Xplora wrote:Sydney roads are some of the most aggressive, psychotic in the world. I've been surprised to find out that a lot of people from even busy country areas like Nowra or Newcastle won't drive there, because it is too stressful. We drive damn hard around here. It's not a question of entitlement, it's a question of getting everyone places as fast and safely as possible.
The two goals are not entirely possible together, and only one of them is worthwhile.
You can't just slow everyone down to a crawl, that's not the point of a car, or even a bicycle. We abandoned walking for a reason.
Actually walking is something people do a lot of because of the size of cars, (distance from parking spot to goal for instance). In any case, bicycles don't slow cars down. Queues of cars slow cars down. Cross traffic (largely other cars) slow cars down. Parked cars block lanes. People waste 5 minutes at the end of a journey finding a parking spot. Doing that causes further queuing for people. Average speeds on arterials are generally within bicycle range, and thats not because of bicycles, its because of cars.
P platers are highly overrepresented in accident stats for a reason. Either way, drivers need a carrot to go with the stick. Stripping them of their "equal rights" regarding liability must be met by an attempt to encourage cyclists to take quieter streets. Not everyone is a legend cyclist who can ride fast enough to keep up with peak hour cars. Helping noobs would be good too - I couldn't ride to the CBD without a lot of help.
That said, I don't know what the stats are for cycling accidents, and whether a quieter street minimises impact or frequency of accidents.
Absolutely not. Bicycles have the shortest range, and the shortest time tolerance, therefore to be usable and to confer MANY benefits on motorists, including faster traffic flow and more parking availability, bicycles must be able to take the shortest, most direct routes. Those are arterial roads for a reason.
As far as reversing the onus goes, most accidents involving drivers involve some degree of the driver not treating the mass of their vehicle with due conservative respect when driving.
Ask your self how many times did you slow down to 40 or below when entering an intersection, just to give yourself more time to assess all the other intersection participants, and prevent any potential accidents being serious. Many drivers don't and thats why the onus should be on them to prove they did take reasonable steps to minimise the chances of a dangerous impact with their vehicle. There is no trade off required there, its actually part of the priviledge of using an overweight vehicle for personal transport, that is poorly understood by motorists as is.