Fixie riders vs the cops: radio edition

CBC Radio One's Montreal morning show Daybreak 88.5 had a feature today with two fixie riders/messengers facing off against a police-person who had given them some tickets.

Much disagreement and some vivid expression of the personal right to be cool. The discussion danced around how cool can you be if that cool might also just happen to be lethal to oneself or those around the narcissist.

You can listen to the interview/battle royale here at cbc daybreak website.

We have one question. The male said he had "many friends who face planted when using a (presumably) front brake." Therefore, goes his line of reasoning, having no brakes at all must be better.

WTF?

Isn't learning how to use a brake actually a lot easier than learning the uniquely-specialized skills (like telemark skiing vs regular downhill, said the fixie rider in this interview) to apply the fixie's non-brake brake system? And if these persons are too dumb to figure out the concept of "BRAKE" then are they really smart enough to master the advanced technique of fixie braking (and you'd better darn master it before you get onto a street with cars, people, bikes, and vampire bats). Then there's maintaining the level of hyper-vigilance required to safely ride a bike in the urban street environment. And they can't figure out the simple concept of a hand-operated bicycle brake. Uh-huh. See you in the E.R.