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#11
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Police target South Australian cyclists
beerwolf Wrote: Red light runners irritate me too, but the actual real harm they do is only likely to be to themselves. Harsh observation, but probably has some validity to it. On the subject of cycling incidents we've all probably seen some terrible bunch crashes either on the telly or in real life, but they totally pale when compared to the carnage that can occur when things go wrong and motorised vehicles & humans are involved. Any observation of the RTA and TAC daily stats will bear that up, as will terrible incidents on Florida's Interstate 4 in the US. To paraphrase a article in yesterdays Age, I've never heard of a similar cycling mishap that involved a combination of ten accidents, involving 70 bicycles, that killed four people and injured 38 others. With five of them in critical condition, according to the authorities, with the largest of the accidents involved 43 bicycles. -- cfsmtb |
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#12
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Police target South Australian cyclists
On 2008-01-10, Zebee Johnstone (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea: (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!) Woops! I seem to have accidentally placed my bicycle in my microwave! Sorry officer! -- TimC Yay! I have found the last bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bug bu%$@#$@#%$@# Error: Missing Carrier Signal |
#13
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Police target South Australian cyclists
On 2008-01-10, Elmo (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea: Adrian wrote: BT Humble writes: deejbah wrote: Police have 'launched a safety 'blitz'' (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...09/2134767.htm) on cyclists failing to obey road rules, using the number of cyclists killed in accidents deemed the responsiblity of someone driving a motor vehicle as a bizarre justification for the 'crackdown'. 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? Car commuters see cyclists "brazenly" breaking road rules every day yet fail to far larger numbers of car commuters breaking road rules every day. "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. Well, it's pretty close to everyone. 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. That's at least how many people are willing to run red lights. The first person to stop may have stopped because 1) They were law abiding or 2) They were so far behind the previous cars that they couldn't possibly justify to themselves blatantly breaking through the red light that late. If they were just a moment earlier, they would have happily gone through the red light, but the traffic has already started to flow in the other directions I have been at intersections where I have counted 5 cars in one lane go through the red. That's about 10 seconds worth, assuming they weren't also driving dangerously through other means. The 6th car was too slow, and the cars behind have to then of course stop. That implies that at least 5/6th (it is a lower limit as per above) of car drivers at that intersection are happy lawbreakers. Maybe at other intersections, they wouldn't break the law so blatantly. 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. No, you multiply it by how many intersections and potential interactions (outside of your field of view) are on an average journey. -- TimC "How much caffeine do you consume on a daily basis?" "Dependink on how you mean? Liquid, solid or gas? " -- Pitr/User Friendly |
#14
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Police target South Australian cyclists
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. And count how many cars won't stop for pedestrians when crossing footpaths, while entering or leaving service stations for example. John |
#15
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Police target South Australian cyclists
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. But some cyclists get hung up on the few who do, and so perpetuate a silly stereotype. As an exercise, count for me over the next week the number of cars that pass you and the driver *doesn't* do anything bad to you. Zebee |
#16
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Police target South Australian cyclists
In aus.bicycle on Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:56:14 +1100
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. Next? It happens a lot in Adelaide with right turns. Usually because 3 people are queued in the intersection and they all turn on the amber and red, then 2 more, then there's a moment's gap, then the other side turns greeen. Lots less in Sydney because the red/green gap is far shorter. Stand at an intersection used by bicycles. Count the number of red light runners as a percentage of bicycles. Count the number of red lights runners as percentage of cars. Zebee |
#17
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Police target South Australian cyclists
In aus.bicycle on Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:20:05 GMT
beerwolf wrote: Zebee Johnstone wrote: (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!) Are you serious? (I suspect not). I can think of at least a dozen Not really. However it does have to be thought about. social ills, any one of which could be attacked by similar zero tolerance overkill and with a better payoff. Red light runners irritate me too, but the actual real harm they do is only likely to be to themselves. Well I can see that world peace is a better thing to strive for than road safety for cyclists, so obviously no one should bother about road safety for cyclists. 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? Zebee |
#18
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Police target South Australian cyclists
In aus.bicycle on Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:48:00 +1100
TimC wrote: On 2008-01-10, Zebee Johnstone (aka Bruce) was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea: (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!) Woops! I seem to have accidentally placed my bicycle in my microwave! Sorry officer! "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." Zebee |
#19
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Police target South Australian cyclists
Zebee Johnstone wrote:
BT Humble wrote: I know that the red light runners irritate me. 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? Shotgun works. How can it be stopped? The only way is to make the risk not worth the reward. snip 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!) Here ya go. Tag them? http://www.backfire.dk/EMPIRENORTH/n...ucts_en001.htm :-) Theo |
#20
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Police target South Australian cyclists
"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) -- Cheers Peter ~~~ ~ _@ ~~ ~ _- \, ~~ (*)/ (*) |
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