Sgt Bourne and Pinch, brilliant post guys!
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bullbar and a :love tap ?"
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I love this argument that "I pay rego, they don't, they should not be on the road". For the subscribers of this argument, think about these points-
1 A cyclist causes no wear and tear on the roads.
2 A cyclist does not contribute to polution.
3 Many cities in the world encourage bike use in the CBD as it actually limits traffic congestion. Top gear video with the new mag had a race across London between a bike, boat, public transport and car. They finished in that order, with the bike stopping at red lights. It was other cars and busses holding the car up, not the bikes.
4 The average cyclist, even those that just ride 30 minutes a day, have significantly less chance of developing heart disease, lung disease, diabetes and a whole plethora of other life span decreasing disease. The beer swilling, chain smoking, pie munching stressed out executive (and many other motorists that fit else where in the spectrum) are at an increased risk of these diseases. This results in the cyclist placng a significantly decreased financial drain on the public health system when compared to the motorist that leads a sedentary lifestyle, stretching your medicare dollar further. Maybe the cyclist should pay rego, but be exempt medicare levy.
5 As has been said, the majority of cyclists have a car, pay rego but chose not to use the car. For example, I have 2 cars, at one stage had 3 (all V8's). We now have the 2, one of which is a V8 ute so it pays the highest rego bracket in QLD, but it drives a total of 10km a day with Tori to work and back. I think all that money I pay on the ute offsets what I do not pay on the bike.
Another point that has not yet been raised, this is a car enthusiasts website, so therefore the bias will be towards the motorist. Log onto a cycling enthusiast website and the complaint is that motorists are all evil and incompetent, it is a question of perspective. For example, I rode in competition from the age of 12 until I was 32. During that time I was doing a lot of training, up to 10,000km a year on the bike. As a result of all those hours on the bike I had a number of times that motorists caused me to have an accident (way too many to count), often resulting in broken bones (broken wrist, collar bone, tibia, fibula, ribs, toe, 4 bones in my foot and not all in the one incident). According to the logic here that all cyclists are terrible because they slow me down and that is justified, what attitude am I justified to have about motorists considering they actively tried to kill me? My point is, yes there are bad cyclists, just as there are bad motorists. Would anyone like me to list some of the stunts motorists pull, it would be a long one? In my experience, I have always tried to give cars enough room. Of course I am going to, they are bigger than me, harder than me and hurt when they hit me. Despite this attitude, they have still hit me, cut me off, thrown stuff at me etc, why?
The simple fact is, cyclists are legally allowed on the road by every law in australia. They do have the legal obligation to stay as far left as possible and no more than 2 riders abreast, again the same across all australian laws. If they can not safely stay left enough to provide you with enough room to pass, they do not legally have to give you that room, that is the law, get over it. If you do not like the law, don't yell at the cyclist trying to mind his own business and survive, he can't change the situation. No point getting on your soap box here either, will not change the situation. Write to your local politician, get a petition going or something like that, do something constructive rather than having a pointless whinge.