FlySurfer said...

DavMen said...
The vast majority of cyclists and drivers co-exhist in harmony

Lol, like cats & dogs.

hahaha - yeah sounds funny

Always happy to produce some comic releif

As a mater of interest are there any countries that do this (tax cyclists)?

How does a dead cyclist identify a car from a rego plate. If the bike had rego, the car driver would be able to identify who he ran over.

good to see some consensus appraising

" only guys in lycra ( girls obviously excluded ) and ( I would say) any on fixed gear bikes should pay rego "

the rest ride free

Little Jon said...

I'm pretty sure the lanes are clogged up with cars not bicycles.

Registration is not required because cyclists don't kill people. Motorists do and need to be identified when they try and do a runner and they also need to have insurance, most of the cost of registration is the greenslip/TPP.

good argument I still stand by my comment that i don;t mind paying as I can tell motorists to **** off their argument that bikes don;t pay anyting to be on roads and as a result they see you as fair game and try to run you down or treat you as if you don;t exist as a raod user

Repeat after me, the right or wrong of riding on the road is irrelevant. There is no point in being right when you're dead, crippled or brain damaged

The continuing emphasis is that cyclist are killed or injured because drivers are bad (and cyclist are good). The whole problem would be fixed if drivers only took the effort to drive better.

This is complete and utter bull****.

Arterial roads at peak hour are an industrial system. There is not much difference between an arterial road and a fork lift lane in a warehouse or a conveyor belt on an assembly line or a railway track. In those cases you have big yellow lines and security cameras and sensors and stuff. There are protocols to shut down the process before people are allowed anywhere near them.

I used to do work on the railways and it took us weeks of work and planning before we were allowed within 3 metres of the track. Months if we actually wanted to do actual work on the track.

But in the cases of roads and cyclists, it's all right to have semi-naked people on the road, wearing foam lunch boxes on their heads, riding on flimsy frames, with inadequate tyres and brakes, riding at 1/3- 1/2 the speed of the traffic, with a visual profile that is completely obscured by a door pillar or passing vehicle, virtually unable to see behind them, certainly unable to react to any emergency situation, in the impact zone for people turning or opening doors, with the expectation that the very same drivers (who are incapable of sharing the road and driving carefully enough) will protect you.

You are out of your ****ing mind!! The very fact that you want to ride on the road at peak hour means you have no appreciation of the situation. You need to be tranquilised and put into care.

PS. While we're at it, I ride with multiple, mega-powerful LED lights front and rear. I go to a fair bit of effort not to blind other riders and pedestrians.

There are two issues with cycle lighting:
1. Even the brightest of bright lights are totally obscured by a shrub or a pole or a door pillar. You cannot expect to be seen just because you have 1000 lumens of flashing light. Most cyclists have single leds with flat batteries.

2. If you wear your mega power LED on your head you just blind everybody else riders, pedestrians and drivers. Turn them off or learn to dip them when people are oncoming. It's not that hard.

There is one and only one way to have bikes as transport. Ban all bikes from arterial roads (at least at peak hour) and build a segregated bicycle arterial road network.

It must be physically separated from road transport and from pedestrians. It should have at least a curb, or preferably a barrier.

I spent 7 years driving between Marangaroo and Rendez. Ob. City. in Scarborough, down Hepburn and Marmion/ West Coast hwy, and it amazed me the amount of bike riders who prefered or insisted to use the road and mix with traffic- when there is a lovely flat purpose built bike and pedestrian pathway provided running parallel to all these roads, with often more than 6m separation and kerbing between the path and the road/Hwy.
In that time I saw the results of 9 accidents on that stretch where bikes and riders ended up under or over vehicles, and a few vehicles paintwork and mirrors damaged from bikes splitting lanes that resulted in heated exchanges.
I think its a fair statement that there would be many I didnt see.

I will agree that bikes have the right to use the roads- but common sense says if you mix with monsters you may well get hurt.

If a bike path or dual use path is there why not use it!
If you are worried about other bikes or pedestrians getting in the way- use the bell that you are required to have on your bike, and go around them. Its a damn sight safer than being on the road.
I imagine that a collision with a bike or pedestrian will do you less damage than going under a buss, truck, 4wd or sedan.

As for lane splitting- it is one of the few perks that both bicycles and motorcycles have in traffic, but I am pretty sure it is an offence to drive (or ride) within 4' of another vehicle. (Thats what I was informed by an instructor way back in the dark ages)
If anyone can clarify this- please do so!

BenKirk said...

Ah yes but in a car you can swear to your hearts content and take out all your lifes frustrations by bashing the steering wheel while you sit in bumper to bumper traffic listening to Alan Jones babbling on.

Macroscien said... charging $150 for ride without helmet in the park bike line or riding on the footpath is also ridiculous.

Beg to differ here, I'd say it's not nearly enough. Ride up and down the west coast here in Perth and have a squiz at how many cyclists here don't bother to wear one. They ride by in full view of the cops who don't bother to pull them up. In all my years of riding here, I've only ever witnessed one blitz at City Beach on a Sat or Sun am. The law should be enforced or dumped, J

James said...

Macroscien said... charging $150 for ride without helmet in the park bike line or riding on the footpath is also ridiculous.

Beg to differ here, I'd say it's not nearly enough. Ride up and down the west coast here in Perth and have a squiz at how many cyclists here don't bother to wear one. They ride by in full view of the cops who don't bother to pull them up. In all my years of riding here, I've only ever witnessed one blitz at City Beach on a Sat or Sun am. The law should be enforced or dumped, J

Bike helmets should be for under 16s imo.

kiteboy dave said...

Mr float said...

BenKirk said...

Ah yes but in a car you can swear to your hearts content and take out all your lifes frustrations by bashing the steering wheel while you sit in bumper to bumper traffic listening to Alan Jones babbling on.

You listen to Alan 'cottaging' Jones? Saddo. Google "chopper vs alan jones" vid for a good laugh.

Re the pic above, didn't we debunk it in a previous thread, or was that on a different forum? It's a crock anyway...

76 on a bus, how many cars are there?

James said...

Macroscien said... charging $150 for ride without helmet in the park bike line or riding on the footpath is also ridiculous.

Beg to differ here, I'd say it's not nearly enough. Ride up and down the west coast here in Perth and have a squiz at how many cyclists here don't bother to wear one. They ride by in full view of the cops who don't bother to pull them up. In all my years of riding here, I've only ever witnessed one blitz at City Beach on a Sat or Sun am. The law should be enforced or dumped, J

I ride a lot, 500+ km/week without a helmet. When you have a lot of heat coming off the road, you want maximum surfaces available for sweat to evaporate and keep your body temperature down. Your skull is just about the best exposed surface for that when you're on a ride. It gets the best air current over it

I get regular calls from cars telling me I should be wearing one. Why? So if they hit me and I land on the top of my head i'll get slightly less injured?

This is ridiculous, but true. The last time I had a decent accident, a P plate woman drove straight in front of me to turn a corner. Bright day, bright coloured non Lycra sweatshirt, so I was clearly visible. I dented her passenger side door and got a bit bruised. My head went nowhere near the road. OK, clearly her fault, all I want is for her to pay for my bike. NO, she says. I was not wearing a helmet, so that means it was my fault. Eventually, the police are called and they issue her a ticket for not turning safely. I got one for not wearing a helmet, but she didn't get one for not wearing P plates. Seemed unfair to me.

So I send her a letter of demand for my bike, and the next day her fat Lebanese family all front up to my house wanting me to say that her mother was driving so that the excess will be less. After wasting an hour of my time a couple of days earlier denying liability while I was only saying words along the lines of .... these things happen.... no serious injury.... just pay the damage and we're done.

How about this for an idea..... double demerits for anyone who causes an accident with a bike. We got them every holday weekend for traffic tickets generally. The law and order auction is forever increasing penalties for crimes of impulse and passion, or against children, so why not increase penalties for crimes of negligence, like failing to keep clear of bike riders?

I used to ride quite a bit in the not too distant past (commuting), part of the reason I stopped was because it just wasn't safe out there for anybody and registration ain't gonna stop that.

I think like macroscience and Gorgo said, the only safe way is complete, cut off segregation, ie no cars where there are cyclists and no cyclists where there are cars, same for pedestrian/cyclepaths. One particular piece of town planning that always fascinated me was the bike/footpath leading up to barrack street jetty past the rowing club. They built a nice new path surrounded by palm trees with lots of shade etc, and made it the shared path and banned cycle traffic along the other bland but direct path. Guess which one all the pedestrians want to walk along?

What chance have we got with brilliant planning like that on the go?

Little Jon said...

sn said...

I spent 7 years driving between Marangaroo and Rendez. Ob. City. in Scarborough, down Hepburn and Marmion/ West Coast hwy, and it amazed me the amount of bike riders who prefered or insisted to use the road and mix with traffic- when there is a lovely flat purpose built bike and pedestrian pathway provided running parallel to all these roads, with often more than 6m separation and kerbing between the path and the road/Hwy.
In that time I saw the results of 9 accidents on that stretch where bikes and riders ended up under or over vehicles, and a few vehicles paintwork and mirrors damaged from bikes splitting lanes that resulted in heated exchanges.
I think its a fair statement that there would be many I didnt see.

I will agree that bikes have the right to use the roads- but common sense says if you mix with monsters you may well get hurt.

If a bike path or dual use path is there why not use it!
If you are worried about other bikes or pedestrians getting in the way- use the bell that you are required to have on your bike, and go around them. Its a damn sight safer than being on the road.
I imagine that a collision with a bike or pedestrian will do you less damage than going under a buss, truck, 4wd or sedan.

As for lane splitting- it is one of the few perks that both bicycles and motorcycles have in traffic, but I am pretty sure it is an offence to drive (or ride) within 4' of another vehicle. (Thats what I was informed by an instructor way back in the dark ages)
If anyone can clarify this- please do so!

So if you're stupid enough to drive a car don't complain when you get hit by a semi.

That lovely pathway was not designed for bikes and probably full of parked cars.

Lane splitting is a big problem but the offenders are cars trying to over take in the same lane. They're the ones that talk about bikes should be keeping to the left.

There are plenty of car drivers who deserve to be run down by semi's or trucks- lord knows I have had more than my fair share of what appear to be suicidal car drivers try and kill themselves under my loaded flat bed.
That empty space I try and maintain in front of my truck (or car- or bike) is needed to stop my vehicle. loaded trucks especially need more space to stop.

The pathways in question are designed, built and maintained for bicycles, or dual use bike and pedestrian- but few bikes actually use them.They are wide, flat and almost allways at least 6 metres away from the roads- and often on a different level. The only vehicles I have ever seen remotely near these pathways were the council mowers and maintenance blokes working around the paths. They are not used for parking.

Dont understand your bit about lane splitting- if you have 2 to 3 lanes of either stationary vehicles(waiting for traffic lights to change)- or they are crawling along- and lycrayob is head down tail up asserting his right to the road, and going out of his way to knock mirrors and scratch paint, you think its the drivers fault and not the riders?

Although lane splitting is tolerated here in Western Australia- we all recognise it helps keep traffic flowing- I am pretty sure it is an offence to drive within 1m or 1.2m of another vehicle.

If someone knows better I dont mind admitting I am wrong. It was some time ago I was informed of this- and I may well be mistaken.

The NSW rules that Little Jon is supposed to comply with however could be way different to ours.

The main point I am making is that our bike riders winge and moan that its not safe on the roads- so our govt. has put a heap of dedicated bike paths and bike lanes in for them- and the mugs will not use them! there is always room for improvement- and more pathways and lanes are being put in everywhere- but if they are not used, whats the point.

stephen.