Posts by James Butler
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to BenWilson,
I’m always at loggerheads with some people over the right to weigh in how awesome something feels as a very good reason to do it, despite some risks. Tell me that “it feels awesome” isn’t at least some of the reason you ride a pushbike at all.
Yeah it is*; I guess we just have different calculi of awesome. I wouldn’t break the road code for extra awesome, but I would for extra safety. It’s not so much a risk assessment as a good citizen assessment.
*A bit. Most of my commute isn’t all that much fun at all, and I pretty much never ride for recreation.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to BenWilson,
Sometimes, on a light that is only tripped by a heavy weight on a sensor, it’s the only way you can turn at all.
I'm pretty sure the sensors are inductive loops tripped by large masses of metal, but yeah, this too.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to BenWilson,
Going down Queen St, one of my favorite paths of all, I will go through every single red light. I don’t walk the bike, that’s really unnecessary, I just wait for the first press of pedestrians crossing to begin dispersing from the center, and then roll slowly into the intersection, no more than about 8km/h, maintaining a wide gap from all pedestrians, until I’m clear, then I bomb onwards right in the middle of the road, which is 99% of the time completely clear of all traffic on my side. There is pretty much no danger at all in doing so, and it feels awesome.
Yeah, nah, you see "it feels awesome" seems like the wrong reason to me.
If I’m in a car and a cyclist rolls up in front of me, I’d rather they did cross with the pedestrians, because they will certainly slow me down when it is my turn to go, and that does actually pan out to cars further behind not actually making it through the light phase, and that does actually annoy motorists.
This is more like it.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to BenWilson,
But this all comes with experience, both of cycling and of driving cars and riding motorcycles. The motorcycling training was really the most enlightening, I learned in Australia and they have a very comprehensive training system – it made me a much better driver of cars.
I have to admit, I taught myself to ride a motorcycle, which is ridiculously easy to get away with in this country.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Steve Barnes,
From the Melbourne Tram Driver…
The trolleybuses in Wellington have a much simpler system - the points in the wires are switched by the current drawn by the bus motor as it approaches the intersection. Want to change the points? Accelerate. Want to go in the "default" direction? Lift your foot. It's a simple, elegant solution, but of course it leads to a number of situations in which the driver can't respond sanely to the traffic conditions and correctly operate the points at the same time. Hilarity ensues.
Anyway, even when a tram driver doesn't have a choice where to go, you can't necessarily expect every motorist to guess its direction by looking at the rails. Hence indicators.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Chris Bowden,
As a sometimes cyclist, I hate seeing cyclists disregard traffic laws. Jumping red lights, even for what you consider a ‘safe’ reason, just gives the average car driver another reason to hate cyclists. Similar justifications to yours are used all the time by motorists for entering bus lanes or ignoring other traffic rules they consider minor.
I feel no compulsion to be "better" than drivers just so I don't offend their sensibilities - I try to be better when, and because, it's safer for me to do so. And as a cyclist I carry a larger part of the total risk of my actions than does a driver, so I feel somewhat more empowered to be calculating about those risks. As it is I break the law very seldom, except for my aforementioned 100m footpath-ride.
When I cycled less often, I felt more like you do. Now I can't be bothered.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Jon Briggs,
Does this include jumping red’s when you consider it safe to do so? So many intersections in Auckland are terrifying. Three lanes at the lights on a two lane road. A bus in the left most lane. I sometimes feel safer taking the decision into my own hands and crossing an intersection against a red light, rather than relying on the decisions made by drivers.
Can’t speak for Russel, but I definitely consider obeying the law secondary to saving my own skin, and will occasionally run a red light if I think it will help. That said, I’m a comparatively conservative cyclist, and will obey the road rules by default. Not all do.
ETA: Mark Thomas, snap.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
Interestingly, I believe the safety recommendation for cyclists turning right is to perform a hook turn rather than move fully into a lane as you suggest. Not sure if it’s a road rule as such or just a safety recommendation for cyclists.
It's just a recommendation I believe. And I'm happy to do a hook turn if I can't safely change lanes; happens maybe 10-20% of the time.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Isaac Freeman,
On the other hand, Auckland drivers were – in my anecdotal experience –remarkably relaxed about sharing the lane when I demonstrated an intention to occupy it.
This. Several times a day, I move fully into a lane either a) to discourage people from passing me in a narrow bit or b) because I want to eventually turn right. I can count on one hand the number of times anyone's taken exception to that - a nice low dick ratio IMHO.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Lisa Black,
My point is that the driver chose to park somewhere he couldn’t exit the car safely from the driver’s side.
He was parked in a marked car park. If the council is going to designate an area for parking, then they carry much of the responsibility for the safety of parking in that area.
I cycle to work nearly every day; it's a 33km round trip, much of it on 60km/h four-lane roads. Some cycle lanes I use; some I ignore; for one 100m stretch I always ride on the footpath; and every one of those choices is made because I assess it to carry the least risk. Until we have proper infrastructure, that kind of thinking is the only way to stay alive cycling in Auckland.