Well. If I would have had one of those things with kids in it on May 26, 2005... I would have some dead kids on my hands.

It's dangerous, but so is high school football, skiing, riding in a car.

Yes it's dangerous, but making them against the law sets a very bad precedent.

I would have to vote "no" on the ban.

Why not make taking kids in cars illegal? After all, traffic crashes are the number-one killer of people ages 1-34.

I'll tell you what's dangerous. The fact that trying to click to any blog entries suddenly refreshes and sticks on a page with just the top banner ad, nothing else, and no way to get anywhere. It's endangering my calm.

Are there any instances of kids in these things dying? I can't imagine people are rolling them down the bike lane on Broadway or anything... you take them on the smaller, quieter streets, right?

Sorry, b!x. I believe the internet elves are working on it. Meanwhile, it seems to be working with Firefox.

Let me translate for y'all: "I don't mind endangering adult bikers, they made the stupid decision to ride their bike on my road. But why should we punish the poor innocent children who will be killed when I crush their parent? I might actually feel guilty if I killed a child."

Why don't we just put the nanny in charge once and for all. That should solve just about everything, right?

This is a solution in search of a problem.

People driving cars are the danger. I'd rather see blow n' go mechanisms on every car in America before they start outlawing alternative modes of transportation. If they pass a stupid law I will drive everywhere, all the time. Even to my fucking mailbox and I will encourage everybody I know to do the same. I will put my bike and bike trailer in my car and drive them everywhere. No, I will drive my bike trailer to city hall and give it to Potter as his own personal nap time carriage. Grrrr!

no one in particular,

I've seen parents pick their kids up from daycare downtown after they leave their job downtown, and commute the upper non-bike lane portion of Madison to head home to the east side. It's definitely hairy, as is biking without trailer in tow but as far as I can tell, the parents are always very attentive to everything going on in and around the trailer (no lane splitting or anything like that). Since I haven't noticed any onslaught of trailer-related deaths in the news I'll assume that the parents in the cycling community are responsible enough to act in accordance with preserving their child's welfare- with an exception of the photo from last weekend's MBW in which an 8 year old was chugging a PBR (hopefully some kindof visual joke).

statistics? numbers? is it unreasonable to expect our leaders to base their blathering on empircal data?

Those things do scare the shit out of me though. I don't want to ban them but I wouldn't use one.

I'm just going to stay at home under my overturned couch with my windows duct-taped. It's just too damn dangerous out there.

Threebs-just be sure you have an adequate air supply.

this is really much ado about nothing.

someone simply spoke up at a meeting about a personal issue they have with the safety of bike trailers.

if it goes any further than this blog post I would very alarmed.

Me too, Jonathan. Me too. But stranger things have happened.

I think Rosie showed her mettle by pointing to the law and not shooting her mouth off in either direction. Sounds like a good cop to me.

Can't... resist... posting...

It's possible that at any moment I might be obliterated by a falling meteor, so I'll be sure to stay in a cave with a minimum of twenty feet of rock separating me from the outside world.

Drivers of autos are the real source of the danger. Notice how how many people continue driving with a terrible driving record, even after being caught driving under the influence. Outlaw bad drivers instead.

Threebs-just be sure you have an adequate air supply.

...as in make sure you've got plenty of crappy 70's elevator music to listen to in your safety zone.

OB is right for the most part, bike trailers don't kill people, crappy drivers do.

This is ridiculous. There's no way that they should become illegal. Personally I wouldn't use one in the city but it is without doubt the car drivers are the danger. What needs to be done is restricting the amount hours and miles cars can drive in the city. London has experimented with charging drivers a fee to drive within a certain radius and something like that needs to start happening in this country. Cars and their drivers are the obvious danger, not flimsy little bike trailers.

"It’s one thing to jeopardize your own safety riding around Portland"

Wow! That's the way to spread fear, Davis. Hate to tell you this, but Portland is one of the safest places to ride a bike in this hemisphere. Once again, the bike community is being baited by sensationalist journalism out to scare us into buying their paper.

Um Slick, hate to break the news to you but the Mercury happens to be FREE.

For potential cyclists who are concerned about bringing their kids in trailers behind themselves -- you can now buy a bakfiets and see their kids in front of themselves.

You could even win one at the BTA Auction!

If the PDX nannies can ban trans-fat, why not bike trailers?

PS: I'm not responsible for my actions.