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question_id: 430
The road was made for cars. It’s a road that’s slowly being shrunk and chopped up so bike lanes and Lycra-friendly nooks can be carved into parking spaces across the city.
As a motorist I don’t mind sharing the road. With other cars. But, cyclists often take ,things too far, and I’m not just talking about their leg grooming habits. Some of the things they do on the road simply drive me mad. So here they are.
1. When You Take Up A Quarter Of A Lane You Might As Well Take Up The Whole Lane
Cycling 30cm from the gutter means the cyclist is being responsible and allowing cars to use the whole lane, right?
Wrong! To prevent killing someone, sensible motorists leave 1m between their car and the bike, meaning that an incursion on the next lane is necessary.
The car is going at least 60km/h; the bike is doing 35km/h, absolute tops.
The motorist is faced with getting stuck behind the bike or choosing the right time to daringly swerve into the adjacent lane to get around the cyclist and keep traffic moving.
If you take up a quarter of the lane, you’re taking up the lane per se.
When a cyclist takes up a quarter of a lane, they might as well take up the whole lane.
2. Don’T Touch My Car
Everybody’s stopped at the lights and the cyclist realises that two wheels don’t stand up on their own. Thankfully my car is there to lean on! No need to ask, just lean on the car and smudge up that duco.
What would happen if a pedestrian leaned against a bike at the lights? The cyclist would tell them to get f***ed and stop touching their expensive bike. Well, get f***ed and stop touching my expensive car!
But try telling that to a cyclist. They squirt you with their $60 water bottle and hit the bonnet with an open palm.
There’s no recourse for the motorist, since even the slightest nudge from a real vehicle can kill somebody on a 20kg metal frame wearing almost nothing.
3. You Can See Me Indicating So Why Pull Up Next To Me?
I intend to turn left at the lights and the cyclist intends to go straight ahead. So why pull up on my left side where I can’t see you, then get all upset when I nearly run you over? The cyclist knows they can’t pull away from the lights in time. They just expect everyone to wait for them. Please wait behind my car. But don’t touch it.
When cyclists want to go straight ahead and cars want to turn.
4. You Want Road? Obey Road Laws
Motorists pay through the nose for annual registration and are subjected to all sorts of increasingly absurd measures to keep an eye on our speed and behaviour, including a new super camera than can spot a numberplate from 700m away.
All cyclists have to do is wear a helmet, and often not even that is adhered to. And red lights? Nah, don’t worry about those red lights. Just have a gander around and mosey on through. What’s the worst that can happen? A red light camera will log the rego plate? No rego plate! Ha ha.
Outrage. If I took the same attitude to intersections, I’d be in front of a magistrate faster than Silvio Berlusconi at schoolies.
If you want to be on the road, obey the law. And a bike registration system isn’t a bad idea either.
Obey laws or get off road.
5. You Go Slower Than Cars So Don’T Pretend You’Re A Car
I’m turning out of a side street, patiently waiting until the traffic is clear. Finally I get my chance. But wait. There’s a lone cyclist pedalling at 15km/h about 20m up the road. Should I pull out? Maybe I’ll hit them. But, they’re going very slowly, I guess … Well, now it’s too late. My traffic window has been ruined and now I face another wait.
You’re slow, so don’t pretend you’re a car. And you’re not Cadel Evans either.
OK, so there are probably three people on the planet who look good in top to toe Lycra, or with their right sock tucked into their jeans. That doesn’t give motorists the authority to bully cyclists off our roads.
I’m pretty sure that Australian roads were originally built for horses, carriages, drovers and penny farthings. Cars came much, much later. But you’d never know that the way drivers carry on about sharing the roads with cyclists.
1. You Do Not Own The Road
Whether you like it or not, bicycles are allowed on the road. It’s the law. And don’t tell us there are plenty of bike paths we should be using. Have you actually tried to ride a bike down any of these?
Kids on scooters, tourists meandering like Brown’s cows, joggers, wheelchairs, dogs, prams, rollerbladers … the list of obstacles is endless, particularly along The Esplanade and Beach Rd. The paths are great for a recreational ride with small kids or a rickshaw ride with your nanna but useless for those cycling for exercise — you know that thing that keeps us fit and healthy and goes a long way to stopping us becoming the world’s fattest and sickest, clogging up the hospitals and costing us all money.
And P.S. if you’re on Beach Rd or Yarra Blvd, there’s a chance that cyclist may very well be Cadel Evans or Simon Gerrans or another world champion.
Riding on the road means the bike can go faster than 1km/h.
2. Stop Banging On About Bike Registration
What problem is this solving? Yes, it might catch a few cyclists running red lights but at what price to the state (imagine the VicRoads budget blowout to set up an entire department to administer the registration process).
Yes, there are idiots on bikes, just as there are idiots driving cars, but law-breaking riders are not the issue here.
Registration or licensing may be a popular dinner party conversation but it’s not very practical and it’s not a solution. The problem is cars killing cyclists, not the other way around.
It’s not like the bike lane takes up the whole road. Or even half.
3. What’s Your Hurry?
Is there a fire at your house, a national emergency that requires your immediate and urgent attendance? Waiting patiently behind a cyclist for a safe time to overtake or make a turn — or whatever — would delay your journey by a few minutes at worst.
Instead, you could honk your horn, make obscene gestures, yell abuse out the car window and generally make a $%&^^%# of yourself. Yeah, maybe that’s the way to go.
4. Logic, People, Logic
Going to pose a few questions:
Why are you angry about a person on a bike taking up lane space but you couldn’t give a toss about a parked car taking up even more space?
Why are you angry about the establishment of bike lanes when you complain about bikes taking up space that you want to be reserved for cars?
Why are you angry about cyclists riding two abreast in pelotons when it’s quicker and safer to overtake a group than a long conga line of single-file riders?
Why spread tacks in the shoulder of a road when all that does is force the cyclist into the middle of the road making it even more frustrating for the car driver?Makes no sense.
Riding two abreast actually makes it easier for cars to pass.
5. Mind The Gap
So you don’t really agree with bikes being on the road – a bloody nuisance. But the law’s the law so guess you’ll have to suck it up.
Oh look, here’s one of those “cockroaches” up ahead. They should move over to let you pass, you don’t need to make room, they want to “share” the road then that’s what you’ll do, “share”.
What happens next is you overtake so close that the cyclist is forced into the gutter or into the gravel or grass on the roadside or touches the wheel of his fellow rider or he is momentarily shocked and loses control of the bike, falls off and presto heavy bruising, broken collarbone, or worse into the path of a car behind you.
If there’s one small thing a car driver doesn’t do that can have catastrophic consequences it’s not leaving enough room between himself and the cyclist.
And while we’re on the subject, that “cockroach” (thanks Derryn Hinch, a dumber more devolved attitude there surely cannot be) is someone’s dad, son, sister, mum, aunty or best mate.
Like the campaign says, a metre matters.
Source: Herald Sun
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