinn was hit from behind by a scooter courier. Chen was alive when paramedics arrived but she was unconscious and had a fractured skull. After being taken to hospital, she died of her injuries on Monday last week at the age of 57.
作家陳柔縉十月十五日在新北市淡水區騎腳踏車時，遭後方騎機車的外送員追撞。救護人員抵達時，陳柔縉仍有生命跡象，但意識不清、頭部骨折，送醫急救後仍於上週一傷重不治，享年五十七歲。

At present, Taiwan has no legal requirement for bicyclists to wear helmets, but the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Health Promotion Administration (HPA) has in the past called, as well as mandatory wearing of helmets by motorcycle and scooter riders, for cyclists to also take safety seriously and put on a cycle helmet when riding on the road.
目前國內法規並未要求騎自行車須戴安全帽，但衛生福利部國民健康署過去即曾呼籲，除了機車族強制戴安全帽外，單車族更應重視安全，配戴單車專用安全帽才上路。

The HPA says people often wrongly believe that because bicycles are human-powered they must be safer than motor vehicles. What they fail to consider is that bicycles and motorized vehicles do not have separate lanes, and bicycles lack protective structures, making cyclists prone to physical injury in the event of a crash, especially during rush hour.
國健署強調，一般人常誤認自行車是人力車，要比機動車輛來得安全；殊不知自行車與機動車未分道行駛，及缺乏保護裝置，導致自行車騎士在車禍時，易發生身體創傷，尤以上下班尖峰時間最為常見。

According to a 2016 study by Taipei Medical University, the number of bicycle accidents in Taiwan grew from 7,213 in 2005 to 14,874 in 2013, and the proportion of bicycle accident deaths among all traffic accident deaths grew from 3.55 percent to 6.74 percent. The likelihood of an accident resulting in death, coma or disability was 2.4 times higher for those who did not wear a helmet while cycling than for those who did. 20.7 percent of those who did not wear helmets were in moderate to severe condition when they were admitted to hospital, compared to 2.3 percent of those who wore helmets. Those wore helmets stayed for fewer days in hospital than those who did not.
根據台北醫學大學二○一六年的研究發現，二○○五年至二○一三年，台灣腳踏車事故從七千二百一十三件成長到一萬四千八百七十四件，腳踏車事故死亡佔交通事故死亡率也從百分之三點五五提升到百分之六點七四。而騎乘腳踏車未戴安全帽者預後結果為死亡、植物人、殘障狀態為有戴安全帽者二點四倍。未戴安全帽者有百分之二十點七入院時嚴重度為中重度，戴安全帽者為百分之二點三。配戴安全帽者住院天數也比未配戴安全帽者短。

There are geographical and age differences in bicycle accidents. In urban areas, more accidents occur during commuting periods, whereas in rural areas the accident rate is higher in the afternoon. The number of bicycle accident patients with moderate to severe head trauma is about 3.2 times higher among those aged 65 years or older than those under 18 years old.
腳踏車意外事故也有地域性及年齡差異，都市較多是在上下班通勤時段發生事故，鄉鎮則是下午時段較高；腳踏車事故頭部外傷病人年齡六十五歲以上，嚴重程度為中重度的人數，高於十八歲以下病人約三點二倍。

The HPA says that the number of deaths due to head trauma in motorcycle accidents in Taiwan fell sharply after the 1997 passage of a law mandating wearing a helmet when riding motorcycles and scooters. In contrast, in recent years, with the trend of saving energy and reducing carbon emissions, more and more people are riding bicycles, but most of them have not gotten into the habit of wearing helmets, so when an accident happens it can easily cause irreparable damage and regret.
國健署指出，自一九九七年立法強制騎乘機車須戴安全帽之後，國內因機車肇事頭部外傷死亡人數急遽減少；反而近年來在節能減碳的風潮下，騎自行車的人越來越多，卻大多未養成戴安全帽的習慣；一旦發生事故，容易造成無可彌補的遺憾。Source article: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2021/10/26/2003766749

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