Debra Mayrhofer at New Matilda examines the media reporting of a recent death of a cyclist on Sydney’s M7 motorway, and is disturbed by the premise underlying much of it:
The segment briefly covered the crash and concluded by pointing out that the cyclists were travelling on the shoulder of the motorway (as they were legally entitled to do) but that “at this stage it’s not clear why they weren’t on the other side of the freeway where there’s a dedicated cycling track”. The reporter then announced that “other riders we spoke to said riding in the breakdown lane is a risk they wouldn’t take”…The problem with this blame-shifting approach – sometimes known as the “rape discourse” – in reporting road crashes, is that it implies that cyclists are asking for trouble by being on the road at all.
Eye-grabbing terminology aside, Mayrhofer’s analysis is worth looking in to a little.
The specifics of this incident are a little bit less clear than Mayrhofer acknowledges. The victim was perfectly well entitled to use the shoulder of the road, as she points out. But it seems to me to be a legitimate question whether urban freeways are an appropriate place for cyclists, something which is not permitted in Victoria where I live, and in this context the existence of the cycleway is relevant.
The victim was riding a triathlon bike (as you can see here), which are generally completely unsuited to riding on bicycle tracks designed for kids barely off their training wheels. However, the M7 Cycleway is apparently an exception to this general rule – it’s wide enough, straight enough, and sparsely trafficked enough that a road cyclist can get a decent workout riding on it. Looking at this discussion board thread, the view that the M7 breakdown lane is too risky for cyclists does appear to be reasonably widely held in at least some sections of the Sydney triathlon community as well.
But this kind of nitpicking about the specific incident doesn’t really deal with Mayrhofer’s broader point – that media reporting feeds a stereotype that cyclists are “asking for it” by being out on the road.
Mayrhofer attempts to establish that negative stereotypes of cyclists exist, and that these are unfair:
Cyclists, like pedestrians, are classed as “vulnerable road users”, however it is unusual when a pedestrian is killed in a road crash for the news reports to suggest that the person was taking a risk by walking, or to assume that they were in the wrong. Cyclists, on the other hand, are consistently framed as an “out group”, rather than part of normal society. Research suggests they are seen as likely to behave irrationally, unlawfully and selfishly; to have no legitimate right to be on either the road or the path; and to be more likely to be at fault if they have a crash with another road user.
One consequence of this prejudice is the stereotyping of cyclists, as if they were a homogenous group. Such stereotypes create false commonalities between everyone who cycles, as a subset of road users, in a way which would seem absurd if it was done in other ways. You don’t hear people say, “Oh, I saw a fool in a blue car driving terribly the other day. They shouldn’t let those blue cars on the road.” Yet this logic is acceptable when discussing cyclists.
Moreover, there seems to be a distinction, in terms of hostility, between cycling per se, and “cyclists”. In surveys people generally respond positively to the idea of cycling because it is healthy, fun, environmentally beneficial, and so on, yet the term “cyclist” frequently invokes a negative response based on the stereotype. With almost 1.5 million bicycles sold in Australia last year, cyclists are not a small subculture. A large proportion of households have at least one bike, so many of the people riding them must be “normal”.
Much and all as it pains me to admit it about my fellow cyclists, I think there’s far more truth to at least some of these stereotypes than Mayrhofer is prepared to admit.
Despite Mayrhofer’s claims, cyclists do represent a small minority out on the roads. Russ Degnan quite correctly describes the regularly quoted bicycle sales statistic as a “rubbish statistic” – while there may be 1.5 million bicycles sold every year, only a tiny fraction of them are taken out on public roads on a regular basis. Such a minority, I would argue, may well have rather more in common than the drivers of blue cars in terms of personality and behaviour traits, and not all of them are good. And there is considerable evidence to suggest that some of those traits have a fair bit in common with the negative stereotypes.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has a comprehensive report (PDF) about cycling mortality in Australia in the past couple of decades. And it’s not pretty reading if you’re a cyclist. Some choice highlights:
- In over 60 per cent of crashes, the cyclist was deemed to be ‘responsible’ for the action that precipitated the fatal crash. This was particularly the case in crashes at intersections where the cyclist was either riding through the intersection on the road or moving from the footway onto the intersection. Cyclists were also found to be primarily responsible in other crashes where the cyclist moved from the footway to the road.
- From 1996 to 2000, nearly one-third of all male cyclists and nearly half of male cyclists in the 10 to 19 age group killed in road crashes were not wearing a helmet. Similarly, nearly one-third of all female cyclists killed in road crashes in the period were not wearing a helmet. For 2001 to 2004, helmet usage in over half the cases was unknown, but in the 48 cases where it was known, 30 of the cyclists were wearing a helmet and 18 were not.
None of this implies that in the specific case in Sydney was the fault of the riders concerned, or that motorists couldn’t generally show more consideration towards cyclists – or, to take the original article’s point, to imply that every cycling accident is the fault of the riders. But the stereotype that too many road-using cyclists are unduly cavalier appears to have not a little substance behind it.
The media will do what the media will do. But the best way to deal with negative stereotypes of cyclists might just be to actually clean up their act (something organizations like the Amy Gillett Foundation and many cycling clubs work towards) and by doing so deprive the allegedly anti-cyclist tabloid media of oxygen.
There are cyclists and then there are cyclists, it depends on which tribe you’re talking about. Each has within it it’s own recalcitrants who are cavalier with the road rules.
As do any number of branches of motorists.
Over the long span of time these things even out. But mostly it depends on how you ride, not where.
I ride a motorbike daily, so have some appreciation of the idiocy of some motorists (being cut off by drivers ‘otherwise engaged’ on their mobile being the most prevalent). I’m also a reformed commuting cyclist.
I’ve had many incidents and near misses caused by cyclists riding ‘triathlon’ type bikes too fast and/or running red lights.
The adage ‘the roads are not race tracks’ applies to all road users but I guess the wanker ratio is as high amongst cyclists as any other group of road users.
Phil, I put it to you that too many cyclists, from most of the “tribes”, pull stupid crap.
Roadies run red lights and cut corners descending mountain passes. Guys on mountain bikes jump off the footpath onto the road without looking. Women on cruisers ride along with their helmet placed in their artful wicker baskets.
Kids on freestyle BMXes and fixie riders…well, name your risky behaviour.
I doubt cyclists cleaning up their act will make much difference — There’s a reason comparatively few people cycle regularly in Australia compared to many places with far worse weather, and it’s because the car drivers are some of the least respectful to cyclists in the world(with Sydney being the capital of this — where else in the world can you get things thrown from cars at you with reasonable frequency apart from NZ and some places in the US?). You also need to consider which groups are doing the most harassment. In my books, it’s low IQ white males caught up in Aussie dickhead culture, and I doubt they really care what the other groups do. Given that they’re an expanding demographic (as can be seen via other independent measures, such as education performance and the Saturday night fights you get in places like Melbourne), I don’t see things changing rapidly.
What amazes me about some cyclists is that because they wear a few ounces of polystyrene helmet they think they’re able to ride on major, high-speed arterial roads in peak hour traffic something I considered suicidal even when I was a rash fifteen year old, and there were half the cars on the road. My parents would have skinned me if they caught me doing that. I’d skin any kid of mine if they tried it now.
Wakeup alert:
“One consequence of this prejudice is the stereotyping of cyclists, as if they were a homogenous group.”
Cyclists ARE for practical purposes a homogenous group. They are not travelling in high-powered, high-speed 4-wheel (or even 2-wheel i.e. motorcycles) vehicles with comparable road-speed pickup and external casing and protections, nor are they pedestrians… which implies that they are, in fact, a ‘homogenous’ group — the group which rides on slow-moving vulnerable 2-wheeled vehicles in the same space as vehicles with far different weight and speed classes. If you are really this indifferent to the nature and meaning of language, then please, do us all a favor and stop using language entirely, and resort instead to grunts and howls, or frantic hand-signals at the last minute or something.
“…Such stereotypes create false commonalities between everyone who cycles, as a subset of road users, in a way which would seem absurd if it was done in other ways. You don’t hear people say, “Oh, I saw a fool in a blue car driving terribly the other day. They shouldn’t let those blue cars on the road.” Yet this logic is acceptable when discussing cyclists.”
Are you actually serious? The difference between a light-weight, low-speed two-wheeled exposed vehicle and a heavy-weight, high-speed 4-wheeled heavily enclosed vehicle is as the difference between painting a fence green, and painting the same fence blue?
FORTUNE: Don’t take the SAT exam in New York State.
You’re quite right in your title, though: “stereotypes aren’t always completely unfounded.” In fact, they are a substantial checkpoint for the observation of reality.
the group which rides on slow-moving vulnerable 2-wheeled vehicles in the same space as vehicles with far different weight and speed classes.
This is the problem in a nutshell. It’s inherently dangerous to take a vehicle that travels at 1/3 of regular traffic onto a busy highway. This is why large, slow vehicles like Tractors are required to be escorted by pilot vehicles when taken on such roads.
Cars have a protective cage around the driver that will protect them in incidences of rear-ending (by far the most common type of traffic accident) and side-swiping. Both of these kinds of accidents will result in nothing but damage expenses to a motorists, but could kill a cyclist.
In my books, it’s low IQ white males caught up in Aussie dickhead culture, and I doubt they really care what the other groups do.
Would it be at all possible to have a single thread on LP that doesn’t have overt bigotry of this kind?
Christ, we are truly doomed – as jpz inadvertently reminds us – by once again shamelessly confirming how deep and seemingly ineradicable are the roots of tribalism.
jpz: um…by “you” I presume you are referring to Mayrhofer, whom I was quoting.
Robert M. — quite so, I didn’t mean at all to implicate you. It’s just that that species of reasoning has become so typical, I felt it required a smack in the head of its very own. Your own arguments, I recognize, are quite different. Carry on.
CopenhagenNew generation bike lanes.When I cycled to work regularly, I must confess to having adopted a fairly aggressive riding style, combined with a fair bit of abusive language. HOWEVER, there are good reasons for this, mainly to do with most motorists being complete dickheads.
I could always sense, from the sound I think, when a motorist coming up behind me was going to do something stupid which would compromise my safety.
The collision here is between those who normalise Australia’s high-speed driving culture and those who seek to transform it. Cycling is intrinsically safe – cyclists kill nobody. Motoring is intrinsically dangerous – motorists kill each other, cyclists and pedestrians.
Asking whether motorways or arterials are “appropriate places for cyclists” suggests that the best and most direct routes be reserved for the most dangerous (and polluting and obesegenic and climate-changing) forms of transport. That seems backward to me – if there’s any class of transport to be strictly regulated it should be private motor vehicles. Cyclists should be free to travel on all roads, and motorists should drive in a way that is compatible with them. As both a motorist and a cyclist I can tell you that it’s not that hard.
The key stat in that excellent piece is the one on increasing cyclist numbers leading to a decrease in crashes. It’s the power relations, stupid. So long as cyclists are these feeble, two wheeled vulnerable, rare events on the road (a fact I’m not disputing in Australia) the cycle continues (excuse the pun). Transport choices are entirely relational to the composition road usage – structure and agency mutually reinforcing thanks to public statistics and personal experience.
Colin – cyclists do kill themselves through their behavior and sometimes, though rarely kill pedestrians.
I used to commute to work – don’t anymore as the distance is too short. Cyclists without helmets and/or lights was about as common as those who did have them. I’ve known too many people that have come off bikes and headbutted a car or the ground not to wear a helmet.
Very disappointingly I commonly saw cyclists running red lights when riding along main roads even during peak hour. Also encountered my fair share of idiot drivers probably for very similar reasons that some cyclists do dumb things – impatience and laziness. And its not just car drivers which cause problems, I’ve seen quite a few motorbikes riding in bike lanes, and a friend recently came off his bicycle after a motorbike stopped in an intersection in front of him (coming from a side street).
… of course I meant to say I used to commute by bicycle not just commute
I’m not a cyclist – lower back trouble – but many of my friends are.
And each and every one of my cyclist friends has been hospitalised after being injured in a collision with car(s)… In Adelaide, where vehicle speeds are substantially lower than they are in the Eastern states, & where traffic density is much lower.
What Colin says!
Asking whether motorways or arterials are “appropriate places for cyclists” suggests that the best and most direct routes be reserved for the most dangerous (and polluting and obesegenic and climate-changing) forms of transport. That seems backward to me – if there’s any class of transport to be strictly regulated it should be private motor vehicles.
This ignores the reality that is that the automobile is probably the most important means of transport in the world, it is entirely necessary to travel long distances quickly, in all weather conditions, often by people who don’t have the physical ability to do the same thing on a bike.
In comparisons, bicycles are for recreation.
There’s nothing wrong with bicycles per se but to suggest we should regulate the roads in favour of them is completely ridiculous.
I take Robert’s point that cyclists can be their own worst enemy, there’s a lot of stupid behaviour from cyclists on the roads. On the whole, though, the only person the cyclist is endangering is themselves.* They’re dwarfed, of course, by the number of idiots in cars doing stupid things that endanger themeselves, other car users, pedestrians and cyclists.
There’s a lot of hostility towards cyclists in Australia, and a lot of it is fed by institutional attitudes towards cyclists. Mayhofer talks about how the media framed the accident on the M7. Another example is this Herald Sun story about a car veering into a group of cyclists, followed up by a poll posing the question “Are cyclists responsible road users?”. As a cyclist, I find the readers’ comments on the original story somewhat disturbing.
The application of the the law doesn’t help, contrast the recent slap on the wrist for Hassn Bakr with the hubbub about the young woman given 3 months in gaol for grafitting a kiosk.
This crap feeds into real behaviour. Every cyclist I know has stories about being abused, just for being on the road. (E.g. Wednesday, one woman I ride with had a charmer tell her to “get off the road you fucking bitch.”). Cars that deliberately cut you off, force you out of a lane, people throwing stuff at cyclists, and on and on.
Robert’s point is reasonable, cyclists should obey the road rules and ride safely. No argument. But I think it’s worth having a wider debate about we as a culture behave in our cars, and frankly it’s not pretty.
* I acknowledge that some cyclists do stupid things on shared bike/pedestrian paths endangering pedestrians.
mal – I don’t think its really anything much specific about car culture. From what I’ve seen there’s an amazing similarity between how car drivers treat cyclists on the road and how cyclists treat pedestrians on shared paths.
Yobbo says “There’s nothing wrong with bicycles per se but to suggest we should regulate the roads in favour of them is completely ridiculous.”
Kind of half agree with Yobbo on this. Trouble is that regulating roads in favour of cyclists per se is not at issue here. Its more a matter of ensuring that road users not-employing-some-form-of internal-combustion-engine-getting-a-fair-go is at stake.
As far as I’m concerned, the rights of a citizen to access the road network should not depend on that citizen’s ability to access propulsive technologies.
The suggestion that cyclists should obey the law is a valid one.
The problem is (as noted above) that cycling means being exposed to a huge number of other road users gratuitously NOT obeying the law. In that environment there are very powerful psychological factors that push cyclists to disobey. Social norms, in essence – people are more likely obey the law when they see others doing so.
It’s like speeding – very few motorists always obey speed limits, largely because no-one else does (and there’s pressure applied if you do, in most cases). For a laugh, try driving so that you never, ever exceed the speed limit for a while. I think you’ll see just how much value most people place on obeying the law at their own inconvenience.
In my experience, the more assertively I ride the safer I am, in that over time I’ve become more assertive and been knocked off less, and the times I have been have often been when I’ve given motorists the chance to do so (viz, not been assertive enough). Unlike this incident:
I’ve just moved from Sydney to Melb, and had my first run-in with the cops down here. A motorist claims that he didn’t see me and I was going too fast, so he turn across in front of me knocking me off my bike. In NSW that would be a reportable incident (minor injury), but the cops would be extremely unlikely to do more than ask the motorist, accept his response at face value and close the report. The VIC police just sent me a letter saying they are prosecuting him. So, less unequal protection in VIC… where there are more cyclists. Which way does the causal effect run, I wonder?
“Would it be at all possible to have a single thread on LP that doesn’t have overt bigotry of this kind?”
.
It’s not bigotry Yobbo (and nor I do often post here for that matter). This is just an observation of who harasses cyclists the most in Australia. I’ve never had a coke can thrown at me by a 60 year old female, and no doubt some 60 year old females hate cyclists. So the problem for cyclists isn’t a generalized dislike of cyclists, it’s a particular group that harasses them. That particular group is of course the one with the highest crime rates in the OECD, the one that has fights in our cities the most often, the one whose educational standards are declining etc. That is of course young white poorly educated Australian male. If you don’t want to admit that harassment of cyclists is a cultural problem restricted to various groups, with poorly-educated young white Australian male being the biggest of them, then feel free to take a trip France (or almost anywhere else for that matter) and then see the difference.
Given this, the idea that a change in behaviour of cyclists would make any major difference is rather ignorant, since this group is simply looking for other groups to harasss. It’s fun to harass cyclists, just like it’s fun to have a fight on Saturday night, fun to harass gay people, fun to drink 28 beers and get smashed, etc. You could replace “cyclist” with any other number of easily targetable social groups and have the same argument if you wanted. Try dressing up in gay-looking clothes and see who shouts the most abuse at you. I’ll bet it’s the same group. It’s not because you yourself are causing any problems, it’s just harassment is a culturally acceptable thing to do in that group.
Given the decline of the mining industry is going to mean lots of previously employed poorly educated people in this group are going come back to Perth with nothing to occupy their time, I’m sure you’re going to have the excitement of bumping into them a lot more, so maybe you’ll complaining about them too.
As Mal @19 notes, there are subsets of cyclists on dual-use paths who ride aggressively -often in packs – and pose a threat to other users. This appears to me to mimic the attitudes of those drivers who resent cyclists using the roads.
While Yobbo is quite wrong in asserting that cycling is purely recreational, most people don’t commute more than 5 kilometers on a bicycle, and very few do more than 10. Over such distances, access to freeways – which, by their nature, present particular dangers because of on and off-ramps – is essentially irrelevant.
Looking at the stats in the report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau that Rob has linked to, I think there’s a clear case for some degree of cycling education and road safety awareness in schools, there are a lot of deaths in the 19 years and under group, and these ages seem to be much more likely to behave in an unaware and unpredictable manner.
I’d be interested in knowing how the report determines who was at fault, given that the person killed (ie the cyclist) is no longer available to provide their version of events. The report doesn’t give a breakdown of responsibility by age group, it would be interesting to see the ratio of responsibility for accidents if the stats for cyclists under 19 years old are excluded.
Mal: Some good points about the accident investigation, and the preponderance of young rider deaths.
Trying to educate teenagers not to take risks has its limits, of course.
I know that a lot of cyclists are opposed to number plates on bikes, but I think they would really help. I think cyclists often decide to break the law (like running red lights) because they know the probability of them being identified is very low. It also gives a practical way for motorists to address situations when something happens, rather than feel they have to chase down cyclists in their cars which is dangerous.
As a regular driver through 100km winding roads through the Adelaide Hills, I can tell you have bike riders over here are a positive menace. The government recently spent a fortune created hard shoulders on these roads, partly so that bike riders have somewhere safe to ride off the road, but do they use them? Do they ‘eck as like!
The number of times I have come around a blind corner, early in the morning, with sun filtering through the trees making visibility difficult, only to come across a cyclist (sometimes two riding abreast), wearing black, riding smack, bang in the middle of the lane instead of in the hard shoulder is truly frightening. That no-one has been killed is frankly a miracle. If you ask me it is suicidal madness for bike riders to ride in the middle of a lane (where there is no overtaking) on a 100km road.
On another occasion, I nearly hit a bike when I was overtaking another car: the bike rider was coming in the opposite direction – again, the rider was wearing black or a drab colour that didn’t stand out – and again, the rider was in the middle of the road. I’m sure that if I had hit him I would have been to blame (and probably prosecuted), but I was not being a dickhead or a revhead or in any other way an irresponsible road user. I JUST DIDN’T SEE HIM. What happened, though, was most interesting and I think adds something to this debate. The rider in question did not even move off the road as I approached: he stayed just where he was, causing me to swerve dangerously and cut off the car I was overtaking (who, thankfully, had slammed his foot on the brakes too, giving me a place to drop into) and then shook his fist at me and said something that I didn’t need to be a lip-reader to understand. He didn’t look alarmed by the close call, merely angry. I remain astonished that he didn’t seem to want to take any responsibility for his own safety; I should have seen him and that was that and, besides, he had a perfect right to ride on the road blah, blah, blah.
I have a family friend who is a bike rider and this issue kicked off a rather heated discussion at a birthday celebration last year, when the Adelaide Hills contingent had to contend with an apparently organised group of cyclist out training on one Sunday morning, meaning that we spent about half an hour of the trip to lunch having to dodge cyclists, some of whom were riding 20-30kph on the 100 kph roads and riding in the middle of the lane (in both directions as well). The practical upshot of this was you had to slow down to 20kph, overtake (if there weren’t any cars coming in the opposite direction), and then 15 seconds after you’ve overtaken them, have to do the same thing again for the next one you caught up to. And this was happening in both directions. It was absolute chaos.
This friend insisted that bike riders have every right to ride in the middle of the road and that in fact it is much safer to do so “because you force the car to treat you like another vehicle and overtake properly”, rather than passing close by and staying on your side of the road, which he says poses a danger to the rider (which is probably true as well). However, we pointed out that other vehicles on these fast roads aren’t travelling at only 20-30 ks and when they are (like farm machinery) they ALWAYS drive with left wheels on the hard shoulder so that other vehicles have space to safely pass them, even where there is a double white line. The arguments went around and around and we got accused of being “selfish” and when I tried to turn it back on him to suggest it was selfish of him to hog the road and prevent cars from safely overtaking, he got really upset and we had to drop the subject.
I thought it explained an awful lot about the mindset of these “sporting” cyclists and suddenly everything I had been observing on the roads for a long time made sense.
I now live in the Barossa and am discovering that the same problems exist here. And it was chronic during the Tour Down Under and, frankly as I said before, a miracle that there have been no serious injuries or deaths.
Yobbo’s proposal that cycling is purely recreational where he lives may hold some water, but where I live and work, the change is rolling faster than anyone imagined I reckon.
5 years ago, there were regular fights over limited car-parking spaces (inner city Melbourne office). Now, most spaces are not used at all as of 14 staff, 11 have transferred to bicyles as commuting vehicle. Some staff are 4 or 5 kms away, others b/w 10 and 20 kms away. No-one goes near a freeway, but as Melbourne is particularly well-serves already by cycle lanes, most people have a practical, and enjoyable, mostly car-less route to work and back. Melbourne’s cycle infrastructure gets better and better year on year. Yes, it could get a lot better, but I’m happy with the progress.
The sheer volume of cyclists is forcing re-thinks in infrastructure. Outside Nova cinema, there are now 28 cycle parking places in a spot which recently held 2 car spaces. I was happy to write letters to the various council members concerned when the issue was raised, and there was one particularly comical out of place councillor who seriously proposed that retailers stood to lose money by replacing car spaces (mostly 2 persons) with cycle spaces (mostly 10 + persons). It was comic delight, but the cycle spaces are there now.
Sorry about all the local stuff, it’s a bit OT. Back on topic, I’ve had the dickhead in my cycling slapped out of me these days, and take great pleasure in adhering to every single road rule. And most others do…there’s a minority, just like there’s a minority of dickhead drivers. Oh, and another pointlessly anecdotal riff: I find Melbourne drivers exceptionally easy to work with on the roads – the vast majority of the time. Respect garners respect.
chinda63 wrote:
Mr Chinda, hand in your license. The menace isn’t cyclists, it’s you. If you can’t pay attention while driving and would prefer to live without the consequences of killing somebody, do not drive any more.
The real problem here is that motoring is seen as a right and cycling as a privilege. See the usual bullshit in this thread being brought out (put number plates on bikes, cyclists don’t advertise themselves enough, cyclists on pedestrian paths are a menace, cyclists run red lights!). Newsflash: dickheads in cars run red lights and kill people all the time. Dickheads in cars fall off the road over the christmas/new year period and kill people. Dickheads drive foolishly and kill all their mates in horrifying single car accidents. Dickheads in cars JUST DIDN’T SEE YOU! because they WEREN’T FUCKING LOOKING and regard their motor vehicle as some kind of magical lounge room that transports them about, not a potentially (and disturbingly frequently) lethal fucking weapon. Have a look at the stats – 75% of transport deaths in Australia are motor vehicle related.
Driving, a far more dangerous activity than cycling, is what should be privileged. It’s only when this is recognised that the roads will be safe for other road users of all kinds. Car licenses should be $5000 per annum. That would fix it.
David: drivers are human. They screw up. So do cyclists. I do, quite often, both on my bike and in my car, and I take safe driving and cycling very seriously.
If you expect perfection from other road users, that’s a recipe for not only road rage, it’s a recipe for accidents in itself.
Yes Robert – we screw up.
However, there is an order of magnitude difference in a motorist screwing up and putting 2 tonnes of metal, plastic and glass through you (or through a house, or into a telephone pole) and a cyclist screwing up. It’s basic physics.
That’s why it is so puzzling that the barrier for entry to obtaining a drivers license is so low – it in no way reflects the risks and costs of motoring.
True as hell Robert, but that comment by Chinda really needed to be rebutted. I agree with David – if you don’t see another road user (in their own lane ffs) then don’t try to blame them for it.
S’funny, I thought I hadn’t been overly victimised whilst cycling (been commuting for 30 years or so) and then when I thought about it .. oh yeah, there was the time a carload of young guys decided it would be fun to pull alongside, scream abuse and then when I turned down a side street and cycled on the footpath, they mounted the pavement and chased me. Nice.
Of course I’ve been abused a fair bit. Oddly enough, I copped the most abuse when I started wearing a fluorescent yellow riding shirt. At the same time someone though it would be amusing to “buzz” me by driving really really close. Very important not to stand out too much in Australia apparently.
My biggest worry when cycling to work is not that cars give me too little clearance (90% of my commute is on shared use pathways) it is that they give me too much! There is a blind corner on a crest on my route to work and cars routinely pass across the solid middle line, sometimes entirely in the other lane, and they have no idea if there is another car approaching. Very few cars think to slow down at all. I’ve noticed this when driving a car though. I quite frequently have to move to the left hand side of the lane to avoid cars that swing out of their lane to avoid parked cars and other obstacles. Taking their foot off the accelerator seems an option of last resort.
A comment on the question of cycling on freeways. One of the reasons some cyclists do this is precisely because freeways have a range of features which make them safer for cycling than other types of major road, most notably wide shoulders which create several metres of separation between the operating space of the cyclist and the flow of motorised traffic.
Some prohibitions of cycling on freeways and motorways have the perverse effect of diverting cyclists onto single carriageway roads with narrow, or no, shoulders and fairly heavy traffic flows at speeds not greatly less than on the freeway, i.e. the prohibition increases the risk to the cyclist.
A notorious example in Brisbane is the prohibition of cycling on the Ipswich Bypass, which means cyclists are diverted onto a section of Ipswich Road which passes through a cutting whose walls are hard up against the carriageway, with no shoulder. To make matters worse, in order to get onto Ipswich Road at the point at which the prohibition takes effect, it’s necessary to cross two lanes of Ipswich Motorway. Then there are the Ipswich motorists with their one square head and one pointy one…
There are other examples: the Logan Motorway through Brisbane’s southern suburbs and the parallel, frequently shoulderless, heavily traffic Johnsons Road.
I acknowledge Robert’s point about the hazards of on-ramps and off-ramps, but these can be mitigated by the creation and signage of cyclist crossings (assuming that the cyclists have the good sense to use them, which I do).
P.S. I would add that cycling between Tweed Heads and Brunswick Heads was made considerably safer by the construction and opening in 2002 of the bypass (basically a motorway, dual carriageway, wide shoulders, signed for cyclists) which spares us the ordeal of sharing the shoulderless single carriageway Tweed Coast road with high volumes of both local traffic and long-haul motorists using it as a shorter alternative to the old Pacific Highway a.k.a. the Tweed Valley Way a.k.a. the Burringbar Crash Zone.
A further note on the safety of being a driver or passenger on a bike rather than in a car. I am not aware of any instance of a person being fatally injured as a result of having their head thrown against the hard internal surfaces of a bicycle, or of being disabled by having their legs crushed under the crumpled dashboard and front end of a bicycle, or of being incinerated as a result of being trapped in the burning wreckage of a bicycle. Food for thought.
That’s a bit harsh, David. My fault for not explaining better, but the reason I didn’t see him is that:
a)it was approaching dusk. Most other road users had their lights on, so (and, yes, this is probably my fault as well), I was checking for vehicles that were actually VISIBLE. It wasn’t until I was level with the car I was overtaking that I saw him and, even then, I wasn’t really THAT close at that stage.
b) Once I had seen him, I had to make a decision about whether to continue with the manoeuvre or to drop back behind the car, a decision which was taken out of my hands by the fact that the car behind me had moved to overtake as well (we had been travelling for some time behind a car doing 75kph in the 100 zone and had no previous overtaking opportunity). I decided I had to overtake so I floored it and it was while I was watching the approaching cyclist getting closer and closer and waiting for him to bloody move over so as not to get squished that the car next to me decided to brake heavily, thus giving me an opportunity to slip in front of him. At this stage, the bike was about 50 meters away and he was MOVING FAST. He was really pumping his legs (on a training run, I’m sure), and he seemed more focussed on that. However, I am positive he would have seen me as I had my headlights on. To be honest, that was the thing that freaked me out the most when the incident occurred: the fact that I just didn’t see him, but he certainly would have been able to see me, so why didn’t he take evasive action (or why didn’t it occur to him that maybe motorists WOULDN’T be able to see him under the circumstances. It was getting dark, he was wearing dark colours and riding a dark bike with no lights on. DER!) As far as I am concerned he should take some of the blame for what ensued, rather than just shaking his fist at me.
c) Thankfully the car who was behind me dropped back behind the car who we were both trying to overtake, and he obviously did it sharpish because I heard his brakes squeal when the other car broke heavily, so I think we were all very grateful for that. I shudder to think what would have happened if he had continued to overtake, because there is no doubt in my mind he would have either squished the cyclist or sideswiped the car behind me (or both).
d) I drive on country roads all the time and have done for years, mostly in kanga-jumping territory, so I am used to driving defensively at dusk and watching the sides of the roads to check for impending roo crossings
e) I believe I am a good, responsible driver; indeed, the one thing that has eventuated out of the two incidents I described is that I regularly now BREAK one road rule; I no longer drive as close as practical to the left-hand side of the road, preferring instead to drive close to the middle line just in case there is a cyclist around the next corner. I always now check the MIDDLE of the road for cyclists when I am overtaking as well. Not that I should have to, but I do. Better to be safe than sorry.
What I wonder though, is whether the cyclist in this incident has changed HIS cycling habits. Judging from his reaction, I suspect he has done nothing more than dine out of the story of the time he nearly got squished by a dickhead motorist without either putting the story in any context, or with accepting any of the blame. If he does now no longer ride at dusk or now wears brighter colours then good; at least lessons would have been learned on both sides.
I drove around a blind corner on a 110km/h road and was blinded by the setting sun and almost hit the cow which decided to shoot across the road at that particular moment.
I said to myself ‘cows shouldn’t be on the road’ but, as they are, I now drive around that corner somewhat more cautiously.
chinda63 wrote:
Was this Bathurst ‘73 in a Group C Falcon hardtop? WTF are you thinking?
The only sensible approach is 1. Stop. 2. throw your keys into the scrub. 3. Walk home. Roads are not race tracks and you need to learn to drive appropriately, not just assume that a clearly busy road is OK for this kind of stupidity.
We ALL believe we’re good responsible drivers, but we aren’t and your story proves you aren’t either.
My own favourite dickhead motorist story concerns the time I decided to ride from Robina (on the Gold Coast) to Murwillumbah via the Currumbin Valley and the Tomewin Gate, i.e. via quiet back roads rather than the Gold Coast Highway and Pacific Highway. Good, responsible, safety-conscious cycling, you might think. As it happened, as I was cycling along the quiet (but shoulderless and single carriageway) back road towards Murwillumbah, a driver in an orange Mazda RX7 comes up behind me at speed just as another driver is coming in the opposite direction. Rather than wait until the other motorist has passed and then pulling out to overtake me, our Allan Moffat tryhard in the Mazda goes spearing between me and the other driver, missing me by not a large amount of centimetres.
A few minutes later, I’m cycling along the main street of Murwillumbah when who should appear to berate me about MY disregard for traffic safety than our Zoom Zoom Zoom man. Had we met somewhere less populated than the main street of Murwillumbah at midday on Saturday, I would have quite cordially thumped him.
I’d have to say at least in the area where I live the freeway is surely a much safer place to ride than many of the main roads, which have no room for cyclists at all. If you’re going to ride at significant speed, it’s probably even safer to ride in the freeway emergency lane than on the bike path that runs alongside it (which is pretty busy with walkers and casual cyclists). But even if it were permitted I doubt it would particularly popular.
I wonder, are scooters permitted on freeways in states that ban cyclists? A car hitting a scooter with both at maximum speed is surely just as deadly as a car hitting a bicycle both at maxium speed.
David – which part of THERE WAS A CAR BEHIND ME don’t you understand? I didn’t think I had any other choice but to continue with the manoeuvre.
By going faster I ensured I was on the wrong side of the road for a shorter period of time, plus it gave the car behind me a half-decent chance to get past and back on the right side of the road as well. If there wasn’t a car behind me there is no question that I would have slipped back in behind the car I was trying to overtake.
Incidentally, I described “flooring it”, but in reality I didn’t actually even go over 100kph during the overtaking; I didn’t need to. So, in fact, I overtook entirely legally. I was lucky I had a powerful car that responded when I accellerated faster; my old car would not have done so, and with a fast approaching bike, a car next to me and a car up my arse I would have been stuffed, with nowhere to go.
Pray tell, what would you have done under the circumstances? I would be very interested to hear – but make sure you answer in under 2 seconds, because that was the time I had to make my decision.
They certainly are on the Pacific Motorway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
chinda63 wrote:
At what point might you think that a completely one-sided game of chicken with an approaching cyclist was a good idea? You’ve got functioning brake lights on your chariot haven’t you?
Incidentally, I notice, David, that you have failed to respond to the fact that the rider was riding in the middle of the road in dim light, with no lights and wearing dark clothes.
Do you think he should accept any responsibility for the fact that he was barely visible?
Read the rf cow story chinda63. I’m still puzzled at your actions – you seem to think that accelerating towards an object you’re trying to avoid is a good strategy?
The only reason nobody was killed was due to the far more appropriate actions of the other motorist who let you in.
The game of chicken was not one-sided, which you would have noticed it you’d been paying attention.
At the point at which I started my overtaking manoeuvre (before I noticed him) he was a long way away, but he would have seen ME because I had my headlights on. At that stage he could have moved over to the side of the road, thus ensuring his own safety. He failed to do so, deciding instead to embark on a potential suicide mission; in fact, you could argue that HE chose to play chicken with ME.
But you are right, of course; as the evil motorist I am, by definition, always in the wrong. It must be great being perfect.
As I understand it Chinda63 attempted to overtake even though he had already perceived that the cyclist was in the oncoming lane. Chinda63 relied on two things to avert a collision:
1. The power of his own car to complete the overtaking manoeuvre before the point of collision.
2. Failing that, the decision of the cyclist to vacate the oncoming lane.
As it turned out, only the heavy breaking of the car being overtaken allowed Chinda63 to complete the overtaking manoeuvre. Therefore, Chinda63’s ability to judge speed and distance appear to be impaired.
The cyclist had every right to possession of the oncoming lane. There was no traffic behind him.
If Chinda63 had killed the cyclist, it is possible on the facts presented that he would have been guilty of manslaughter.
Chinda63 would be well advised to get an eyesight test and to read the traffic laws.
chinda63 wrote:
Yes. Yes it is.
Nice stoushing fellas, keep it up.
I’ve just started a 75km daily commute, replacing a 10km commute and 30km lunchtime ride. I try to avoid moral hazard, because bike riders are so visible to the driving population when they do something wrong and seem quite invisible at other times (why is that?).
In any journey, I will see many stupid things done by cars – there are a lot of them (cars) – but sit near an intersection for a couple of hours and see how many times the lights get run (red-red, not amber-amber). Yesterday, after getting to work I had myself measured by an undertaker, to save time later on.
It is also safer to be assertive, but within the rules. If it’s safest to take a whole lane, take it. Interestingly, the more bikes we have on the roads, the safer it is, but bike riders owe it to their fellow tribesmen, women and children, to be seen as law abiding. Cyclists running red lights drive me nuts ’cause they ruin it for the rest of us. Many car drivers are unaware of what law abiding behaviour is for cyclists – this is an area needing public education.
To all of those who suggest cars are more equal than bikes, if we accept that bikes are legitimate road vehicles, and in the eyes of the law they are, car drivers will have to behave differently than they would if there were no bikes on the road. Sometimes this means driving at slightly less than flat-out. I drive, and I don’t mind slowing down for bikes, if overtaking is not possible (for erstwhile there go I).
Chinda63, what make, model and colour car do you drive? If I’m ever riding in SA and see one of those, I will immediately run off the road. It’s safer.
chinda63 doesn’t drive an orange Mazda RX7 by any chance?
There is a rash of bicycling advocates in Australia and elswhere at the moment. Lord spare me from the passionate. The advocates seems to use facts as handy lobbing (or lobbying) grenades with little appetite for analysis.
The 1.5M bikes sold is only one example. This figure is trotted out seeming to suggest these are all replacing cars for 15 k commutes and shopping and taking granny and the kids to the doctor or that they are all road racers doing 100ks training a day. As Merkel points out you only have to stop for a moment to realise most of these bikes will be $100 kids bikes from Kmart replaced every couple of years and never go further than the backyard or around the block.
There is a “passionate” influencial set of deep cycling advocates around who want bikes to take over from other vehicles. One strongly argued “philosophy” is “Take The Lane” . That is the idea that a bike should act like a motor vehicle and take up all the lane on any road.
I’ve seen people take the lane down Warrigal Road. Now I’ve been rear ended and T boned in a bloody car going down Warrigal Road and I avoid driving down it whenever I can. Yet these macho lads will ride on a bike at 30ks + taking the lane. At 30ks a bike has esentially no protection and much much less stopping power than a car, bus or truck. In fact I’ll bet a fully laden B Special will stop quicker than a a bike.
The macho cowboy, running lights etc, element is mainly people who ride competitively on the road in non organised groups like the Hell Ride.
There are around 40 deaths of cyclists in australia each year. Almost all 90% of these are male. But we don’t know the implication of this. Is it simply more males riding or that males are more macho and risk takers.
Around 30% of the deaths seem to be, composed of youths, mostly males again, below the age of 19, riding without lights and helmets and breaking the law by going through lights and or riding on to trafficked roads without looking or pausing from parks, paths and driveways.
30% of male and female cyclist fatalities (this is a lot) were NOT wearing helmets.
It is more likely that those who don’t wear helmets are more likely to flout other laws. This is supported to some extent by the claim that the largest proportion of cyclist fatalities had transgressed other laws.
Almost half the cyclist deaths are on rural or minor roads – now there is a lot of definitional issues here as to what is classified rural etc – but given that only a small % of Oz lives in rural areas it would seem important to understand why about 50% of deaths are rural.
The figures show that up to 40% of pedestrians killed are pissed. Surprisingly in the figures show that no cyclists killed (sample /population 220) had a BAC at all.
Cycling is neither safe or dangerous. In certain places and with certain behaviours its dangerous and at other times a places its safe.
I think there has been only one death recorded on a bike path – so clearly its pretty safe.
disclaimer: I’m a bike rider. I drive a car. I used to own and drive a semi trailer for squillions of ks. I have driven buses.
People, let’s try to keep it nice on a topic that clearly gets people revved up, if you’ll pardon the bad pun.
Chinda63, perhaps I can explain why cyclists often don’t use hard shoulders. There’s two main issues. One, the shoulders may be sealed, but the quality of the road sealing is often much worse on the shoulder than it is on the road itself. As in dangerously bad; there’s loose gravel, massive potholes, and so on. The second point is that, through hard experience, we’ve learned we’re a lot more visible if we’re not right on the edge of the road.
However, if the shoulder is sufficiently wide and in good condition I’m happy to ride on it. Furthermore, it’s only common courtesy, if you have to ride in a position where you hold up traffic, to let that traffic past as soon as is practical and safe to do so.
David, to give Chinda his due, he was in a shit sandwich, and was left with no good options. Maybe he shouldn’t have, but, like I said, sometimes stuff happens, and not necessarily because one’s acting like Michael Schumacher with a world title on the line. I’m pretty timid at overtaking, but once or twice I’ve been in a similar situation – half-way through the act of overtaking, and right at that moment something – for instance, a kangaroo – has hopped out right in front of me. In that situation, accelerating to complete the passing manoeuvre can actually be the least bad option, and if you’re another party in such a situation it’s just good sense to try and provide the driver in the bad situation with as much room as you can to get out of it.
tbh as a commuting cyclist, i usually notice car driving stupidity far less than when I am driving. I get cut off, overtaken at 20 kmh above the speed limit, corner cutting, random lane changes far more as a car driver. I only recently got my driving licence (at 35 yrs old) and my driving instructor frequently made the same comments that I made with regard to driver behaviour.
You really notice how different driving culture can be when you visit somewhere like the Netherlands or Deutschland. If you put most Adelaide drivers on the Autobahn, they would probably come close to killing someone else or themselves within half an hour.
Oops – I used the S word. Expect Liam to show up with some hilarious cycling-related youtubery in 3… 2… 1…
Taking my cue from Roger, in the interests of fairness and balance I have to mention a particularly pernicious category of dickhead cyclist – namely those who cycle whilst nattering blithely into their mobile phones. In recent times I have seen three such cases – all in almost exactly the same location.
1. A woman cycling at night without lights along Annerley Road Woolloongabba whilst merrily chatting away.
2. A male cyclist having an animated discussion whilst operating his bike one-handed in the middle of Stanley Street at morning peak hour.
3. Another male cyclist powering along the footpath on Annerley Road outside the Mater Hospital at a distance of not very many centimetres from pedestrians whilst blathering into his toy.
Is it just the air of Woolloongabba which causes such behaviour, or has it been observed elsewhere?
On the other hand, if this is how they behave when cycling perhaps it’s just as well they don’t drive!
fdb – I’m waiting for the pic of Liam in beret on his hip inner burbs fixie or holding his fixie above his head on a Critical Mass corking complete with woollen CHE T-shirt and rolled up right pants leg.
FXH, to clarify, when I say take the lane, it’s occasionally when circumstances dictate and is usually only short-term, and in the city is most often at traffic speed. (Cars are similarly permitted in bike lanes)
But two abreast will take half a lane, in any case.
Nuthin’ wrong with being passionate – it’s the lack of analysis, and that applies to all side of the argument a lot of the time.
Hmm – here’s a piece of “hilarious” cycling-related youtubery.
If you can’t be bothered watching the whole thing, it features two blokes screaming down the Monbulk-Seville road, on Mount Dandenong near Melbourne. At one point they catch up with a car, which they overtake on a blind, sharp corner – and don’t see the car coming the other way.
They squeeze through, luckily, but it’s just idiotic and certainly not anything I’d be showing anyone else.
On the issue of relative speeds of cyclists and motorists, when I was living in Salisbury (11km south of Brisbane CBD) and cycling to work in Fortitude Valley (next to Brisbane CBD) I would usually average about 28kmh and would exceed this speed on flat or downhill stretches, and would not infrequently find myself delayed by morning peak traffic crawling along at below 25kmh. QED cars hold up traffic.
I ride a road bike alone and with groups.
I’ve been in two major cyclist v car accidents. One outside the Ocean Beach Hotel, North Cottesloe, when a young lady opened a car door and took out about eight of the group including me. The other coming down Thomas Street, West Leederville, at about 50 kmh in the bike lane when a car at the last possible moment stood on the anchors and turned left into Railway parade. Indicator came on as the turn started. I hit at about 40 kmh and fortunately went over the top. The landing shattered my collar bone into eight pieces. Fortunately I wasn’t run over while lying on the road.
Both of those incedents cost me a new bike helmet. Doubt I’d be here without one.
One group I ride with has a couple of cops. One of thm is about the most selfish cyclist I have ridden with and absolutely tees off on car drivers. I cringe.
Cyclists need to ride smart – real smart. It would also be nice for drivers to be more understanding. I’ve ridden in France – bliss. No glass on the roads, no abuse from passing vehicles, and the drivers really know how to drive with cyclists. We could learn from them on this issue depsite them still being cheese eating surrender monkeys.
“This was particularly the case in crashes at intersections where the cyclist was either riding through the intersection on the road or moving from the footway onto the intersection. Cyclists were also found to be primarily responsible in other crashes where the cyclist moved from the footway to the road.”
I rarely drive, but when I do it is quite common for me to see cyclists switching between footpaths and roads, or running red lights opportunistically, and generally behaving in unpredictable ways (from a motorists perspective). I will as a matter of course (and pride) drive slowly, and at a safe distance behind any cyclist I encounter for any distance until it is safe to pass, but in spite of this approach have only narrowly avoided killing people on numerous occasions where a cyclist has changed ’status’ abruptly. I find this more difficult to deal with, as a motorist, then stupid behaviour by other people driving cars, because it introduces too many variables. While I am alert to, and very careful around, cyclists, I do feel there is a real and irreducible problem for motorists as long as bicycles don’t behave in predictable ways.
As a mostly pedestrian, I can also attest to the dangerous misuse of footpaths by cyclists in parts of Sydney, particularly in areas where car traffic is heavy. I understand the desire to escape the risks of the road, but a number of times I have been nearly knocked down on Broadway near Central Station by footpath cyclists.
I was overtaking once in my little ol’ dear departed Astra on a long straight on the Bussell Highway in s/w WA.
The fuckwit I was passing sped up from the 85-odd he’d been doing (110 limit) to try and stop me getting past, and hung me out to dry on the wrong side. As with Chinda63, someone else had taken the same opportunity to try and pass, and we were both forced to brake hard. That was when my left back tyre blew out, and I wound up making a split-second decision to pull over on the wrong side of the road, due to the long line of cars now happily speeding up to 110 on the left, and the merciful lack of any oncoming traffic on the right.
Any cyclist going in either direction would have been toast, no matter how visible or sensible – this tool in a B&S Ball bedecked ute had ensured the entire road was a chaotic mass of hurtling metal. Frankly my passengers and I were pretty fucking lucky ourselves.
I’ve had other cyclists either clip me or come very close to taking me out when they have run red lights and I’m waiting at the front.
I usually get to mention how much of a dickhead they are within the next minute or so when I ride past them, as most of the time they are not a grade competition riders ;P
Just the other day in the dark with no lights or helmet a young guy rides off the footpath in front of me onto Whitehorse Road Nunawading, against the traffic, gets a break, rides over to centre strip, bunny hops onto strip then off again on other side AGAINST traffic, bunny hops onto footpath and on his way.
I guess he didn’t read the research that shows his age group are 30% of bicycle fatalities.
From my observations it is mostly men who behave in the ways outlined by FDB.
It seems fairly clear that many such men have come to perceive their vehicles as extensions of their (ahem) egos.
I was resident in Texas and have visited that state many times before and since. Commonly, a well-stocked gun rack graces the rear window of the ubiquitous pick-ups.
I have observed that Texas drivers are the most courteous I have ever encountered. If you draw up behind a vehicle, often bristling with ordnance, it will always draw to the should and allow you to overtake without needing to use the oncoming lane. A courteous wave appears to be sufficient reward for these considerate folk.
I wonder if the guns have any effect on road manners.
My all time favourite observation – waiting at the lights, looking at the traffic coming the other way, I spot a woman driving with no hands, looking in the mirror, putting make up on. This was in peak hour traffic.
As others have noted ‘cyclists kill nobody’ is a slight overstatement. As well as themselves, there are occasional deaths of elderly people or infants who are hit by bicycles at high speeds.
However the borader point is correct. It continues to amaze me that for most people the natural, indeed only, interpetation of the statement “X is safe” is “X is safe for me.”
The regulation should be for shared use, not exclusive use by one or the other.
Were you checking for vehicles, or checking for cars? IME many motorists do not see bicycles because they do not expect to see bicycles. (This is of course one of the motivations for recent campaigns regarding motorbike awareness education.)
Obviously the cyclist is entirely responsible for any failure to be properly lit.
“I wonder if the guns have any effect on road manners.”
I’m sure John Lott could cook summat up to prove they do!
Something odd happens when you drive accross the Nullarbor – with every car you pass, overtaking or oncoming, a little wave (often just a finger raised off the steering wheel) suddenly becomes compulsory. Then just as suddenly *pouf* the courtesy and cameraderie are gone the second you hit Ceduna (or presumably Balladonia going west).
The finger salute is ubiquitous in western NSW and rural SA north of Adelaide. It is common in Eastern Gippsland in Victoria but very uncommon elsewhere in that state.
A game we play is to guess whether we’ll get a wave and if so whether it’ll be one, two or more fingers and whether the hand will leave the steering wheel.
The game is less boring than the flat, dry and featureless landscape of our beautiful nation. I have no other excuse.
fn: the index-finger-hand-on-the-wheel appears to be the most favoured form of acknowledgment. And you get more if you are driving a 4×4 rather than a domestic sedan.
Ah, good to know it’s not just on the Big Flat Plain then. I of course belligerently kept doing it, unrequited, all the way from Norseman to Clifton Hill. Mine’s usually an index finger with a little inclination of the head; maybe switching it up to a lazy thumbs up and a wink for teh laydeez.
Obligatory Finger lift applies Noresman to Ceduna.
Razor – maybe I’ll make up a sign with that on it next time I do the haul.
Razor, dj (and completely offtopic): either of you got any suggestions for a mature-age beginner (moi) about riding crits safely and successfully?
Just a comment on your second bullet there, Robert it’s a somewhat self-selecting sample – the cyclist wearing helmets presumably didn’t get killed as often.
I have been a keen cyclist in Canberra, Melbourne, and Sydney – which I gave up in terror after about a month. Ironically I was hit by a car WALKING across a pedestrian crossing about a week later. Other cities in Australia are much better.
I have been the victim of some pretty harsh – and breath-takingly dangerous – behaviour as a cyclist. Nothing even close to as dangerous has ever happened when I was a car driver and/or passenger.
I think lots of people are on the money, and the penalties are certainly part of it. When shit like the McGee case happens, what hope is there?
The regulation should be for shared use, not exclusive use by one or the other.
Why Martin?
Roads are infrastructure. They are not playgrounds. If roads were intended for recreation then they would have no speed limits and would have jumps and chicanes like a rally course, for the pure joy of it.
People drive because they need to transport themselves or cargo from one place to another. That is why roads exist.
People who drive for sport aren’t allowed to do it on public roads. The reason for this is because it is unnecessarily dangerous. Why should cyclists be allowed to?
The finger wave was mandatory in the Western District when I was a teenager there.
We need an overtaking thread.
I am overtaken a lot by people doing dangerous things to get past me, because I don’t always drive right up to the speed limit. But the reason I don’t is because I’ve made a decision that it’s not safe to be doing 110 or whatever in the current conditions. A recent example – taking unfamiliar narrow winding back roads though Yarra Valley winery / wedding reception territory very late on a foggy Saturday night, tailgated honked at and eventually passed on double lines by someone who thought 90 in a 100 zone was too slow. I think that’s just moronic. And I know plenty of people think that driving under the speed limit is morally equivalent to eating babies.
As a average masters C grader who has only two seasons of crits I ain’t the best to ask. That said, you are a smart guy and smart riding wins (or gets you up there). I was terrified about a prang in my first one but once you get used to it you get less twitchy. DON’T overlap wheels was the best safety advice I ever got. Guys change lines without looking. Either no over lap or get up on their hip so you can lay a shoulder in if they come across you and they’ll know you are there anyway.
You need to sit in between 3rd and 8th for most of the ride, not down the back. Don’t be the first to chase a break but if two go try and be third or fourth to chase – you might stay away. Don’t worry about the macho thing of doing work on the front unless you feel really strong. Someone will always do it for you. 2 to 3 lapos to go really have plan for the finl sprint and get into a position. And once you start the sprint don’t stop til across the line – you can jum,p a number of places by perseverring when others give up short.
I would like to get back into crits when the kids are older but Sunday mornings with them are too valuable at the moment. Best of luck.
Robert, I’m not a competitive cyclist – most of my cycling is commuting and I am involved in our workplace BUG and a state based cycling advocacy organization which is focused around cycling for transport purposes.
I’m just fit enough from my other sport and training (which involves a lot of speed endurance and speed/power training) in addition to my cycling to (usually) be able to put in a sustained sprint to catch up to these twits and then put the hammer down to get away from them. I actually have to rein in my enthusiasm for cycling when the Tour comes here because it clashes with the time when I’m usually trying to maximise my speed and agility and sitting in a saddle for an extended period isn’t that good for those.
Cycling Forums or aus.bicycle (you can view this there too) might be some good sources of advice, they often have posts from people who are a bit older and new to competitive cycling and there are some coaches or club officials lurking around there too. I’m fairly sure there would be people who would be nearby to you as well.
Yes FDB – but of course, if there had been an oncoming vehicle, even a cyclist, you wouldn’t have tried to overtake in the first place. Would you?
What Razor wrote pretty much reflects what I have read A grade coaches advising new riders.
Mountain roads freak me out. Partly the visibility, partly my Sandgroper upbringing of flat, featureless terrain, but also my old Camry wagon doesn’t exactly hug the road. So though I normally go as fast as allowed, I know what you mean Laura. Leaving aside the genuine dickheads, folks in sporty little modern numbers just don’t realise that safe for me is slower than safe for them.
“And I know plenty of people think that driving under the speed limit is morally equivalent to eating babies.”
It always amazes me when I hear these kinds of sentiments expressed. Do these people not know what an upper limit is actually supposed to mean?
I’m always careful to slow down a little more for tail-gaters (and lock my doors)…
Re tailgaters, what’s wrong with the Texas custom outlined above?
Maybe if everyone just decided to take a chill pill…
Laura: indeed, we could do with such a thread.
On the other side of the coin, there are occasions (and I’m not for a minute suggesting that this applies to your situation) where I wish slower drivers would let faster vehicles past when they have the chance.
What I find often happens is that people who don’t drive in the mountains much slow down to 20 km/h for the twisty bits, and as soon as they hit some straight road stand on the gas, making it impossible to get past them before the road bends again.
In that situation, I wish such drivers would let the people following them pass on the straight bit, and then everybody’s happy.
That’s really the common thread Robert, isn’t it? Lack of consideration and care for other road users, whether they be on two or four wheels, or crossing over it on foot.
I semaphore tailgaters with brakelights – they usually back off
Katz @ 86: Passive aggression probably isn’t productive in most cases, I agree.
Insofar as you’re suggesting we carry weapons, I couldn’t disagree more…
Most satisfying is watching somebody tear past you and then seeing them later at the side of the road getting booked. Of course I’ve seen it maybe three times in a decade of driving, so it’s not a high probability.
That’s dead right Robert. It really baffles me how people can manage to drive as poorly as they do sometimes. I don’t actually need to make a conscious effort – I’m just always and automatically checking my mirrors, responding unconsciously to tiny cues from other drivers – a craned neck here, a little change of pace there. Sounds like I’m blowing my own horn of course, and there’s no reason for anyone to believe me, but I seriously don’t need to think about these things any more. It just happens. Whereas for a whole lot of people, Mister Rubie summed it up nicely. They:
“regard their motor vehicle as some kind of magical lounge room that transports them about”
I owe my cantankerous old man a lot for this – he’s a skillful and courteous driver, but has no time for shitty ones. He used to give a running critique of their performance, over the Jethro Tull and Floyd, so I was pretty aware before I even got behind the wheel.
Robert Merkel wrote:
What’s more important? Getting where you are going 2 minutes faster, or just getting where you are going? The mentality of “fastest on the road owns it” needs to be expunged from the psyche of everyone who is granted a drivers license.
And no matter what the justification (it was safer! I had plenty of power!) it makes absolutely zero sense in any feasible situation on the road to accelerate towards something you are trying to avoid. Hit the brakes instead. That’s what every defensive driving instructor on the planet will tell you when you’re in an uncertain situation. Brakes are better, always.
Sorry, I meant Texas MINUS the guns.
That reminds me of an ad for a tyre company featuring a famous motor racer and his wife that showed a car accelerating around a corner while going up what was essentially a blind hill (there being another twist very soon after the one accelerated around) and crossing the midway line – too bad if a car was coming the other way, hey?
I had an inkling, Katz. I’m more of the school of FDB’s old man – a running commentary on what everybody else is doing wrong – than I am committed to obstructing bad drivers. I’m sure I could benefit from some Texas wisdom on occasion, although slowing down gradually is probably the safest way of being aggressive I can think of.
The constant blaming of cyclists for their on-road behaviour no matter what it is – is infuriatingly wrong and out of place. It has nothing at all to do with the issues of motorists vs cyclists. Nothing. I see this as being the argument of the commuter motorist stuck in the loser lane of traffic, who is secretly jealous when he sees a cyclist moving through the traffic to the front. Boohoo.
Look. Blaming cyclists when motorists run them down is like blaming the rape victim for her short skirt. Wrong. And the hallmark of a people who have pack mentality thinking. To think that you could possibly be in the right when you hit a pedestrian or a cyclist is absurd. To reason that cyclists shouldn’t be on the road is absurd. What next? Pedestrians? Underpowered cars? Motorcycles? Old people? (Oddly I’ve heard those requests expressed often enough).
In Saudi Arabia if you have an accident, no matter whose fault you are in the wrong because you are a foreigner and may go to jail as a consequence. Unfair? Well think about it when you say that certain folks should not be on the road.
The issue is that car drivers who, whether maliciously or incompetently, run down cyclists on the road are committing criminal acts and should be dealt with accordingly. Black and white my friends.
Slowing down gradually with middle finger punctuation if additional force is required.
“The issue is that car drivers who, whether maliciously or incompetently, run down cyclists on the road are committing criminal acts and should be dealt with accordingly. Black and white my friends.”
Yes, the issue clearly needs a dose of pig-headed fundamentalism. We were fools to think it could be other than black and white.
Whoa Cate, you’re all over the place there.
“Blaming cyclists when motorists run them down is like blaming the rape victim for her short skirt.”
Okay, now what if the rape victim takes her short skirt into the exercise yard of a sex offender’s prison, lies on the ground and says “I dare you”?
Are you seriously saying there is NO conceivable kind of behaviour that would render a cyclist culpable in a collision? Pretty fucking generous IMHO.
Cate, it really isn’t that simple.
Cyclists can be idiots, Car drivers can be idiots. I’ve been both. I’ve seen both.
The reaity is that large scale cycling is relatively new to our culture and it will take time for both cultures to work things out.
hris (a really different one)
“I know that a lot of cyclists are opposed to number plates on bikes, but I think they would really help. I think cyclists often decide to break the law (like running red lights) because they know the probability of them being identified is very low. It also gives a practical way for motorists to address situations when something happens, rather than feel they have to chase down cyclists in their cars which is dangerous.”
I Cycled with number plates in Calgary Chris and your statement is utter garbage, cyclists still run red lights because they still get bullied and have their lives put at risk by other road users (MOTOR VEHICLES).
Australia wide yearly Motor Vehicles are the major cause of over
- 600,000 reported road crashes
- 200,000 reported injuries
- 2,000 serious injuries requiring long-term care and treatment
- 1,700 Deaths
Cyclists bending the road rules for their own personal safety is simply common sense, Expecting cyclists to act like they are cars is not.
Chinda 63
“The number of times I have come around a blind corner, early in the morning, with sun filtering through the trees making visibility difficult, only to come across a cyclist (sometimes two riding abreast), wearing black, riding smack, bang in the middle of the lane instead of in the hard shoulder is truly frightening. That no-one has been killed is frankly a miracle. If you ask me it is suicidal “
With the bright sun in your eyes Chinda dark clothes stand out more than bright ones, You nearly killing another road user is not suicidal its Manslaughter.
“which part of THERE WAS A CAR BEHIND ME don’t you understand? I didn’t think I had any other choice but to continue with the manoeuvre.
for bike riders to ride in the middle of a lane (where there is no overtaking) on a 100km road.”
When your being tailgated you should slow down, thats supposed to be common knowledge… The other choice was to use your brain.
What is with the stupid mentality of Adelaide Motorists?
Francis Xavier Holden
“There are around 40 deaths of cyclists in Australia each year. Almost all 90% of these are male. But we don’t know the implication of this. Is it simply more males riding or that males are more macho and risk takers.”
Almost all of those 40 cyclist deaths were involving cars and a minority of Australian Cyclists are female so that 90% stat is completely irrelevent. 13% of Sydneycyclist members are female.
Paul Norton
“Taking my cue from Roger, in the interests of fairness and balance I have to mention a particularly pernicious category of dickhead cyclist – namely those who cycle whilst nattering blithely into their mobile phones. In recent times I have seen three such cases – all in almost exactly the same location.”
If anything goes wrong these so called “dickhead cyclists” will still get killed by DICK HEAD MOTORISTS!
FDB
“Any cyclist going in either direction would have been toast, no matter how visible or sensible – this tool in a B&S Ball bedecked ute had ensured the entire road was a chaotic mass of hurtling metal. Frankly my passengers and I were pretty fucking lucky ourselves.”
So cyclists should pay for the stupidity of other motorists? I don’t think so.
(I would have dodged you btw. )
You guys are the epidemy of why cycling on Australian roads is dangerous. Drop your attitudes please, learn how to drive and stop abusing the privilige of driving a motor vehicle.
(BTW im a motorist and i’d drive more if there wasnt so many frickin idiots in cars on the road.)
There is little doubt about the identity of the most dangerous malefactors on the roads. FXH provided a fair outline above.
These folks are driven by hostility and a sense of grievance, the cause of which is somewhat mysterious. But the truth is that many youngish men are either unwilling or unable to restrain themselves from expressing their hostility and grievance in dangerous ways.
When these attitudes and behaviours are channelled into ritual pursuits such as sport or ritualised display of some other kind, then it is less dangerous.
But the combination of this hostility and grievance with several tonnes of overpowered automotive muscle is too perilous for the rest of us who are innocent bystanders.
What’s more, there are some situations where even a pedestrian is culpable.
Are you serious? Have you ever driven a car?
Back when I was 19, I was tootling along in my boganmobile at 40 km/h on a suburban street, which at the time was signposted at 60 km/h (it’d now be 50). A ball bounced out on to the road. I slammed on the brakes. Sure enough, a little kid came bounding out on to the road to retrieve it. He ended up less than a metre from my bumper bar.
Despite what I regard in hindsight as pretty bloody prudent and careful driving, if that ball had bounced out less than half a second later, that kid would have, at the very least, ended up in hospital, and may well have been killed.
“You guys are the epidemy of why cycling on Australian roads is dangerous.”
You haven’t really been paying attention have you? You just saw TEH BIKES VERSUS CARZ and sprayed a bunch of crap around, didn’t you?
Should we expect an outbreak of
flyingcycling monkeys? An “epitomic” of them perhaps?One other point – if it’s not clear from my original post, I think the author would have been very well-advised not to use rape as an analogy – she could have made the same point in many other ways.
Re women talking on their mobiles while riding. I was in Utrecht, Nederlands 8 years ago, Lovely city for cycling, and was amazed to see vast numbers of women happily chatting away on their mobiles. I remarked to my host that this seemed dangerous and he let me know that there had been a spate of attacks on women cyclists a few months before, since then lots of women had started to ride with their phones, either talking or pretending to. Apparently the attacks stopped.
doddsy, in one of the three cases I cited in the comment you quote from, if anything went wrong it would probably be a pedestrian that was seriously injured or killed, as the ’so-called “dickhead cyclist”‘ was barrelling along with his phone glued to his ear on a footpath immediately outside a hospital which is used by recovering in-patients to go to nearby shops, walk for therapy, etc.
BTW I have never driven a motorised vehicle, I commute by bicycle and by public transport, and I don’t believe the irresponsible behaviour of some motorists absolves me of the responsibility to cycle responsibly.
Robert – I have an Uncle who ran over a two year old and killed him when he ran from behind a parked car. The mother saw it happen. She forgave him. It is still a terrible burden to carry despite being forgiven for a complete accident. The Police agreed it was a complete accident.
A mate of mine also hit a kid who chased a ball ontot the road. Fortunately only broke the kid’s leg. A testament to the VW 1200 rounded wheel housings and bonnet.
Apologies for taking the ill-advised analogy to an even iller-advised extreme Rob.
F all your I – Car drivers aren’t (necessarily) rapists, country roads aren’t (necessarily) prisons for rapists, and cyclists aren’t (necessarily) young women in revealing clothing. If they want to be, in this last case, they will find no objection from me, but even so they’re not “asking for it”.
I hope that’s cleared that up.
No worries, FDB.
I looked at the news story in Rob’s post.
I’m amazed that cyclists are permitted to ride in those breakdown lanes in NSW. As Rob said, that is illegal in Victoria.
Reading the story, it is possible that the truck driver who collided with the cyclists was using the breakdown lane as a slip lane, which is no doubt illegal in NSW and is both illegal and a very common practice here in Victoria.
If the truck driver did do that, then he is in severe legal trouble.
However, given that the practice of using the breakdown lane as a slip lane is so common, I’d have to agree that any cyclist who ventures there is dicing with death. Those cyclists didn’t ask for it, they were the victims, they were doing nothing illegal in NSW, but they were also imprudent.
These qualities can also pertain to rape victims.
Can we nuke this useless analogy from orbit please? Car drivers involved in accidents are negligent, stupid and distracted but rarely have criminal intent.
The Victorian situation may be more complex than this. In recent trips to Melbourne I’ve seen signage on the Princes Highway (both south-west and south-east of Melbourne) directing cyclists to use the breakdown lane and cross ramps at marked cyclist crossings, and advising motorists to watch for cyclists. Perhaps the prohibition only pertains closer to the Melbourne CBD,
Could we please stop with the rape analogies? Like now.
As a dedicated pedestrian and non-driver, it’s entirely clear to me that pedestrians can be guilty of causing an accident. Crossing on a red light anyone? Yep, cars should stop and want to stop, but pedestrians do dumb things and put their lives in danger, too.
The alleged absence of criminal intent of motorists is itself a product of the hegemony of the automobile.
In the first part of the 20th century, car drivers were commonly charged with offences under crimes acts — manslaughter, assault, reckless wounding, etc., until it became clear that juries, themselves made up of motorists, refused to convict. Thus, traffic offences were excised from the purview of the common law and were treated quite differently from folks who committed crimes using other weapons.
I ride to and from work every day in Melbourne, and try to ride everywhere else as long as I’m not carrying a load I can’t fit in my backpack, and each leg of the journey isn’t overly long. On the odd occasions when I am forced to drive places I would normally ride, I itch to be back on my bike
Of all the tribes mentioned by RM – and I think fixe/single speed riders cop more stick than they deserve – the one that most frequently leaves me shaking my head in amazement is the “basket brigade” – people on cruisers or rusty old bikes, no lights, helmet in basket or on handlebars, wobbling along at 15 km/h but stopping for nothing. I don’t see them as much since I moved away from Brunswick
My girlfriend and I also like to point out “Things that go bump in the night” to each other, i.e. people riding at night with no lights or reflective/high vis. clothing. There’s also the trifecta/quadrella etc. for the highest score from no helmet/no lights/no hands/talking on phone/running a red light/failing to give way etc.
I feel that – in general – motorists’ awareness and acceptance of cyclists around and close to the CBD has improved since I started commuting (could still be better). Further out it starts to get a bit more dicey. Anecdotally, indicating to move into a lane etc. seems to result in more people letting you in than gunning to get past you, which is what it used to result in.
In the end it boils down to courtesy, or a lack thereof – see the finger/hand wave acknowledgment after passing, pulling over if you’re holding up traffic on mountain roads and the like. Interestingly, IIRC in NZ you can be booked for failing to pull over into a passing bay if you’re slow traffic.
As an aside, I spent December in Canada, in and around Canmore (the Rockies). On the highways there, speed limits seem to be taken as more of a guide than a rule, but I felt far safer than I do when driving on Victorian highways. I decided it was because in Victoria you get nailed for being 3km/h over the limit (speed enforcement as revenue raising doesn’t seem to have caught on there, yet), so traffic never spreads out but travels along in this densely packed bunch with everyone afraid to speed up and get clear into open road, but also afraid to slow down because then you get tailgated or someone jumps across and fills the gap, and then you’re traveling slower than the dense traffic which is a bit unnerving in its own right.
Contrast this with Canada, where people just overtook you, and if you wanted some space you just sped up/slowed down and there was the freedom for the traffic to flow, and for people to travel at their own pace. Maybe it was because I was in the Rockies, and I was on holiday, but the difference was VERY noticeable when I got home. That and canucks just seem to be courteous people. Oh, and they have awesome snow and ice
Where was I again… >:D
Perhaps this thread can be summarised by a paraphrase of Ghandi:
“Be careful of trying to create roads and road rules so perfect that motorists and cyclists no longer need to be good.”
Not to mention a ripsnortingly good unofficial national anthem.
Katz: “I was resident in Texas and have visited that state many times before and since.”
Aha! At last, a glimmer of sanity from Katz!
We ‘ppreciate it.
Oh, Jesus – the hegemony of it all!!
If being certified as sane simply involves visiting Texas, then LHO and GWB are among the sanest persons on earth.
But on the other hand, H. L. Mencken quipped that if he owned hell and Texas, he’d live in hell and rent out Texas.
Boringly, I found Texas to be like the Curate’s Egg — good in parts.
“If being certified as sane…”
Don’t get so carried away. I only said, “a glimmer.”
“I’m right” he said
As he rode along
But he’s just as dead
As if he were wrong
Speaking as a vulnerable road user myself, it amazes me that others, particularly (but not exclusively) cyclists, appar to believe that the moral high ground provides them with a cloak of invincibility.
Whilst the cyclist, or pedestrian, or motorcyclist may be acting entirely within the law and in an otherwise entirely reasonable manner, when someone screws up, for whatever reason, it’s going to be the one without the protective carapace who gets hurt. There aren’t many causes I’d be prepared to die for, and my rights under the Road Rules certainly aren’t among them. Try crossing side-streets on foot in Perth, expecting turning vehicles to give way to you, as is your right. You’ll be a 20m red smear with lumps in it within a few minutes. it shouldn’t be that way, but it is, and anyone who acts as if it’s otherwise is either suicidally ignorant or more devoted to matters of principle than I’ll ever be.
So, yes, it makes a degree of sense to take evasive action when the situation, if not the law, demands it. It also makes a hell of a lot of sense to, eg, at least be aware of what’s around you and not, for instance, hop your bicycle off the kerb without even glancing in the direction of potential traffic, which is an act I see on a daily basis and which will become considerably more hazardous as the hybrid and electric proportion of the vehicle fleet increases.
No, cyclists should not be abused and bullied or run down. Nor should pedestrians and nor should motorcyclists, or drivers of small, odd or old cars.
But, for goodness sake, some degree of realism is, I think, warranted. There are idiots driving cars, trucks and buses out there. There are also idiots riding bicycles, riding motorcycles and walking. There are a lot of idiots, full stop. For anyone to claim any given group to be entirely blameless is ludicrous.
As I see it, the only real, lasting answer to the “them and us” situation on the roads does not lie in fanatical, evangelical advocacy by any group (been there, done that, didn’t actually achieve much) but in simple numbers. It becomes much harder to see minority group members as faceless inconveniences or weirdos to be victimised when you’ve got family members or friends within that group.
And yes, I find myself on the receiving end of a lot more aggro from 18-30 yo white males than any other single demographic. But not much because I’m a big scary bastard on the outside.
oddsy – you ok there? no worries – great internet tradition – comment and sound off without reading topic or comments.
Slightly off topic, but Ye Olde Idiotic Male stereotype is certainly not without foundation here.
And I only said “if”.
Paul In Australia on Average less than 1 Pedestrian a year is killed by Cyclists so if it happens its a freak accident. If the stats miraculously change then i’ll change my opinions.
Yes Francis I’m ok thanks for asking. Just sick of people thinking i’m dangerous because they will run me over.. It just doesnt make sense.
If you run me over your the danger not me.
35% of Australian motor vehicle journeys are less than 2 kilometers. People need to stop driving.
“If you run me over your the danger not me.”
Now let’s all sing along with Gershwin…
It ain’t necessarily so
It ain’t necessarily so
The t’ings dat yo’ li’ble
To read in de Bible,
It ain’t necessarily so.
Li’l David was small, but oh my !
Li’l David was small, but oh my !
He fought Big Goliath
Who lay down an’ dieth !
Li’l David was small, but oh my !
Wadoo, zim bam boddle-oo,
Hoodle ah da wa da,
Scatty wah !
Oh yeah !…
Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale,
Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale,
Fo’ he made his home in
Dat fish’s abdomen.
Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale.
Li’l Moses was found in a stream.
Li’l Moses was found in a stream.
He floated on water
Till Ol’ Pharaoh’s daughter,
She fished him, she said, from dat stream.
Wadoo …
Well, it ain’t necessarily so
Well, it ain’t necessarily so
Dey tells all you chillun
De debble’s a villun,
But it ain’t necessarily so !
To get into Hebben
Don’ snap for a sebben !
Live clean ! Don’ have no fault !
Oh, I takes dat gospel
Whenever it’s pos’ble,
But wid a grain of salt.
Methus’lah lived nine hundred years,
Methus’lah lived nine hundred years,
But who calls dat livin’
When no gal will give in
To no man what’s nine hundred years ?
I’m preachin’ dis sermon to show,
It ain’t nece-ain’t nece
Ain’t nece-ain’t nece
Ain’t necessarily … so !
Katz — well I’ll grant you this much (“Dost *grant* me, hedgehog?!”)…
I’ll only say, “Heh.”
Firstly, recreational driving is not actually banned from public roads even if a specific form of recreational driving ie racing is.
Secondly, the ‘danger’ posed by cyclists is in no way commensurable with the danger posed by speeding drivers, so it is fatuous to suggest that the policy responses (ie banning them) should be equivalent.
Thirdly, you may notice that a large number of cyclists do in fact use the public transport infrastructure to transport themselves and goods from place to place. The fact that they do this transport in a way that is economically and environmentally friendlier than car transport, but at a personal cost, is why public policy should support such use (albeit not exclusively).
Secondly, the ‘danger’ posed by cyclists is in no way commensurable with the danger posed by speeding drivers, so it is fatuous to suggest that the policy responses (ie banning them) should be equivalent.
You completely miss this point Martin. It’s not about what’s dangerous. It’s about what roads are for.
Saying that cyclists should receive “equal rights” in road use completely ignores the reasons that the roads are there to begin with: Transport.
Bicycles are not for transport, they are for recreation.
Martin B, Yobbo seems to be trolling here. It’s been pointed out a couple of times already that many cyclists aren’t just cycling for sport/recreation, but he’s not interested.
Have you considered driving responsibly?
The law is actually very clear on this – you are required to drive at such a speed that you can stop safely in the distance you can see. Driving around a blind corner in the hope that the road is clear is illegal as well as stupid.
TIB @ 125 – I think you make some very good points. As I’ve gained experience cycling on roads I’ve learnt to ride a lot more defensively – riding on the basis that cars haven’t seen me (eg being very cautious when cars are turning left over a cycle lane I’m in). Its a slower trip, but much safer.
I think there are some things that governments can do to help. People laugh a bit about the “green forcefields” on cycle lanes in Canberra – they paint the cycle lanes bright green on some major roads in the areas where its common for cars to merge on or turn off. Its just a simple reminder to car drivers that cyclists have right of way there and I think it helps.
#135 Chris,
there is an obverse case where bike riders may become better car drivers – I recommend everyone who is fit to do so practise on different modes of transport. No doubt folks will come up with examples that will break this rule. But I drive like I ride, looking 360 as much as possible and gauging what drivers will do next. But I find more freedom on the bike, so prefer that.
And defensive riding I find like defensive driving – it can actually be safer, faster – if you can gauge what drivers are going to do (watch their “drift” – most drivers indicate by their motion what they are going to do next – I only slow down when I detect erratic behaviour or indecision). If you have enough strength in your legs to accelerate out of a particular position, then you’re good to go.
Francis Xavier Holden and Mr Merkel miss the point in the original article of the 1.5million bikes sold. It was not suggesting that all these bicycles (and their riders) are surging onto the roads to replace cars, but rather that as a proportion of the population bike riders aren’t really a minority. Sure there are minorities of regular cycle commuters; racers, cafe riders, etc, but with so many australian households having a bike, even if it is only ridden very occasionally, we aren’t really an “out” group but rather represent a reasonable demographic spread.
Wolverina – the only point made as far as I can see is that the proportion of road use consisting of bike riders is tiny.
I drove from Mortdale in Sydney’s south-west to Chippendale (near the CBD) and back yesterday, and decided to do a bit of an informal survey. I encountered the usual number of bad drivers for a trip like that (approximately 40 minutes each way) – ie a lot – and maybe 2 or 3 very stupid things were observed.
Given that the route included parts of Sydney’s inner west, including King St Newtown, I expected to, and did, observe a few more cyclists than would be typically seen in other parts of Sydney. I counted 12 in all actually mobile on bicycles. Of those, only 2 were riding on the road in what I consider to be a safe fashion: one making his way along a quiet street, the other pulled up and stopped at a set of lights waiting to turn. 8 cyclists were riding on footpaths and didn’t come onto the road for the time that I was observing them. 1 cyclist ran a red light, switched from the road to the footpath and back several times while in view. The final cyclist of the 12 crossed King Street diagonally in front of a stream of traffic after running a red light, and then rode up at full speed onto the footpath narrowly missing several pedestrians.
I don’t infer anything much from this – most of the cyclists observed weren’t putting others in danger – but I do consider it a fairly typical set of observations, and wouldn’t be surprised if the proportion of badly behaved cyclists was similar to that of badly behaved drivers, if we were to define ‘badly behaved’ as, through pig-headedness or obliviousness, causing danger to themselves and others.
They are not travelling in high-powered, high-speed 4-wheel (or even 2-wheel i.e. motorcycles) vehicles with comparable road-speed pickup and external casing and protections, nor are they pedestrians… which implies that they are, in fact, a ‘homogenous’ group
.
And hence car drivers are an homogenous group?
.
I tend to think stereotypes are grounded in some kind of reality. They might be self-serving, xenophobic and inaccurate but they aren’t just brain farts.
.
Most of us who ride bicycles don’t think of the activity as one bound by rules of traffic as drivers. Bikes don’t have license plates either so you can go thru a red light on a bike and the camera’s won’t pick you up. Bikes on the roads en mass are a new phenomena and they’re something for people to get pissed off at. The road is a place of conflict. After all people who drive SUVs have certain stereotypical characteristics. Likewise luxury cars (they’re arseholes).
.
And bikes – the same. At least for me. I’ve ridden down freeways the wrong way without the proper safety equipment. It was 3 o’Clock in the morning tho’ (Beethoven made me do it).
Wolverina: is somebody who only ever rides up and down their quiet suburban back street to keep an eye on their kid a “bike rider”?