Cycling in Melbourne Australia
What Peeves me OFF!
Call me grumpy or old fashioned, but more recently, I've become quite irate about how other road users seem to break the laws and keep getting away with it every single day. I'm not saying that I'm a perfect rider/commuter/Racer. But I do know when my actions might endanger others or myself.
But I was hoping to get your observations on a normal day out and just take in your immediate resonse to traffic action, pedestrians rushing to work, joggers wired up with the Volume set to 11 on their Ipods oblivious to whats around them and many more perils we came in contact with.
Here are a couple that reaalllly peeved me off!
- Last week riding down Canterbury Road, Sun hadn't risen yet and traffic was very light about 6:10am, when I notice a slow moving sedan in front of me heading west. I came up to it fairly fast (35km/h) when I noticed it was the Newspaper Delivery Guy. Here he is Throwing the rolled up daily "Age" (with quite good accuarcy) from the drivers seat into the paid said recipients front yard. I thought, Isn't it illegal to throw any object from a moving vehicle?..Should I have reported this guy?
- next day, Yarra trail commuting to work I see the Rowing coaches riding and blasting their voices through the megaphone. These so called adults teaching the kids from Carey, Scotch College or whatever $$$$ schools, Wearing no Crash Helmets. Have these guys got dispensation to wearing crash hats. Surely the School has obligations to safe bicycle riding & realise it is law to wear head protection when riding.
What other things PEEEVE you guys off.
Cheers
But I was hoping to get your observations on a normal day out and just take in your immediate resonse to traffic action, pedestrians rushing to work, joggers wired up with the Volume set to 11 on their Ipods oblivious to whats around them and many more perils we came in contact with.
Here are a couple that reaalllly peeved me off!
- Last week riding down Canterbury Road, Sun hadn't risen yet and traffic was very light about 6:10am, when I notice a slow moving sedan in front of me heading west. I came up to it fairly fast (35km/h) when I noticed it was the Newspaper Delivery Guy. Here he is Throwing the rolled up daily "Age" (with quite good accuarcy) from the drivers seat into the paid said recipients front yard. I thought, Isn't it illegal to throw any object from a moving vehicle?..Should I have reported this guy?
- next day, Yarra trail commuting to work I see the Rowing coaches riding and blasting their voices through the megaphone. These so called adults teaching the kids from Carey, Scotch College or whatever $$$$ schools, Wearing no Crash Helmets. Have these guys got dispensation to wearing crash hats. Surely the School has obligations to safe bicycle riding & realise it is law to wear head protection when riding.
What other things PEEEVE you guys off.
Cheers
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Walter on -
Hi Hielke,
I Started this discussion with a tongue in cheek approach. I know people react differently to different scenarios. I was more interested in some examples of what we fellow cyclist come across in our daily rides or weekend journeys. I totally agree with your smile it off approach, but in reality, most of us can't bear it.
Just to correct you Newspaper kids can't or should not drive and this particular delivery guy would have been in his 50's.
I've tried to be polite and try and make my presence clear on bikes paths (yes I call out & ring my bell) especially to rowing coaches with many replies of F^ck you & mind your Fricken business directed at me. I've given up on responding to them and keep on travelling and minding my own business. What gives me more joy, is riding along some other rider and starting a quick chat or a complentary comment about his/her bike. Their attitude is drammaticaly improved, even by a complete stranger.
Hielke, I cherish good feedback, and I get that mostly from daily riders not Rowing coaches, pedestrians and car drivers.
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Permalink Reply by Cory on -
The two mention don't really bother me, as they don't threaten my safety.
Road users jumping red lights (try Lloyd St Kensington if you want to see cars do it - esp at peak hour). Pedestrons stepping out without looking. Cars turning in front of oncoming traffic (bike or otherwise) without looking. Driver/passengers opening car doors without looking. And... the big one... mobile phone usage while driving.
These are all illegal. These all impinge upon my safety. These bother me.
(But yeah... paper delivery guy should ride a bike! Sheesh!)
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Permalink Reply by Adrian Tritschler on -
The rowing coaches are often a danger to themselves and others, I've had one run head on into me while I was standing still shouting "OI! LOOK OUT" Stupidly I'd stepped to the left of the path expecting him to keep left too, had my shoulder resting against a solid brick wall so I couldn't get any further out of his way and still the idiot with the megaphone managed to trundle into me while watching over his shoulder and shouting at his rowers.
Peeves me? Can be pretty much any australian on the road or on a path, whether on foot, bike or car, the general attitude and aggression and selectivity of which laws they choose to follow, 'cos everyone knows that the laws are for the other guy...
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Permalink Reply by ChrisS on -
Newspapers used to be delievered by kids on bikes. For varying reasons you can't do that these days,nanny state shite & all that etc. Now it's adults lobbing papers out of cars, which is pretty ineffectual, except for when the Saturday Age either smashes one of my fruit trees or tomatoes out the front.
Ok, what really shits me at the moment, and this isn't a petty concern.
Seeing more contra-flow riders on main roads. WTF?
Now I'll go concern myself with matters of a more positive nature. ;)
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Permalink Reply by Steve Jay on -
I suspect no definitive study has been done on this, but I would guess safety law breaking is probably equal among pedestrians, cyclists and motorists, although recent offence figures from a Vic Police blitz indicated that pedestrians were more likely to "ignore" a red light than cyclists 4 to 1.
I'm coming to feel that the cycling movement needs to stop focusing on trying to be "perfect" (ie targeting our own for law breaking) rather we need to focus on getting equality of treatment. Everybody makes errors of judgment or breaks the odd small rule by error or minor thoughtlessness, no matter how they travel. The issue is justice, not whether we should be perfect in our behaviour (although it helps.)
An example...
Yesterday, on my way to work along the Nepean Hwy, crossing Glenhuntly Rd, when a white Toyota overtook me, bumped my bars and knuckles with their wing mirror (yes, it bloody hurt) and didn't quite destablise me enough to make me fall, then turned left right in front of me down Glenhuntly. All of this in full view of a traffic cop in the second to left lane.
I waved to the cop, pointed at the white Toyota, but the cop kept going. It's unlikely he would have kept going if I'd thrown my pump at the car, or had run an amber light. When I caught the cop at Glen Eira lights, and tried to politely get his attention, he dismissed me with a wave of his hand. A letter to Ethical Standards is pending.
I'm finding that if there is one area where cycling in Hobart is better than it is in Melbourne (and there really is only this one thing, generally cycling in Hobart is shite compared to Melbourne), it's that Tasmania Police are better at treating cyclists and motorists equally than are Victoria Police. Here, the police seem to think cars are above the law in cases involving bicycles and they're quick to target bicycles for nuisance level offences such as creeping forward of the holding box, but seem to do nothing about the epidemic of cars running red lights on non-camera intersections. And cars running reds is an epidemic in this city, I tell you. (It's encouraged by the long interdirectional pauses, which are ironically programmed into the lights because of red light running problems...)
Over the 90s, Bicycle Tasmania ran a few controversial campaigns drawing attention to motorist misbehaviour,. and how it endangers the community, while most cyclist misbehaviour endangers only the cyclist (at worst) and is usually only nuisance value. It seems to me that Bicycle Victoria have preferred to campaign to its members to respect the law, a noble and responsible thing to do, but has ignored motorist misbehaviour, focusing more on "More People Riding More Often."
If people who want to ride feel that they will be safe when riding, they will ride. It seems to me that if we address dangerous driving and dehumanising attitudes towards cyclists by the community, giving pedestrians first priority, cyclists a very close second and motorists a distant third, that will get "More People Riding More Often."
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