Police target South Australian cyclists

Zebee Johnstone wrote:

Bicycles are only worth riding if it's free or close too?

The fact that people are prepared to spend $x000 on a bicycle
when a perfectly adequate solution is available for $x00 answers
this question in the negative.

However -
In recent years (since I have been taking notice of the issue)
I can only recall one death or serious injury report due to
a cyclist running a red light - the unfortunate knockdown of
the pedestrian last year. Saving just one life seems a pretty
small payoff for the huge technical and legal apparatus you
proposed. For the same or less money we could improve
detection of unregistered or unlicensed drivers, who kill
and injure far more people than do dickhead cyclists.
Or beef up detection of fare evasion on public transport,
or add more public hospital beds, or improve student/teacher
ratios in public schools. Or insert favourite cause here.

As the accident rate from cyclists running red lights is already
small, and therefore wouldn't be changed measurably by your
proposal, I'm speculating as to why you really want to do it.
Is it to improve the non-cycling public's perception of cyclists?
It might do that to some extent, though some cyclists will still
do other nobby things like riding up one-way streets and riding
on footpaths (Oh goody, we could put a stop to that too, by
slugging cyclists yet another $100 to buy even more transponders
to line the footpaths with).

Or is it because you just have a loathing of lawbreaking generally?
That's a tenable starting point, but why pick on this particular
issue? Aren't there other crimes and misdemeanours that happen
daily, with worse social consequences, that are more deserving
of limited law enforcement resources?

--
beerwolf

In aus.bicycle on Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:05:51 GMT
beerwolf wrote:

Or is it because you just have a loathing of lawbreaking generally?
That's a tenable starting point, but why pick on this particular
issue? Aren't there other crimes and misdemeanours that happen
daily, with worse social consequences, that are more deserving
of limited law enforcement resources?

There are murders, so do we stop bothering about burglaries? Can't
see the logic.

The red light thing isn't about safety really. It is about "waah, no
one loves cyclists".

When non-cyclists and people who talk to non-cyclists say "cyclists
have this image as selfish lawbreakers who deserve no consideration"
then we get "red light running hurts no one".

Yeah, perception is a bitch. If everyone was properly logical and
reasoning, they'd all be riding bicycles and heaping ashes on their
heads saying "I used to drive a car, horrible environmentally
damaging, carnage causing car, but not anymore"

Humans aren't that reasonable or logical, so in the practical day to
say world you have to work on perception.

If the interaction the General Public has with bicycles is "selfish
pricks who run red lights" then every time a bicycle thing comes up
where you want public support (trains, cycle paths, crashes) you won't
get it. Because the public works on soundbytes and stereotypes.

So what can be done?

- massive grassroots campaign to stop bicycles running red lights
- massive media and grassroots campaign to change public perception
about bicycles running red lights.

I have no idea which would work.

And it's only one aspect. Part of the hate of bikes is a general
feeling that the transport system is stuffed and private cars (which
are still the pick of the options for the majority) are less and less
useful. So anything that can be seen as a reason private cars are
less useful (even by some really dodgy reasoning) will still be hated.

Still, the more that bikes are traffic and transport, not toys and not
"other", I think the better it is for bikes.

Zebee

Wow

this is an excellent little scheme that your avg Nazi would love.

Scotty

Zebee Johnstone Wrote:
In aus.bicycle on Wed, 9 Jan 2008 23:32:15 -0800 (PST)
BT Humble wrote:

Fair point. However, doesn't it make it much more difficult for our
various cycling lobby groups to claim the tactically valuable Moral
High Ground when car commuters get to see cyclists brazenly breaking
road rules every day?

I know that the red light runners irritate me.

And a lot of cyclists too.

Cyclists do it because they can. There are various ways of justifying
it, all of which are flimsy at best, but people will do the most
amazing things to justify their own selfishness.

Problem is... well it is herding cats isn't it?

How can it be stopped? The only way is to make the risk not worth the
reward. And that means identifying cyclists so they can be caught in
the same way registered vehicles are. Which is rather a difficult
job.

Not just working out how to fit a registration label that can be read
by both machines and people, but what to do about a bicycle that
doesn't have one. Hard to chase, hard to catch.

Public campaigns won't work because those who run red lights are quite
certain they are perfectly justified to do so. Whether they use the
"no harm" excuse or the "sustainable transport should have different
rules" excuse or the "safer than being in traffic" excuse, they are
certain that their convenience is more important than any rule. So a
campaign saying they shouldn't is going to have as much effect as a
campaign saying speeding drivers have small dicks if that campaign
isn't backed up by cameras and fines.

Work out how to register cyclists, work out how to catch unregistered
ones that do a runner, work out how to manage child cyclists in that
regime, then bicycles will become part of the transport network.

(I wonder if RFID chips could work, with cops and parking cops
equipped with hand held scanners, and a backpack full of locks. A
bike without a chip gets locked up and the truck comes by later to
impound it. Plainclothes spotters at intersections with readers walk
out, scan the bike, and slash the tyres to stop the owner riding off
then lock the bike... Only cost each rider a couple of hundred a year
to fund, surely!)

Zebee


--
scotty72

Elmo Wrote:
Adrian wrote:

"Car commuters"? Which ones? Aren't you stereotyping car drivers? Is
it
every car driver or just a very small minority? You're basing your
opinions on car commuters with the same generalization that you accuse
"car commuters" of making. If you have a thousand cars go past you and
then have a two "near misses" do you say all car commuters are bad
drivers or just the "very small minority", the 1/500th. If you want to
be righteous then first you have to be right, otherwise you end up
like
George Bush, using torture and illegal imprisonment to fight people
that
do exactly the same thing.
Most car drivers blatently break the laws.

A local school, last year, hired a speed gun and 'surveyed' the passing
traffic (ie measured their speed). It was about 90% of motorists that
broke the speed limit (I think they even gave them 10% leeway).

At my school, I'm always on about parents double parking, illegal
u-turns, parking across the ped x-ing etc. A couple of us did our own
little observation and discovered that about 60% of parents dropping off
their kids broke at least one law.

If you stand near a set of traffic lights (esp without a camera) on a
busy intersection and watch what happens when the lights change. I
reckon more often than not you'll have motorists speed up and run the
fresh red.

Motorists are far more likely to break laws. Just as someone said
before, motorists just choose to ignore their own tribe's mis-behaviour.

Scotty


--
scotty72

beerwolf Wrote:

Or is it because you just have a loathing of lawbreaking generally?
That's a tenable starting point, but why pick on this particular
issue? Aren't there other crimes and misdemeanours that happen
daily, with worse social consequences, that are more deserving
of limited law enforcement resources?

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.


--
cfsmtb

Zebee Johnstone Wrote:

What else you can do isn't the point, can you do this? And why not?
Why is it overkill? If the technology to register bicycles was
available at a price that could be covered by say $200/yr per cyclist
what are the reasons not to do it?

ZebeeBecause I can't see why lazy motorists who are simply cranky that others
have found a better way want to destroy that better way for everyone
else. Simple envy - and crankiness.


I'll start paying your $200 when I get my thousands back for the
environmental, health, road etc. damage that I am not doing. Yet, my
taxes pay for the lazy, planet destroying indulgences of motorists. This
includes motorcyclists who seem to think that speed limits and the need
to ride without swerving all over the road couldn't possibly apply to
them. Ride your bicycle through the Royal Nat'n Park or the Old Pacific
Hwy and you'll see MOST of these twits don't seem to understand that 60
km/h does, in fact, mean them too.

Scotty


--
scotty72

Zebee Johnstone Wrote:

"Bad luck Sir, that will be a $500 fine for riding with an inoperative
chip, you'll get the bicycle back when you pay the fine and the $100
impoundment fee. You can pay now by credit card to avoid the
impoundment
fee. Oh, you can't carrying a spare tyre? You'll have to carry it
home, remember you can't take it on the train."


ZebeeEven better,

fit all motor cars and motor bikes with GPS technology that immediately
informs the authorities the very second that vehicle breaks (by as much
as 1 km/h) any speed limit (these can be programmed in) or parks in any
unauthorised area. Computers could be used to detect whenever our
mono-popping freaks raise their front wheel from the ground.

The GPS could immediately immobilise the engine until the cops come to
impound it.

I like this, it would get 99% of motorbikes off the road (and 75% of
cars).

Scotty


--
scotty72

PeteSig Wrote:


Because we would see a drop in cycling by.. ooh.. say 50-70% at that
'road
safety fee'. And an overall reduction in road safety with more cars on
the
roads and fewer cyclists about (oops, sorry people on bikes)

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ _@
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)Pete,

I'm sure you're aware that that is the aim of the motor freaks. They
see us on a happy, clean, free form of transport and they sit frustrated
in their lonely, costly, smelly cages and can't stand it.


--
scotty72

Theo Bekkers Wrote:
Zebee Johnstone wrote:
TimC wrote:

Watch an average busy intersection with traffic lights, as they
turn
amber. Count how many cars go through the amber and red light
when
it was safe for them to stop.

On my motorcycle commute yesterday, at 6 sets of lights, none.

My commute includes 9 sets of lights. I haven't seen a car run a red
this
week. Two bikes. As a percentage that's pretty bad.

TheoYeah right. What was that about thr tribe can't see it's own faults?


--
scotty72

Theo Bekkers Wrote:
PeteSig wrote:
"Zebee Johnstone" wrote:

Why is it overkill? If the technology to register bicycles was
available at a price that could be covered by say $200/yr per
cyclist
what are the reasons not to do it?

Because we would see a drop in cycling by.. ooh.. say 50-70% at that
'road safety fee'. And an overall reduction in road safety with more
cars on the roads and fewer cyclists about (oops, sorry people on
bikes)

So it's worth ignoring the law-breakers because of the health
advantages?

I rode a bike when they were licenced. I didn't know anyone who didn't
ride
because of the licence fee. Next question.

TheoI 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. Each year, thousands die as a
result. Yes, cars are a benefit to the society - but are they worth the
risk Theo?

Or does your hypocracy extent only to bicycles?


--
scotty72