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Police target South Australian cyclists



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 10th 08, 04:37 AM posted to aus.bicycle
deejbah[_2_]
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Posts: 1
Default Police target South Australian cyclists


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'.


--
deejbah

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  #2  
Old January 10th 08, 04:50 AM posted to aus.bicycle
cfsmtb[_566_]
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Posts: 1
Default Police target South Australian cyclists


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'.


Nice level playing field in SA, as obviously SAPOL hasn't remembered a
few things that occured in the last four years.

http://www.woj.com.au/?s=Eugene+McGee&submit=search


--
cfsmtb

  #3  
Old January 10th 08, 08:32 AM posted to aus.bicycle
BT Humble
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Posts: 655
Default Police target South Australian cyclists

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?

I know that the red light runners irritate me.


BTH
  #4  
Old January 10th 08, 09:16 AM posted to aus.bicycle
Zebee Johnstone
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Posts: 1,960
Default Police target South Australian cyclists

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
  #5  
Old January 10th 08, 10:05 AM posted to aus.bicycle
Adrian[_2_]
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Posts: 7
Default Police target South Australian cyclists

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.

An unfortunate fact of life for any minority, your faults get seen and
you have to be squeaky clean. People always see members of the "other
tribe" do the wrong thing and overlook members of their tribe doing the
exact same thing.

I know that the red light runners irritate me.


They irritate me too, I see about a dozen a day at one intersection in
particular. Oh, they're all people driving cars, trucks and buses. I'm
lucky if I see two bikes a day in my ride to work.

BTH

Adrian
  #6  
Old January 10th 08, 11:33 AM posted to aus.bicycle
Elmo
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Posts: 19
Default Police target South Australian cyclists

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. 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.

Elmo


An unfortunate fact of life for any minority, your faults get seen and
you have to be squeaky clean. People always see members of the "other
tribe" do the wrong thing and overlook members of their tribe doing the
exact same thing.

I know that the red light runners irritate me.


They irritate me too, I see about a dozen a day at one intersection in
particular. Oh, they're all people driving cars, trucks and buses. I'm
lucky if I see two bikes a day in my ride to work.

BTH

Adrian

  #7  
Old January 10th 08, 11:46 AM posted to aus.bicycle
BT Humble
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Posts: 655
Default Police target South Australian cyclists

Elmo wrote:
...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.


Is that a version of Godwin's Law[1] for the new millenium? ;-)


BTH
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
  #8  
Old January 10th 08, 12:02 PM posted to aus.bicycle
Elmo
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 19
Default Police target South Australian cyclists

BT Humble wrote:
Elmo wrote:
...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.


Is that a version of Godwin's Law[1] for the new millenium? ;-)


BTH
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law


Err..


Sort of.

Reading your Wiki link gives me the impression that things like swear
words should be saved for special occasions, otherwise if you hit your
thumb with a hammer you won't have any especially bad words to exclaim,
the swear words have been debased. The point I was making in my posting
was that you can't fight stereotyping with stereotyping if you want to
keep the high moral ground.
  #9  
Old January 10th 08, 02:13 PM posted to aus.bicycle
aeek
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default Police target South Australian cyclists


Elmo 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



Riding home 11:30 Monday night on Brighton Road, an alwighty thwack on
on my lower leght back. The Car turned off right, then I turned off left
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.
Adelaide.
South Australia.


--
aeek

  #10  
Old January 10th 08, 02:20 PM posted to aus.bicycle
beerwolf[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 49
Default Police target South Australian cyclists

Zebee Johnstone wrote:

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!)


Are you serious? (I suspect not). I can think of at least a dozen
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.

--
beerwolf


 




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