It’s time to address Victoria’s massive rogue cyclist problem
by PTUA
As a cyclist, nothing shits me more then seeing some arse clown sail past me whilst I’ve stopped at a set of lights with all the other traffic. If I could, I’d ride up them and push them into oncoming taffic. That’s how much it irritates me.
Why?
Because all it takes is a few of these idiots out there day in and day out flouting the law and dragging cyclists reputation down the toilet.
As it stands now, if you lined up Hitler and a cyclist dying from breast cancer with a newborn baby in their arms and asked Victorian motorists who they’d prefer to ride in their passenger seat, 80-90% would pick Hitler.
Thank god the Victorian government has finally decided the state has had enough of the rogue cyclists, who number in their millions, and released some beefy new laws to help police control the bicycle violence plaguing Melbourne.
From today, strict laws have been introduced:
Dangerous riding – $13,610 or prison for twelve months or both.
Riding anywhere but the road is dangerous riding and it’s about time cyclists were fined for riding elsewhere.
CARELESS riding of a bike – $681 for a first offence and $1361 for a subsequent offence
IF a person is killed or seriously injured by a cyclist and the rider has not immediately stopped and offered assistance – $68,052 or five years in prison IF property is damaged by a cyclist and the rider has not immediately stopped and offered assistance – $284 or seven days in prison for a first offence and $567 or prison for between seven and 14 days for a subsequent offence.
If however a pedestrian walks out infront of a cyclist (which is what happens 99.9%) of the time in such collisions then obviously nothing happens. If you’re lucky the pedestrian will hurl some abuse at you for not watching where you’re going, and if you’re unlucky you’ll get something thrown at you.
Personally, despite having a 115db AirZound airhorn on my Long Haul Trucker I’ve managed to slam into two women over the past few years in Melbourne’s CBD. Both were attempting to cross at red lights, both times I went over the bars, both times my bicycle fully loaded for commuting hit them at speed and hopefully both of them learnt their lesson.
It’s great news to hear that I now face jail because I didn’t hobble over to see if they were ok after being thrown onto the middle of the road because of their idiocy.
Still, the statistics don’t lie and cyclists clearly prove to be a menacing threat on our roads and paths. Roads minister Tim Pallas defends the new laws stating:
Two people had died in the past 10 years after being hit by cyclists and another 68 had been seriously injured.
Meanwhile I’ve never been rear ended, side swiped, doored or had a driver pull infront of me and then deliberately slam on the brakes and endanger my life (the penalty of which is just a $1200 fine in case you were wondering).
With over 400 cyclists injured or killed on Victorian roads each year it’s good to see the government is actively targeting the root of the problem, pedestrian deaths. I’m sure these new laws will make the roads safer for everyone.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:50 pm Van(Quote)
Living in a large city, there are cyclists everywhere. For whatever reason they seem to think the rules of the road do NOT apply to them but, for some unknown cause, they DO apply to cars.
So… no stopping at red lights… no looking before turning… no concept of staying within the bike lane.
I truly cannot stand it. I wish we would enforce (or establish) laws that would put an end to this behavior.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:50 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Living in a (relatively) large city it annoys me that there are pedestrians everywhere and they too think the rules of the road do not apply to them.
There’s far more pedestrians then cyclists which just compounds the problem.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:36 am Van(Quote)
Very good point, tho when driving I’ve had more issues with cyclists than pedestrians.
Bottom line – we all suck at one point or another.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:35 pm Jeza(Quote)
Can’t say I agree with any of the above legislation. Ultimately it will only serve to marginalise cyclists even more than they are. All the issues that you mention are already covered by existing road rules/legislation so don’t need the above new categories. Oh and whoopie at the death toll caused by cyclists. Meanwhile several thousand people have died on the roads in the same period. The fact is, dangerous riding is most likely to result in harm to the cyclist more than anyone else, which should be enough of a deterrent. Though hope that the charges will only apply if is proven that the cyclist caused an accident resulting in injury to others.