Posts by Dismal Soyanz
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But the analogy between the shooter and the shooting victim suggests exactly the opposite – that there is no point in educating cyclists at all.
Ermmm no. Now you are making the assumption that it all shootings are the fault of the shooter. Maybe I should have said accidental (i.e. not premeditated murder) shootings?
it was simply not a prerequisite of my sharing the road with motorised vehicles, and I’m not sure that that’s a good thing.
If you use the road in NZ, you have an obligation to know the road code.
From the official road code for cyclists:
RULES
Before cycling on the road you must know the road rules. They apply to cyclists as well as those using motor vehicles. The rules help to prevent crashes and reduce risk of injury.
The difference being that they are not tested on it. Granted, the lack of testing may mean a smaller percentage of cyclists know the road rules. But it seems a bit of a leap to say that introducing licensing would mean that those cyclists who are dangerous would be less so or that cyclists who aren't dangerous would be safer from bad car drivers.
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More than truck drivers? Would you care to explain that, please?
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Hard News: I'm not a "f***ing cyclist".…, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Did I say it was always the shooter’s fault? My point is that when the data shows that the fault lies largely with the “safer” party, you can’t draw the conclusion that it is the fault of the less safe one.
To draw out your analogy more. Suppose truck/car serious accidents were 75% the fault of the truck driver and 25% the fault of the car driver. Bryan would be drawing the conclusion that car drivers need more education.
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If the driver/rider apportionment for accidents is about 75/25 as stated earlier it might indicate to some people that there is a problem with the way some cyclists use the road.
Quite possibly one of the most blatant misreadings of statistical data I have ever seen.
That's like saying shooting deaths are the result of people not learning how to avoid bullets.
There are some cyclists who are a menace (cycle couriers, I'm a lookin' at you) just as there are some car drivers who are a funeral director's best friend. But by far and away most of the incidents I have seen would not have been avoided even if the cyclist knew the road code back to front and had more skills than Sarah Walker. Like Sacha said, where's the evidence to support it?
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Hard News: I'm not a "f***ing cyclist".…, in reply to Bryan Dods,
The trick being in getting people to realise that.
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Hard News: I'm not a "f***ing cyclist".…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Who was it who said something about cyclists just “popping out” of traffic? I believe this is largely because Kiwis generally don’t consider bikes to be a proper part of the traffic mix and numbers of cyclists still aren’t that great (though apparently growing, which makes me happy). When people change their attitudes towards cycling and numbers of cyclists reach a critical enough mass, cyclists will become more visible because people will generally expect them to be there.
I would emphasize that part of “considering bikes to be a proper part of the traffic mix” is actually being aware and on the lookout for cyclists. [Edit: Ahead of cyclists reaching the critical mass - we gotta learn to walk before we run,no?] Here in Wellywood the potential for cyclists to move into the middle of the lane is very high given that a large part of our road network is narrow and winding.
It seems obvious (but not to some) that the roads here are not suitable for driving at 50 km/h all the time. It’s just a little extension to that in acknowledging that cyclists may slow traffic speed down further where it is simply not safe for motor vehicles to overtake cyclists. Personally, that doesn’t seem a big ask to me (I’m lazy – ahem – old enough to not want to rush anywhere) but I can see that this would irritate huge chunks of the car-driving population – especially the ones that seem to have trouble wearing their baseball caps round the right way.
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I have this mental image of Victorian ladies all passed out due to excessively rapid breathing ironically induced by reading "bodice-rippers".
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Hard News: I'm not a "f***ing cyclist".…, in reply to Yamis,
I’ve been to enough countries to know that we aren’t the worst drivers in the world. Not even close.
Some numbers to put the debate in context can be found here, here and here. {Warning - some biggish pdf docs]
I find it fascinating (in a horrified kinda way) that our road death rate (death’s per 100,000 population) is worse than many low income countries and worse than just about every country in Western Europe, yet at the same time we seem to have a relatively low death rate relative to the vehicle population. See especially Figures 2 and 3 of the third link.
So we aren’t the worst drivers in the world but given our status as a developed nation (arguable for many reasons, I know) we are clearly a long way from where we ought to be.
On a slightly different note, it just struck me that one way of looking at this is the imbalance in the way we as road users view rights and obligations. We have a right to be on the road but with it comes obligations to give consideration to fellow road users. We seem to be pretty hot about the first and crap on the second.
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Hard News: Moving targets, in reply to Sacha,
You’ll be aksing us to respect used car salespeople next :)
heh. "Some of my best friends are used car salespeople..."
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Put simply, I think some people think that natural justice only covers the folk they like.