|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#51
|
|||
|
|||
Police target South Australian cyclists
TimC wrote:
Theo Bekkers wrote So tell me Tim. If bike registration was free but compulsory, would you then be in favour of it? This would negate the arguments of those that say bicyclists get away with murder because they can't be identified, and shouldn't worry those cyclists that are happy to obey the laws or, at least, play on the same field as other road-using citizens. Working on the basis that I think free rego would probably be cheaper to administer than $10 rego. Remember how this thread started out? It was because some letter writer objected to us using the roads because we don't pay for them, through some mistaken belief that registration pays for roads. Continuing not to pay for a registration will not shut those ignorants up. So you'd be happy with $10 then, or are you avoiding the question altogether. Theo The last time I had a plate on my bike, (bikes were indeed licenced, ad not that long ago) it cost me 2/6, about two weeks pocket money. The WA gov't abandoned bicycle licensing circa 1961. |
Ads |
#52
|
|||
|
|||
Police target South Australian cyclists
scotty72 wrote:
If our petrol headed freak wants to charge a $200 bike a $200 p/y fee. THen how about each motorbike and car be charged it's purchase value each year. Sounds fair! It doesn't work like that though. It's been said, the combination yearly costs (licence/rego/green slip etc) are somewhat indicative of the size of the vehicle, and how much damage it causes to the roads. This is not the case. It all comes down to how much the market will bear. If it WERE up to road damage, maintenance of licence, distributed costs and whatnot, Trucks would pay Bazillions per year, Cars a pittance, and all motorbikes (and those f*ucking stupid Smart car (coffins on wheels)) would be laughed off out of the office without paying a cent. But that's not the case. My rego and green slip (on my motorbike) is close, too close, to some cars. Much larger cars - owing to the fact that there are very few cars smaller than any bike... anyway... How does that work? It's a case of "it's worth it regardless" When you're talking to your average motorcycle nut, they generally wouldn't be caught dead in a car. So the inflated price is still worth it. The motorbike has enough all-round advantage to the user that they would still rather ride than sit on a couch with a steering wheel. Now let's look at pushbikes. On the plusses: It's good for the environment (compared to other means). Purchase cost is usually stupidly cheap (unless you're a nutcase like me). Maintenance costs (unless you're a nutcase) can be nearly free. The biochemical engine that runs it gets BETTER with age. It can be a right bucketload of fun without breaking any laws. Parking is unconditionally free. (yes I know, but I refuse to pay). On the minuses: You need to sweat, so end up quite soggy at your destination. You need to wear daggy bright coloured lycra. It's a real effort up some hills - or else you get out and push. Busses, Taxis and Cars all try to kill you at every opportunity. When said busses, taxis and cars don't sucessfully kill you, reporting incident to police will result in a laugh. Or two, if you're lucky. Now, except for the 'risk of being killed bit', it might seem like a REALLY good deal. However, this IS a package deal, so we get everything. I will be happy to pay rego when driver attitude changes enough they don't try to kill me, or when hell freezes over. Whichever comes first. Like I said, a cold cold day in hell. -- Linux Registered User # 302622 http://counter.li.org |
#53
|
|||
|
|||
Police target South Australian cyclists
Zebee Johnstone wrote:
There are murders, so do we stop bothering about burglaries? Can't see the logic. Didn't you get the bit about limited law enforcement resources? The effort should be concentrated where it does most good. -- beerwolf |
#54
|
|||
|
|||
Police target South Australian cyclists
cfsmtb wrote:
If you go back to the initial premise for whatever being said it's not actually about higher levels of compliance, it's being driven by a subjective, disingenuous argument which lazily paraphrases and cherry-picks what has been discussed on numerous cycling newsgroups for years. And then parroting back a naive and misguided approach as apparently a unique and novel proposition. If people want a zero approach to either crimes or misdemeanour's in civil society, well that brings in the mandatory approach. Venture at your own risk. Yes, we have seen it before. Still needs to be fought though. I sense the imminent approach of a Godwin moment. -- beerwolf |
#55
|
|||
|
|||
Police target South Australian cyclists
On 2008-01-12, Theo Bekkers (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea: TimC wrote: Theo Bekkers wrote So tell me Tim. If bike registration was free but compulsory, would you then be in favour of it? This would negate the arguments of those that say bicyclists get away with murder because they can't be identified, and shouldn't worry those cyclists that are happy to obey the laws or, at least, play on the same field as other road-using citizens. Working on the basis that I think free rego would probably be cheaper to administer than $10 rego. Remember how this thread started out? It was because some letter writer objected to us using the roads because we don't pay for them, through some mistaken belief that registration pays for roads. Continuing not to pay for a registration will not shut those ignorants up. So you'd be happy with $10 then, or are you avoiding the question altogether. Would $10 get the ignorants off our back? I don't suspect it would. And as you said, it would be quite expensive to administer. So since it doesn't help, and it hinders, it's probably not worth doing, unless someone models it and finds otherwise. -- TimC Can't open /usr/share/games/fortunes/fortunes. Lid stuck on cookie jar. |
#56
|
|||
|
|||
Police target South Australian cyclists
On 2008-01-12, Theo Bekkers (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea: scotty72 wrote: Theo Bekkers Wrote: I guess theo is going to ask that peds be licenced and registered as huge numbers of them break laws when crossing the road. If law breaking is going to be our main concern (rather than other benefits), then we'd better ban driving altogether. Most motorists break at least one law each time they drive. I don't remember the last time I saw a cyclist indicate? Heh. I do sometimes. I'm more inclined to keep control of my vehicle though, given conditions on the roads around here, than to strictly obey the law (recalling of course, that it is not required to indicate left on a bicycle, only right, and that the way our brakes are arranged, I'd much rather be braking with my right hand than indicating right). We have one roundabout in town. I indicate the start of my turn right, but invariably pull my hands back on the bars when I'm pretty sure I've received an acknowledgement from a driver waiting at the opposite side. The road trains go through that intersection at about 40km/h, and have worn a set of very deep grooves into the road. It's bumpy as heck, and I wouldn't want to go down because the bike gives me a buck. It's fun enough in cars when the steering wheel tried to kick out of your grip. There was one intersection in Melbourne where I'd rarely indicate right either -- I was more relying on my positioning in the right of the right hand lane to indicate my intentions. This was mainly because the thought of drifting at an acute angle at 40km/h into the tram tracks didn't really appeal to me. Give me a set of orange blinkies, bright enough to be practical, controlled from a central button on the bars, any day. Don't exist on the market yet. -- TimC The path to enlightenment_0.16.5-6 is through apt-get |
#57
|
|||
|
|||
Police target South Australian cyclists
Zebee Johnstone Wrote: In aus.bicycle on Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:13:01 +1100 aeek wrote: and then paralleled the main road. Thwack. Lower right back. The driver had circled back. Not all drivers but this driver and mates thought my being on a bicycle gave them a license. This man and mates. THe car is incidental except it meant they were near you, and to some extent the feeling of safety probably dictated the expression of their arseholeness. But they are arseholes, that's the point. It's not "car driver". Don't get hung up on the transport, there are several million drivers of cars who don't do that. which is why I was careful to word it as "Not all drivers but this driver and mates", not even assuming He. Arseholes who think its fun to endanger others on the roads should not be on the road! -- aeek |
#58
|
|||
|
|||
Police target South Australian cyclists
On 2008-01-12, John Tserkezis (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea: scotty72 wrote: If our petrol headed freak wants to charge a $200 bike a $200 p/y fee. THen how about each motorbike and car be charged it's purchase value each year. Sounds fair! It doesn't work like that though. If there are 10M cars in Australia, and we spend $10B per year on roads, then each car does about $1,000 worth of damage to the roads in a typical year. Then multiply that by another 4 or so for health related costs from people driving. Since cars depreciate at about an average of $4,000 per year, then why not charge them some form of registration at about $4,000 per year to cover costs, instead of pulling it out of general revenue? On the minuses: You need to sweat, so end up quite soggy at your destination. You need to wear daggy bright coloured lycra. It's a real effort up some hills - or else you get out and push. Busses, Taxis and Cars all try to kill you at every opportunity. When said busses, taxis and cars don't sucessfully kill you, reporting incident to police will result in a laugh. Or two, if you're lucky. I have only my around-towner in town today - the fast bike is up at the observatory, because I left it there after shift, knowing we only have the small bus til school goes back, which I can't use as bike transport mechanism. My around-towner is a decade or two old (thanks dutchie - nice bike, although my fixie project is on indefinitely hold), where I haven't yet gotten around to replacing the tires -- they look old, but they've been good til now. I hadn't ridden it in a while, so I pumped the tires up to their rating, and went off to have lunch, parking the bike in the sun. 20 minutes later, boom. 20 more minutes, I go over to have a look, and realise the front is gone, and the rear is bulging through the fabric. I guess 90PSI + delta of 20degrees gives 96PSI. That was a warm walk home. Definitely soggy afterwards. Still, I have two spares waiting at home from PBK, although they are racing tires intended for the other bike. -- TimC No, the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system. -- Bill Gates |
#59
|
|||
|
|||
Police target South Australian cyclists
TimC wrote:
Theo Bekkers wrote So you'd be happy with $10 then, or are you avoiding the question altogether. Would $10 get the ignorants off our back? I don't suspect it would. And as you said, it would be quite expensive to administer. So since it doesn't help, and it hinders, it's probably not worth doing, unless someone models it and finds otherwise. So you're only objecting to the cost then? Supposing the fee of $10 was revenue neutral and even provided employment for a few more out of work cyclists as a bonus, cyclists would no longer be seen as able to flout the laws, could say they are ccontributing to the costs. The ignorants would lose both their argument. Surely there would then be positives in such a proposal? I personally would have no objection to it. As I said, when I was a teenager, my bike had a licence plate. Theo |
#60
|
|||
|
|||
Police target South Australian cyclists
aeek wrote:
which is why I was careful to word it as "Not all drivers but this driver and mates", not even assuming He. Arseholes who think its fun to endanger others on the roads should not be on the road! Of course. I'm sure we are all agreed on that. The tone on the ng seems to be "All car drivers are arseholes". As a part-time driver I object to that. In fact only a small percentage of people are indeed arseholes, they just give the rest of humanity a bad name. Theo |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Australian Federal Police said | white sands | Australia | 2 | December 8th 06 05:10 AM |
Australian Federal Police said | white sands | Techniques | 1 | December 8th 06 04:01 AM |
Australian Federal Police said | volksie | Techniques | 3 | September 16th 05 06:55 PM |
Australian Federal Police said | volksie | Australia | 3 | September 16th 05 06:55 PM |
Australian Federal Police | flyingdutch | Australia | 0 | September 8th 04 12:34 AM |