The Onion's Bike Safety Solution: Buy a Car Like a 'Normal Person'

"Saying it was a simple but effective measure to reduce potentially deadly incidents, a study published Monday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that 90 percent of bike accidents could be prevented by buying a car like a normal person," writes the lede of a totally fake news story by the satirical and totally not real news website The Onion.

The Onion made a splash on urbanism Twitter with this headline, which seems eerily like it was written by notorious fake Twitter troll Bob Gunderson. The joke, we think, is less on bike riders, and more on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. After all, which seems more likely the authentic advocate for conformity—a satirical news website or an infamously industry-friendly arm of the federal government. It shouldn't be hard to imagine a traffic engineer saying something like the soundbite delivered by "lead researcher Dr. Laura Gafferty" in the fake article: "Regular people drive cars because it’s the normal and not the abnormal thing to do. If every cyclist purchased and operated a car like you’re supposed to as an adult, bike fatalities would drop an estimated 40 percent within six months alone."