Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

jcjordan wrote:

human909 wrote: As it stands it is almost impossible to remove the doubt so will never get a conviction

Easiest thing in the world.

Doubters would recreate the scene as the offended party with the injured party (or their representative) operating the motor vehicle. Of course immunity from prosecution for the driver at the event would be in place.

Refusing to take the place of the injured party would be guilty verdict

I personally have started going on the offensive re: road advocacy.


Whenever the opportunity arises I fire back. Haters on Facebook? I post a YouTube video of a truck or car doing what they were whining cyclists do and point out that the cyclist is primarily endangering their own life whereas the motorist endangers all road users.

Recently I've taken to Twitter. I retweet hate comments to "save" them and to name and shame. I also point out that they're coming across as a lunatic or encourage them to get further driving lessons to learn how to overtake a cyclist safely.

In person? That's played case by case. Unbelievably family members will rage on cyclists. I tend to tread carefully here although I'm getting sick of it. Workmates? Depends, I work with some dead set losers.

Now I'm not good at arguments. However knowledge and ammunition is a real give me when your opponent is an ignorant bigot. Especially when they trot out the same argument time and time again. Rego, no insurance, Lycra, don't obey road rules, don't use bike lanes, slows them down.

Yawn. I think I'll put some effort into a video refuting those tired bon-arguments.

KonaCommuter wrote:I personally have started going on the offensive re: road advocacy.

Good on you for speaking up. Most people don't know what to think one way or the other about cycling as transport. If petrol-heads and shock jocks are the only voices ever raised on the subject, their moronitude might be mistaken for common wisdom.

Mulger bill wrote:While I agree with every word Andy, I find the likelihood of such unity happening to be depressingly slim. Riding has so many forms from the hardcore roadie to the full faced and armoured freerider to nanna taking her Omafiets to the shops for a loaf of bread and a bit o' meat for the cat that it is a very tribal activity with great levels of suspicion between groups. Read many threads here and you'll find the same, reasonable discussion often rapidly degenerating into a slanging match attacking and defending the various tribes. Various cycling bodies nationwide can't even agree to a unified approach to something as simple as safe passing distance for Sheldons sake (No offence to you Dave. Keep on fighting the good fight)

Until we can all come together as "riders" and not "serious cyclists", "MTBers", "PoBSOs", "Commuters", "Hipsters" and Sheldon knows what else we will remain the annoying little subgroup of weirdos to non riders and the smarter of them WILL foster and play on these divisions to further their own ends.

United we roll. Divided, we're road pizza.

I said that some months ago on here, and the response was derisive.

Bike riders are too divided, and more interested in tossing grenades at each other. The touring cyclists don't like the road cyclists, etc. And the serious "road cyclists" don't want off road bike paths because they fear those paths will meant they get barred from using the road.

And even the advocacy groups can't act as one.

Dave on here is sort of like the one-man band who is punching incredibly far above his weight, and getting things happening and I respect him enormously for that. He is noisy, aggressive and in your face. And that approach is working well.

human909 wrote:You are continuing to confuse the road rules with the the charge of dangerous driving.

Don't get me wrong. I have no objections to the push for 1.5 passing laws. But the recent court case decision goes WELL beyond this. And one more road rule still won't add clarity to the recent court case. It still won't prove dangerous driving to the jury.

And this comment proves the point of the division in the cycling community. Rather than being critical, just get on the bandwagon and do whatever we can and whatever needs to be done to deter these drivers from doing dangerous things.

As a community, we need to be more together on these issues.

jules21 wrote:make no mistake, this is at a crisis point. change to laws and enforcement practices protecting cyclists must change. this isn't going away and the more incidents that occur, the more we learn just how inadequate the status quo is. it's time to get behind those who are working to drive change - SCA, AGF, etc.

i'm not saying what the answer is, but anything would be better than what exists now, which is effectively nothing.

With all due respect, why are we only a crisis point now? We were at that point ages ago, and in fact is was probably even worse when we didn't have much cycling infrastructure like we have now, and probably even less people cycling.

g-boaf wrote:

human909 wrote:You are continuing to confuse the road rules with the the charge of dangerous driving.

Don't get me wrong. I have no objections to the push for 1.5 passing laws. But the recent court case decision goes WELL beyond this. And one more road rule still won't add clarity to the recent court case. It still won't prove dangerous driving to the jury.

And this comment proves the point of the division in the cycling community. Rather than being critical, just get on the bandwagon and do whatever we can and whatever needs to be done to deter these drivers from doing dangerous things.

As a community, we need to be more together on these issues.

G-boaf I find you comments quite insulting.

I am NOT being critical. I have specifically and numerous times said I support the push for passing laws. But me suggesting other changes are also necessary is hardly being critical!

Mulger bill wrote:While I agree with every word Andy, I find the likelihood of such unity happening to be depressingly slim. Riding has so many forms from the hardcore roadie to the full faced and armoured freerider to nanna taking her Omafiets to the shops for a loaf of bread and a bit o' meat for the cat that it is a very tribal activity with great levels of suspicion between groups. Read many threads here and you'll find the same, reasonable discussion often rapidly degenerating into a slanging match attacking and defending the various tribes. Various cycling bodies nationwide can't even agree to a unified approach to something as simple as safe passing distance for Sheldons sake (No offence to you Dave. Keep on fighting the good fight)

Until we can all come together as "riders" and not "serious cyclists", "MTBers", "PoBSOs", "Commuters", "Hipsters" and Sheldon knows what else we will remain the annoying little subgroup of weirdos to non riders and the smarter of them WILL foster and play on these divisions to further their own ends.

United we roll. Divided, we're road pizza.

Unity would be fine in an ideal world. Unfortunately when you call someone to account for inaction, you find yourself threatened with legal action. When you have 5,000 Queenslanders in 3 weeks signing their support for 1.5 in addition to the support of the RACQ, more than a couple of senior members of the QPS, Triathlon Qld, Shimano Australia, not to mention SEVENTY SEVEN PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE OF QLD AS OF 8PM LAST NIGHT(!), and you have other groups hounding you to the point that they actually call for meetings with the sponsoring MP (Bruce Flegg told me in advance about the meeting the following day) put forward alternatives to that being asked for, what makes you think anyone would entertain any such notions as collaboration?!
SCA has been all over this since BEFORE the Pollett case had been decided in the courts. SCA has gained the support of 77% of the people of Qld. That's worth repeating as often as necessary for the message to sink in.
SCA is doing what we believe BQ should be doing themselves and they flatly refuse to comment on - let alone support - the 1.5 push.
SCA is listening to what Queenslanders want and it always has. We now have a situation where FNQ specifically is being targeted by more than interstate group in an effort to undermine the SCA campaign when Bruce Flegg himself has openly stated that the 1.5 petition is the most appropriate course of action to take.
SCA is infuriated that outside of FNQ and NSW, NO OTHER STATE OR TERRITORY IS UNDER THE MICROSCOPE TO THIS EXTENT.
SCA I looking after its own back yard when for the last four years nobody else has. When we have the momentum and the overwhelming support of Queensland (77%!) why would anyone expect us to fall into line with campaigns calling for any less than we're asking? Even if it was that easy an we cared so little for our supporters as to call for a scant metre (and yes we did support 1m for 2 years while everyone told is it wasn't enough), its not what THEY want. Us taking a backward step would be a smack in the face to everyone mentioned so far.
If you want unity ask why the first concerted push in Australia for a meaningful passing distance is being undermined to such an extent as this.
We and I have been obtuse to say the least with regards to some advocacy groups in the past, and we are issuing a full apology and retraction to one such group next week. SCA however can never be accused of not caring about the state of our roads. When the threat of a law suit is hanging over our heads and risks destroying cycling advocacy for everyone in this country in the long term (several well known advocates will be dragged kicking and screaming into this if it proceeds), what hope indeed.

Well my Twitter account was suspended today. Apparently drawing attention to sociopathic anti cyclist tweets isn't on

Bully.
In other news, my lawyers have told me that defamation law suits in Australia are next to impossible to win, so the group who's lawyer has been harassing me (and whose letters even went so far as to lessen their claims through their own stupidity) and who SCA has been urged to support, won't be getting any letter of apology from us/me any time soon.
One group taking another group to court only to have their claim dismissed out of hand while generating a motorist loving media frenzy would benefit absolutely nobody on two wheels outside of Queensland. That's in addition to the fact that I'd find it impossible not to to raise hell publicly to begin with. And still you wonder?

That's why I will NEVER re-join Bicycle NSW having dropped my membership last year. They believe that working with the government (that is, acquiescing and never being critical) is the best approach but this has proven to be plainly wrong. Whenever there is an important issue for cycling advocacy BNSW is silent. Meanwhile, the NRMA is loud, persistent and effective.

The 2nd Womble wrote:Bully.
In other news, my lawyers have told me that defamation law suits in Australia are next to impossible to win, so the group who's lawyer has been harassing me (and whose letters even went so far as to lessen their claims through their own stupidity) and who SCA has been urged to support, won't be getting any letter of apology from us/me any time soon.
One group taking another group to court only to have their claim dismissed out of hand while generating a motorist loving media frenzy would benefit absolutely nobody on two wheels outside of Queensland. That's in addition to the fact that I'd find it impossible not to to raise hell publicly to begin with. And still you wonder?

Good on you, my understanding is that your lawyer is correct.

Anyway, even if the other side has a good case, in bringing it to court you get the chance to ask them all sorts of embarrassing questions about their behaviour and their positions on various issues, and they have to answer them in open court. I always take the view that if they want to go to court and be questioned in public call their bluff, and bring along some witnesses to court to see what they are on about.

DS

DavidS wrote:

The 2nd Womble wrote:Bully.
In other news, my lawyers have told me that defamation law suits in Australia are next to impossible to win, so the group who's lawyer has been harassing me (and whose letters even went so far as to lessen their claims through their own stupidity) and who SCA has been urged to support, won't be getting any letter of apology from us/me any time soon.
One group taking another group to court only to have their claim dismissed out of hand while generating a motorist loving media frenzy would benefit absolutely nobody on two wheels outside of Queensland. That's in addition to the fact that I'd find it impossible not to to raise hell publicly to begin with. And still you wonder?

Good on you, my understanding is that your lawyer is correct.

Anyway, even if the other side has a good case, in bringing it to court you get the chance to ask them all sorts of embarrassing questions about their behaviour and their positions on various issues, and they have to answer them in open court. I always take the view that if they want to go to court and be questioned in public call their bluff, and bring along some witnesses to court to see what they are on about. DS

You mean at least half of those who the group in question view as their most respected peers? I wonder if popcorn is allowed in court.

Killing By Car Policy

This is a huge century old problem so it will take a lot of time and perseverance by many people to change.

I call this the “Acceptable Roads Death Policy”

Our system has failed us when an 11-year-old child can be killed on our roads and no one is charged and nothing is done to prevent this happening again.

The fact that the police are not going to charge the bus driver means it’s the 11 year olds fault.

We are a barbaric country when nothing much is even said about things like this.

Over 100,000 Australians have lost their lives through war.1

Australian road fatalities for the period 1926 to 2008 are shown in graph 24.22 By 1970 the road toll had increased about four times to reach its highest mark of 3,798 deaths. The road toll in 2008 of 1,464 was around 40% of the 1970 figure. 2

I roughly calculate all Australian Road Deaths as 84,000 from 1924 to 2008.

The number of people who have been killed on our roads is not a lot less than all of the wars Australians have fought in.

We have a remembrance day for our past diggers its called Anzac Day.

We need a remembrance day for road deaths lets call it “Stop the Road Murders”

A lot of the posts so far I think are all correct. We just need to agree on the common parts.

We already have laws that cover all possible types of collisions on the roads. The laws are written so the “intent” of the law is clear. But when someone breaks the law and kills someone on the roads. Then the systemic failures start to show.

The police don’t charge the killer.

The police do charge the killer, and then it goes to court and the killer walks free.

The outrageous “murder” makes the TV news and the papers, some people talk about it and then it is forgotten about until the next outrageous road killing happens.

Most people now do drive a motorcar, so it would seem that this is the attitude of most people. To drive at a high speed with a motorcar without due care for anyone not in a car. If a pedestrian or a biker gets in the way it is acceptable to hit them, if and when they die it must be the victims fault. The motorist was just doing what they normally do and they can’t be expected to drive the vehicle in case something happens because that would result in all motorists having to drive with greater care.

Part of this is the road system language.

“Mr Toad, in (The Wind in the Willows) is the epitome of what everybody thinks of as loathsome about the motorist. For a long while, people talk about “incidents”. They talk about “killing by motorcars”. It’s really only in the 1920s that we evolve the vocabulary of talking about accidents, which of course, blames nobody. It’s a way of softening the language to accommodate the car” 3

This has become so much a part of our language that almost all people call car crashes “accidents” so of course this means it is not the motorist’s fault. The rain, the fog, the sun, the weather “forced” the car to crash into the pedestrian.

The language was changed to make killing by car no ones fault.

Over decades it seems to have now become the “Victims” fault.

So who are at fault here, the laws have been broken, but no one is guilty or it’s the dead persons fault, as dead people don’t defend themselves.

So an easy “actually its very hard” is to always say the motorist crashed, the motorist drove in front of a train and killed themselves, the motorist was not driving with enough consideration of the weapon he is driving so he crashed. The Hoon cutting in and out of lanes is a crash about to happen.

I need to do this, you need to do this, your family needs to do this. The radio traffic report needs to do this, all media needs to do this.
Of all things the experts who do know better the TAC must call themselves the Transport Crash Commission having the word accident means they are part of the problem.

Ok so now we have everyone using the correct language, how many years will that take?

The motorist crashed.

Changing the language does change peoples thinking.

People thinking differently start to change their actions.

People thinking differently might start to convict people in the courts.

People going to prison for killing by car do set an example; the system has started to work.

This is a complex problem, this is probably only one part of what is needed to change before we can expect a different result.


1http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previo ... num=&view=

2http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup ... 3700169CE5


3Car Wars by Graeme Davison also ABC-TV series Wide Open Road book page 77 quote

traveldreamer wrote:
We need a remembrance day for road deaths lets call it “Stop the Road Murders”

Stop the Road Deaths might be a more appropriate title for a rememberance day.

Murder is killing someone with mailicious intent. Most collisions involving motor vehicles and cyclists are not this. They are mostly caused by ignorance and arrogance on behalf of the motorist.

Some may be manslaughter where a motorist just wanted to bump a cyclist to "teach them a lesson" or similar and the bump goes wrong and the cyclist fals under the vehicle or falls badly on the road and subsequently dies. Manslaughter is different to murder even if the outcome for the cyclist is the same.

A lot of the time a motorist is ignorant that passing <30cm to a cyclist is likely to cause problems for the cyclist. The motorist has never experienced for themselves cycling on a road so don't know the effect on a cyclist of their action. They know (hopefully) that hitting a cyclist is life threatening for them but they probably aren't aware that the wind gust as their vehicle passes can either blow them off their bike or suck them under the wheels of the vehicle. This is possibly what happened to Richard Pollet.

Then there is arrogance, where a motorist feels it's his or her "right" to be on the road and cyclists have no right because they don't pay reg and slow the motorist down. So the arrogant driver will take greater risks when passing a rider (driving faster and/or closer, cutting them off etc) with more chance of an incident between the two occuring.

It was the blunter language that helped to make cycling safer in the Netherlands, with the famous "Stop de Kindermoord" - Stop the Child Murder - campaign of 40 years ago.

*blunterer

Howzat wrote:It was the blunter language that helped to make cycling safer in the Netherlands, with the famous "Stop de Kindermoord" - Stop the Child Murder - campaign of 40 years ago.

That was exactly what I thought of when reading traveldreamer's post, I would love to see that happen here.

The 2nd Womble wrote:*blunterer

*bluntishness...

We could always be a little more patient and hope that the fuel price goes up to the point where hydrocarbon based commuting is no longer viable...except the prospect of being snuck up on and potentially squashed by a nearly silent electric vehicle is perhaps not so appealing either?

Regardless, higher fuel costs, increasingly expensive public transport and congestion charges will drive (!) ever more people to pedal power. This will mean that more people get hammered into the gutter, wedged up under a vehicle or generally have blood expelled by a moving vehicle. The concurrent chaos and destruction will inevitably lead to a result - be it legal, moral or political.

It's the Law of the Gnu - some people get hurt for the greater good...at the moment though...good people are just being wasted.

As if just to prove we have a systemic problem.

This man was walking on the footpath and the driver was not charged with any car related charges.

Not dangerous or even culpable driving.

Freak crash kills father of former Network Ten chief
Date June 5, 2013 - 12:03PM

Megan Levy

Freak crash: Richard Warburton. Photo: Chris Barlow of Northside Creative Photography
Richard Warburton was due to celebrate his 75th birthday in a few days - not that he was letting that slow him down.
The energetic Roseville man had parked his car in Willoughby early on Tuesday morning and was walking a short distance to his regular pilates class when his family says he simply ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, with tragic consequences.
As Mr Warburton, the father of former Network Ten chief executive James Warburton, walked along the footpath on Willoughby Road just after 7am, an out-of-control ute crossed two lanes of traffic, mounted the gutter, struck a street sign and a pizza shop before crashing into the 74-year-old.
Mr Warburton was critically injured in the freak crash and, despite receiving treatment from paramedics, died soon after.

The 31-year-old driver of the ute has since been arrested and charged by police with numerous firearms, drug, property and wildlife offences.

http://www.theage.com.au/nsw/freak-cras ... 2npak.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

traveldreamer wrote:As if just to prove we have a systemic problem.

This man was walking on the footpath and the driver was not charged with any car related charges.

Not dangerous or even culpable driving.

While I don't disagree with your contention, I don't think this is a good example.

The bigger and harder charges to prove are often brought later. Drug, and firearm possession offences are easier ones to initially charge the offender with.

traveldreamer wrote:As if just to prove we have a systemic problem.

This man was walking on the footpath and the driver was not charged with any car related charges.

Not dangerous or even culpable driving.

it doesn't say that - says they are still investigating.

Australian "advocacy" organisations are woefully inadequate. What we need is something a bit more like the CTC in the UK. This video is a good example:

VRE wrote:Australian "advocacy" organisations are woefully inadequate. What we need is something a bit more like the CTC in the UK. This video is a good example:

Thank you for posting that link. Although I'm familiar with this injustice watching this video made me all angry again.


Last night I was arguing with people about road safety and I reviewed the miscarriage of justice re: Pollete case. I got so angry that I had trouble sleeping. This whole treating motorists leniently for killing and maiming people just because they used a car has to stop.

VRE wrote:Australian "advocacy" organisations are woefully inadequate. What we need is something a bit more like the CTC in the UK. This video is a good example:

Absolutely right. That just about had me in tears.