Huh, what? Saying that anyone says "bikes are dumb" isn't making up what people are talking about? The argument revolves around the fact that there are a lot of situations when a car(-like vehicle) is appropriate, not that bikes are dumb as a whole. Literally no one says bikes are dumb.

Not your comment, but since you're willing to step in to defend OP:

> "or had elderly parents. When someone needs to use a walker, good luck getting them on a bicycle. Plus, where do you carry the walker?"

This is a straw man argument, since at no point was anyone saying that Grandpa has to cube the car and hop on the saddle. The fact that some people cannot use a bike is a terrible argument against using bikes in general. That's like saying "well, some people are blind, so let's just ban cars".

I agree. The problem is that these cases exist - and it can be as simple as being temporarily ill (food poisoning can really impact you). I think this argument is important to answer because if the answer is "everyone who has a disablement card can ride a car", then we need to go to the next step in the discussion - for example this summer I got so ill that I was unable to walk 700 meters to the store. IMO we should talk about all such cases before if we talk about even a partial ban because it could seriously impact someone, even if their case is only temporary.

If the main point is "we should promote using bikes/public transport instead of cars", I think no one disagrees about that - and that's why an extreme case gets mentioned, because there is no point in talking about a mild case and there is still a lot of people that want a full ban.