Qed

Cars versus…

In the news this morning, which I do usually read while drinking my coffee, I noticed yet another tragic accidental death in Melbourne involving a car and a pedestrian which in turn reminded me of the Miranda troll earlier in the week about cars and bike riders. Now I ride my bikes, have done for most of my life and hope to do so for a while yet. I reckon they are a great form of transport in the modern city and given a reasonable level of ability most people can hop on a bike and get from a to b. Cheap, non-polluting and good exercise.

I also confess I am one of those bike riders who give bike riders a bad name on the road, I go through red lights, cut across the road, dodging traffic and nicking onto the footpath when the road is blocked. Frankly I must drive some drivers into fits of rage and I have received plenty of abuse for it. The best trick is the bogan in the holden ute who winds down his window to shout abuse at me just before he passes me on the road and makes sure he get uncomfortably close as he passes. Which is fine except for one thing.

As today’s news indicates, when it comes to people versus car moving, physics intrude. Quite simply the mass of even a small car moving at 40 or 50 kilometres an hour is pretty much a death sentence to a human being, be they a pedestrian or a cyclist. Cars are lethal weapons.

As a bike rider you instinctively understand that your life on the road is very much in your hands, those that don’t soon learn. Which brings me to road rules. Frankly they suck as far as riding is concerned. Traffic lights are for cars. Roundabouts, of which Canberra has more than its fair share, are diabolical when there’s traffic. And the nice little bike lanes on the side of the road that sometimes appear are great for collecting all the broken bits of glass that are guaranteed to give you a puncture on the way home when its raining and not so good when you have to pull out into the traffic to go around a stationary vehicle whose driver just decided to stop and consult their gps.

Bottom line, its not my fault that driving is such a stressful part of everyday life, in fact I’m doing my bit to try and help the problem of traffic congestion so the next time you see a bike rider do something that pisses you off just remember its their skin and you are sitting inside Oz’s number one killing machine.

First cars and trains across Sydney Harbour Bridge, March 1932 / Sam Hood

Originally uploaded by State Library of New South Wales collection

cyclists|road rage

This is a rather dubious article from Miranda as she weakly mixes some dry humour with authoritarian concerns for the rule of law in a poorly judged attempt to provoke some controversy. It suffers from a limited perspective, the view from a comfortable middle class yuppy lifestyle which might include the odd casual sunday afternoon cycle down the footpath to the local coffee shop. According to Miranda it

“is classic angry cyclist behaviour”

born out of a

“1990s slogan ”the road is there to share” … It’s a big fat lie.”

As commentators to her article observe, all she is really doing is fanning the flames of division that already exist on the roads vis-a-vis cars and cyclists. One of her respondents sums it up this way:

To a car driver, a minor accident could mean damage to the car. To the cyclist, a collision means potentially serious injury or death.

But the article is more than a simple tactic to generate a bit of traffic for the SMH, it also reveals how the mainstream media is captive to the voices of the establishment. There is the affront to civility caused by an anonymous angry cyclist, there are the concerns of the Transport Workers Union, there is the interest of law and order as represented by the police who have generously released the CCTV material and spoken on the record in the accompanying video and then, because it’s really all the fault of the government, there is the weird association of Nathan Rees and the closing of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for a picnic with the story about bus vs cyclist.

Miranda may well be questioning the right of motorised transport to a dominant and monopoly position on the roads but if she is her article completely ignores the social and environmental benefits that cycling, as a mode of commuting, provides to society as a whole. It’s unfortunate that things have degenerated to this point, but until people like Miranda and organisations like the SMH start to seriously question the given moral authority of the car driving public over and above our concerns for the safety of cyclist and pedestrians, until then, things are only going to get worse.

Articles like Miranda’s don’t help, especially when they include the caricature of an oversized cyclist equipped with chariot styled spikes threatening a poor defenceless undersized car and its driver. Funny how easily we can personalise a car and demonise a cyclist. Fans of Jeremy Clarkson (Cyclists take up too much room and don’t pay to be there) will feel utterly vindicated in their belief that car driving is a right not a privilege.

cyclists|road rage.