Cycle Registration Floated

[TREGTR]

You should get into politics.

Too many bottles of grange in my cellar for that (metaphorically speaking) lol

[Ants]

Too many bottles of grange in my cellar for that (metaphorically speaking) lol

lawl

[TREGTR]

lawl

lol

[Ants]

Just make sure you acknowledge that you have the grange bottles but deny consuming it by misplacing it while riding your push bike

[XKLABA]

Question: how wide are London's lanes compared to Sydney's?

I would more wonder how big is England square meter wise verse its population and how does that comparing to NSW

England has 407 people per square Km, NSW has 9.12 people per square Km and NSW is more then 5 times the size

I seen it to many times where some dumb fark thinks " hey it worked over there lets do it here " only to have it fail miserably, I've said this once already in this thread but clearly some people don't get it, Australia is enique and what works in other parts of the world will NOT work here

[oweban]

Yeah but look at population density at England vs NSW - we've got probably 90% of the state is sparsely populated, and 10% is super-concentrated.

Not saying that something that works there would work here - I'm meaning more that how they've made changes to gaps needing to be left; are their roads wide enough to accommodate that and still maintain traffic flow? As an example, not many people ride up Newbridge/Milperra/Canterbury/Old Canterbury roads, and I'm grateful for that - traffic is shithouse enough without having the drop to merge to one lane then back out to two.

I'm all for separate cycleways, I love how they work in Europe, but the infrastructure in Sydney just wasn't built with that in mind all those years ago.

[TREGTR]

Just make sure you acknowledge that you have the grange bottles but deny consuming it by misplacing it while riding your push bike

You could drink them while cycling, after all they are filled with Sydney Water

[GTR-N1]

21 pedestrians killed in NSW so far this year.

9 killed last year.

Are the toxins in/on SE Asian groceries making us all mad? Or seemingly innocuous iPod buds?

[TREGTR]

21 pedestrians killed in NSW so far this year.

9 killed last year.

Are the toxins in/on SE Asian groceries making us all mad? Or seemingly innocuous iPod buds?

I knew that sauce tasted a bit like mercury, so yes to first. I seem to suffer the first, so the ipod bud inoculation does not appear to work (plus, I can't hear the traffic)

I agree deaths are a serious issue. Solution, limited to 60 zones or less. As the meercat in the ad says: "simples" lol

so much decoding required

[Tonba]

I think there are problems with mobile phones. Too many people are walking/driving/riding while using these, not looking where they are going... in addition, every smart phone has a music function, so more and more people are using that and no-one really seems aware of their surroundings....

In regards to bike Rego + licencing.. I think it is a daft idea. Sounds expensive and time consuming. Although some basic training/road etiquette in school wouldn't hurt.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Tonba

[XKLABA]

It's probably less then 10%, beside the point, like you said, the roads here are not wide enough and are already over loaded with cars, there simple isn't enough room to put dedicated pushy lanes on the roads, I do like the idea of making footpaths wider and having them half foot traffic and half pushies and that also gets them a safer distance from the big bad car drivers

The problem with sydney and why things that work overseas but not here is everything is to far spead out and its not a 10-15 minute pushy ride to get somewhere, so only the dedicated bike riders ride bikes to get around and even them have cars for longer trips inside sydney

Aswell as that the number of pushy riders per population is a lot lower here then in those other countries so it doesn't justify the cost of setting it up for a hand full of people when the majority of people simple just won't use it

60kmh is a good idea, I was going to say 50kmh, that why the difference in speed between cars and bikes isn't significant so collisions aren't so damaging

[PN-Mad]

One thing I've noticed in Europe is the use of abandoned rail corridors for bike ways.

I think that idea has merit. They are of gradual gradient, decent size and usually tie together points of interest. Disused corridors, or even potentially used ones could provide safe rapid cycle transportation for suburbs. Take a small two lane section of corridor, fence it off to the live railways, and pave it. Instant awesome bike lanes.

[GTR-N1]

Now here's a man with commonsense. Just need to bust through a few pieces of Railcorp red tape and secure valuables/trains from Graffiti vandals.

Btw graffiti bums should be made to clean up more mess than what they were caught doing and placed into stocks for a month in the piazza.

[Ants]

One thing I've noticed in Europe is the use of abandoned rail corridors for bike ways.

I think that idea has merit. They are of gradual gradient, decent size and usually tie together points of interest. Disused corridors, or even potentially used ones could provide safe rapid cycle transportation for suburbs. Take a small two lane section of corridor, fence it off to the live railways, and pave it. Instant awesome bike lanes.

Nice idea, but to find abandoned rail corridors in Oz is a challenge in metropolitan areas.

[niZmO_Man]

The problem with Sydney is that no one looked/planned the infrastructure 50 years ago when they were expanding. "Just build some roads and put houses everywhere, she'll be right". The only exception is the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Yes we don't have the population density like other cities, imagine if we did! It's not like Sydney doesn't get enough tax income...

Ten most expensive cities in the world

1. Singapore

2. Paris

3. Oslo

4. Zurich

5. Sydney

6. Melbourne

6. Geneva

6. Caracas

6. Tokyo

10. Copenhagen

[XKLABA]

Nice idea, but to find abandoned rail corridors in Oz is a challenge in metropolitan areas.

You took the words right of my mouth, tis a great idea though

[Daleo]

This pretty much encapsulates the argument I've been trying to get across for the last week or so.

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-07/hendrie-bike-licences-a-kneejerk-reaction/5436498

Licensing cyclists would do nothing to save lives or solve the infrastructure deficit. It would simply be a disincentive to a transport mode enjoying serious growth, writes Doug Hendrie.

Here we go. In the wake of solid reporting on the spike in driver aggression against cyclists comes the backlash. Those 48 cyclists killed last year - squashed by trucks or sideswiped by SUV drivers - well, they must be to blame.

What we need, according to NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay and the mayor of Bayside Council in Melbourne, are licences for cyclists.

That's right. We definitely do not need lane separation, not stronger penalties for maiming cyclists, and definitely not the enforced one metre passing distance just introduced in Queensland.

What we need in Melbourne and Sydney is to get those lycra-clad hoons under control. Make them sit licence tests. Make them pay a fee to be on the roads. Force bikes to have licence plates. Ban the law-breakers. Only then will the roads be safe for good, ordinary car drivers once more. Only then will drivers have the freedom to drive fast into the next traffic jam.

I've tried to be generous with such policy kite-flying. If you squint, you can almost see it as well meaning, a response to the spate of car-bike crashes and cyclist deaths. Cyclists might well support such a plan if it would lead to the creation of better infrastructure and improved safety. I would be in favour of that.

But plans to license cyclists aren't about safety for those riders. They're about bringing down thebanhammer on a noisy minority. They're about harvesting votes from the aggrieved drivers of Australia, who would much prefer to blame cyclists for their slow commute rather than, say, the actual cause - growing cities, low-density sprawl and sub-par public transport.

It is a classically Australian response to a problem. Here's the populist logic: drivers are annoyed at bikes for costing them 10 seconds and forcing them to change lanes. There are more drivers than cyclists. The political answer is clear: smack down the minority and ride high on a brief popularity surge from good ordinary car users. Four wheels good, two wheels bad.

Minister Gay all but admits as much: "It is a very small section of cyclists that don't do the right thing," he told 2UE in Sydney. "It would be probably under 1 per cent."

In the internet age, I realise that facts are unpopular and outrage is king, but, alas, facts are all I have to draw on. Here they are: In four out of five serious collisions between cyclists and drivers, the car driver was to blame. Most cyclists are also drivers. That means they're already licensed and already pay, in a number of ways, towards the upkeep of roads. Cycle lanes are cheap, requiring paint, or, for full separation, cement dividers.

And as for the licensing scheme itself - how, exactly, would it work? Would kids sit tests? Would every bike be licensed? The cost of introducing and administering a licensing system would almost certainly outweigh the income derived from the scheme.

As Bicycle Network Victoria spokesman Garry Brennan notes, bike registration has been abandoned in almost every place in the world that has trialled it.

If the aim of these proposals is to tackle the red-light running, aggro, middle-aged men in lycra, the solution is far simpler: police the hotspots known for bad cyclist behaviour. I've seen it work in Melbourne, with red-light runners nabbed by cops on bikes. No need for a licence.

Why does it matter? A recent editorial in the Australian claims urban cyclists are a "menace" and that "our cities are dominated by cars because they are sprawling. We have no equivalent of Amsterdam and should stop pretending we do."

But this is wrong. Increasingly, Australia's major cities are becoming denser and cycle lanes are farmore efficient movers of people than a ton of car carrying 80 kilos of human.

In our inner cities, at least, cycling is vastly superior - a cheap way of maximising existing road space.

As urban development consultant Alan Davies observed last year, the social benefits of cycling "very likely exceed their financial cost". Forcing cyclists to sit tests and pay registration would be a major disincentive to a transport mode enjoying serious growth.

Licensing cyclists is a classic Australian kneejerk reaction and legislation at its worst.

It will do precisely nothing to solve the infrastructure deficit. It will discourage people from switching from car to bike. And it will do nothing to save cyclist lives.

The only winners would be the outraged drivers who blame the dead for daring to ride on their roads, and Australia's talkback hosts, for whom supposedly entitled minorities are their daily meat.

[Daleo]

[zebra]

But unlike any other vehicle they don't have to pay rego, insurance, fuel excise, tolls etc

Which is the point a few of us are trying to make.

If bike riders want to be treated as "vehicles" and have equal share of the road then they should have to deal with the same shit.

So

No riding on footpaths anymore, no slipping over the pedestrian crossing, be required to wear the same protective gear as a motorcyclist, not some dinky foam skull cap, Be required to pass road worthy inspections annually (or as per state requirements)

[Daleo]

But unlike any other vehicle they don't have to pay rego, insurance, fuel excise, tolls etc

Which is the point a few of us are trying to make.

If bike riders want to be treated as "vehicles" and have equal share of the road then they should have to deal with the same shit.

So

No riding on footpaths anymore, no slipping over the pedestrian crossing, be required to wear the same protective gear as a motorcyclist, not some dinky foam skull cap, Be required to pass road worthy inspections annually (or as per state requirements)

Read the article above the picture.

Give me just one rational reason why a vehicle that doesn't use any fuel; should have to pay fuel excise?

Bicycles are ALREADY recognised as vehicles, and are ALREADY entitled to equal share on the roads.

This is already law. What is so difficult to understand about that?

Yours is the attitude of entitlement that needs to change.