Hilary’s haiku – help or hinderance?

The Age has a profile today on Hilary Harper—ABC breakfast radio producer, traffic reporter, and commuting cyclist. She’s a bright on-air personality, who injects interest into the otherwise dreary task of traffic reporting with such stunts as delivering reports in haiku:

Cars have come to grief…Devenish Road, Boronia,the West Gate, Southbank…and on Dudley Street and the Wurundjeri Wayin chilly Docklands

… Some listeners consider her work a breath of fresh air, but the snarls in the city’s traffic are nothing compared with those she elicits from listeners who like their traffic news in red and green with no shades of amber.

Geez, anyone who doesn’t like her style probably wouldn’t enjoy anything on Red Symons’ breakfast show. But then, being stuck in traffic probably reduces your tolerance for anyone who is actually enjoying what they do (like… hmm, commuting cyclists for instance). And speaking of cycling

Harper also tries to incorporate more information for public transport users and cyclists. She is a keen cyclist herself but not, she stresses, a mad one (“There’s no lycra”).

It’s a bit sad that she has to clarify that she’s not a “mad” cyclist and that no lycra is involved. Why is it, I wonder, that some non-cyclists take such offense at what cyclists wear?

More on related topics

• See a commuter challenge for what it is
• Gift ideas for the commuting cyclist
• Want your kid on a treadmill?
• Cycling in greener pastures?
• End of fair-weather cycling