News & Discussion: Roads & Traffic

[rev]

There will always be cases like this, and on the whole im sure those calling for more cycling are not arguing you should ride a bike irrespective of how long your commute is. The fact is a significant majority of the population take the car for trips less than 5ks which could easily be done by bicycle.

It is about shifting short distance trips people take in the car onto a bicycle

Who do you think you are telling me and anyone else how we should commute long or short distance?

[rev]

As others have said, much of the cost of motor vehicle registration goes towards insurance. Motor vehicles have a high potential to cause harm to other motor vehicles, cyclists, pedestrians and property. That is the reason behind having registration. Remove or reduce this potential and then I could understand advocating for lower cost and/or registration.

Regarding competency, is a pedestrian required to demonstrate competence or knowledge of the road rules?

However, I did notice that you did not address the question of why should others have to pay to have your power restored in the event of an outage. Surely if you're advocating for user pays in regard to cycling infrastructure, you would support user pays in regard to power infrastructure.

What the..

I don't know what roads you drive on, but the roads I drive on don't feature pedestrians walking down the road between vehicles.
I seriously don't understand how anyone can argue against a licensing/registration system, where all road users are competent enough to be on the road, and can be held accountable if they break road rules.
Every other road user is held accountable, is deemed competent, but cyclists think they should be exempt. For a variety of reasons that make no sense and are laughable excuses and nothing more.


Go ask SAPOL if that's all registration is useful for.

[Wayno]

Rev, in some of your posts you mention 'separate bike lanes'. Do you mean physically separated - perhaps a physical barrier or metres of distance between it and the road? or does your definition also include the paint-partitioned bike lanes adjacent to many roads?

[realstretts]

There will always be cases like this, and on the whole im sure those calling for more cycling are not arguing you should ride a bike irrespective of how long your commute is. The fact is a significant majority of the population take the car for trips less than 5ks which could easily be done by bicycle.

It is about shifting short distance trips people take in the car onto a bicycle

Who do you think you are telling me and anyone else how we should commute long or short distance?

I am not telling you to do anything, I am simply stating that it would be prudent of those in power to encourage cycling for short distance trips by those who may have the ability or desire to, but do not yet do so because of fear, lack of knowledge etc etc. A social marketing measure if you will, for the benefit of society as a whole.

I can assure you there are many behaviours that you and I practice that have been marketed to us, influenced by others, without you or my knowledge of it. You are not a truly autonomous being. Nor am I.

If you choose to drive 3kms to pick up your kid from school, or go buy some milk, that is your decision. But if someone is willing to ride a bicycle instead, then I see no harm in encouraging them to do so.

[rev]

Rev, in some of your posts you mention 'separate bike lanes'. Do you mean physically separated - perhaps a physical barrier or metres of distance between it and the road? or does your definition also include the paint-partitioned bike lanes adjacent to many roads?

I don't consider the bike "lanes" we commonly see on our roads, a white line or two with a bike symbol, to be separated.

There should either be a physical barrier of some kind, and I don't mean a barrier in the sense of a noise wall like you see on freeways/motorways, or something like bike lane, gap then regular lane...it may mean reducing the width of footpaths.

|bikes|\\\|regular lanes|///|bikes|

This isn't because I don't want to share the road with bikes. I honestly do not think it's safe to have bicycles using the same bit of road as larger motor vehicles.
Not for me, but for the cyclists. We don't have pedestrians walking on the road in a "share the road" campaign. We have separate footpaths for them. Because it's dangerous for them to be walking on the road for a variety of reasons, but especially because they could easily be killed. Not injured or hurt with a few scratches or dents, but killed. It's exactly the same with cyclists, except they can move slightly faster then a pedestrian. But not nearly as fast as a motor vehicle, and they aren't anywhere near as protected as being in a motor vehicle. If they get hit, they will likely die or be left with horrendous injuries. It's ridiculous and complete stupidity to have them riding on the road with motor vehicles. We may as well do away with footpaths and use the extra space for wider roads with more lanes and let pedestrians walk on the road too. Makes about as much sense.

[rev]

There will always be cases like this, and on the whole im sure those calling for more cycling are not arguing you should ride a bike irrespective of how long your commute is. The fact is a significant majority of the population take the car for trips less than 5ks which could easily be done by bicycle.

It is about shifting short distance trips people take in the car onto a bicycle

Who do you think you are telling me and anyone else how we should commute long or short distance?

I am not telling you to do anything, I am simply stating that it would be prudent of those in power to encourage cycling for short distance trips by those who may have the ability or desire to, but do not yet do so because of fear, lack of knowledge etc etc. A social marketing measure if you will, for the benefit of society as a whole.

I can assure you there are many behaviours that you and I practice that have been marketed to us, influenced by others, without you or my knowledge of it. You are not a truly autonomous being. Nor am I.

If you choose to drive 3kms to pick up your kid from school, or go buy some milk, that is your decision. But if someone is willing to ride a bicycle instead, then I see no harm in encouraging them to do so.

I assure you I am not driving my car because it's been marketed to me without me knowing.
I will drive to the bottle shop that's a few hundred meters away, instead of walk to it, because I'd rather not be walking around with a carton of beer or bottles of spirits.
I'll drive to nearby take away shops, because I'd rather eat my food hot.

If people want to ride their bike, they should, it's their choice.
Government shouldn't be telling people or encouraging them to do this or that or use this or that. If it was cycling associations or whatever, then I can understand that.

[realstretts]

I assure you I am not driving my car because it's been marketed to me without me knowing.

Quite the contrary, you have been socialised into using an automobile, as most people are. Driving a car is regularly touted as a 'right of passage' for the common 16 year old, a marker of gaining significant responsibility. You grew up with cars, saw them everyday, still see them everywhere. Your parents probably drove, influencing your future decisions. Cities have been planned around the car, subtly influencing your everyday decisions to drive one. Your salary probably affords you the luxury of driving a car, and perhaps buying a car that affords a level of status within society. Cars have been seen as central to the Australian image, locally made Holdens (well...this will be a distant relic soon) adorned the carports of lots of families across this country. And speaking of country, it is one of great distance, often calling upon such a vehicle to traverse it. Whether you like it or not, your 200m trip to the bottle-o has been influenced by the social millieu of your upbringing. It is not of your own volition.

You and a great majority of drivers (including myself, though I am actively trying to undo such social marketing) have been socially marketed to, over your whole life, see the car as the only option, no matter what the circumstances.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this. It is just the way society has progressed over the last 50 years.

What is unique is that governments have had a strong hand in promoting a car centric culture. So why should they not have a hand in promoting a healthier, more sustainable form of transport?

[rev]

I assure you I am not driving my car because it's been marketed to me without me knowing.

Quite the contrary, you have been socialised into using an automobile, as most people are. Driving a car is regularly touted as a 'right of passage' for the common 16 year old, a marker of gaining significant responsibility. You grew up with cars, saw them everyday, still see them everywhere. Your parents probably drove, influencing your future decisions. Cities have been planned around the car, subtly influencing your everyday decisions to drive one. Your salary probably affords you the luxury of driving a car, and perhaps buying a car that affords a level of status within society. Cars have been seen as central to the Australian image, locally made Holdens (well...this will be a distant relic soon) adorned the carports of lots of families across this country. And speaking of country, it is one of great distance, often calling upon such a vehicle to traverse it. Whether you like it or not, your 200m trip to the bottle-o has been influenced by the social millieu of your upbringing. It is not of your own volition.

You and a great majority of drivers (including myself, though I am actively trying to undo such social marketing) have been socially marketed to, over your whole life, see the car as the only option, no matter what the circumstances.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this. It is just the way society has progressed over the last 50 years.

What is unique is that governments have had a strong hand in promoting a car centric culture. So why should they not have a hand in promoting a healthier, more sustainable form of transport?

Yeh, I've been "socialized" into driving my car.

The examples I gave you are because I don't feel like carrying a carton of beer, or a few bottles of spirits, down the street from the bottle shop back to my house, nor do I want to eat cold food.
But hey, you know better about me right. If you knew me personally, you'd know how silly your comment was..

[rev]

Will some of you listen now to what I'm saying?

“We had seen a group of bikes in the left lane and I was a bit worried about them because a four-wheel drive had to come into our lane onto oncoming traffic at 100km/h to get around them, that’s how far out on the road they were,” she said.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... bfa5c00f48

One cyclist dead, 2 more injured.

These are the sort of arrogant selfish rude inconsiderate people riding push bikes on our roads who are a danger to everyone including them selves, that I'm complaining about in this thread.
People getting killed because of their arrogance and selfishness, is what I've said will happen. And looky here, that's what's happened.

But some of you still wont get it through your heads that this sort of behavior does not belong on public roads.
And some, like Bits, will bury their heads in the sand and pretend the behavior that got the cyclist killed and 2 of his mates injured, doesn't even happen(despite it happening every day).

[Goodsy]

Will some of you listen now to what I'm saying?

“We had seen a group of bikes in the left lane and I was a bit worried about them because a four-wheel drive had to come into our lane onto oncoming traffic at 100km/h to get around them, that’s how far out on the road they were,” she said.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... bfa5c00f48

One cyclist dead, 2 more injured.

These are the sort of arrogant selfish rude inconsiderate people riding push bikes on our roads who are a danger to everyone including them selves, that I'm complaining about in this thread.
People getting killed because of their arrogance and selfishness, is what I've said will happen. And looky here, that's what's happened.

But some of you still wont get it through your heads that this sort of behavior does not belong on public roads.
And some, like Bits, will bury their heads in the sand and pretend the behavior that got the cyclist killed and 2 of his mates injured, doesn't even happen(despite it happening every day).

If you can't get around them without driving into oncoming traffic then maybe you should slow down and wait until it's safe... just a thought

[realstretts]

Will some of you listen now to what I'm saying?

“We had seen a group of bikes in the left lane and I was a bit worried about them because a four-wheel drive had to come into our lane onto oncoming traffic at 100km/h to get around them, that’s how far out on the road they were,” she said.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... bfa5c00f48

One cyclist dead, 2 more injured.

These are the sort of arrogant selfish rude inconsiderate people riding push bikes on our roads who are a danger to everyone including them selves, that I'm complaining about in this thread.
People getting killed because of their arrogance and selfishness, is what I've said will happen. And looky here, that's what's happened.

But some of you still wont get it through your heads that this sort of behavior does not belong on public roads.
And some, like Bits, will bury their heads in the sand and pretend the behavior that got the cyclist killed and 2 of his mates injured, doesn't even happen(despite it happening every day).

If you can't get around them without driving into oncoming traffic then maybe you should slow down and wait until it's safe... just a thought

Or hand in your license because you obviously cannot operate a deadly vehicle safely. Simple, slow down, pass when safe. You are an incompetent driver if you think you are being 'forced' into driving into oncoming traffic. Period.

[SCF]

Will some of you listen now to what I'm saying?

“We had seen a group of bikes in the left lane and I was a bit worried about them because a four-wheel drive had to come into our lane onto oncoming traffic at 100km/h to get around them, that’s how far out on the road they were,” she said.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... bfa5c00f48

One cyclist dead, 2 more injured.

These are the sort of arrogant selfish rude inconsiderate people riding push bikes on our roads who are a danger to everyone including them selves, that I'm complaining about in this thread.
People getting killed because of their arrogance and selfishness, is what I've said will happen. And looky here, that's what's happened.

But some of you still wont get it through your heads that this sort of behavior does not belong on public roads.
And some, like Bits, will bury their heads in the sand and pretend the behavior that got the cyclist killed and 2 of his mates injured, doesn't even happen(despite it happening every day).

So you saw this happen? You must have since you seem to have intimate details of what happened that the article doesn't give.

[Waewick]

Will some of you listen now to what I'm saying?

“We had seen a group of bikes in the left lane and I was a bit worried about them because a four-wheel drive had to come into our lane onto oncoming traffic at 100km/h to get around them, that’s how far out on the road they were,” she said.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... bfa5c00f48

One cyclist dead, 2 more injured.

These are the sort of arrogant selfish rude inconsiderate people riding push bikes on our roads who are a danger to everyone including them selves, that I'm complaining about in this thread.
People getting killed because of their arrogance and selfishness, is what I've said will happen. And looky here, that's what's happened.

But some of you still wont get it through your heads that this sort of behavior does not belong on public roads.
And some, like Bits, will bury their heads in the sand and pretend the behavior that got the cyclist killed and 2 of his mates injured, doesn't even happen(despite it happening every day).

If you can't get around them without driving into oncoming traffic then maybe you should slow down and wait until it's safe... just a thought

Exactly

Stupid drivers in this case arrogantly thinking they had the god given right to drive into oncoming traffic

[ralmin]

“We had seen a group of bikes in the left lane and I was a bit worried about them because a four-wheel drive had to come into our lane onto oncoming traffic at 100km/h to get around them, that’s how far out on the road they were,” she said.

These are the sort of arrogant selfish rude inconsiderate people riding push bikes on our roads who are a danger to everyone including them selves, that I'm complaining about in this thread.

These are the sort of arrogant selfish rude inconsiderate people driving cars on our roads. Nobody HAD to come into oncoming traffic to get around the bikes, they chose that rather than be inconvenienced for a few minutes until it was safe to pass.

[skyliner]

But we see the point that is made - no matter who is blamed, it happened...and that is the issue. It is WHO is using the road and attitudes, impatience, culture etc etc that is the real issue. Getting bikes into their own laneways seems the best general solution. No quick fix here.

Also 'Road rage' is growing as an issue, no matter how it presents itself.

I wonder who the families of those concerned are blaming?

ADELAIDE - TOWARDS A GREATER CITY SKYLINE