Anti Cycling Legislators in Aus hit a new low.

Jawgap

odyssey06 wrote: »

My idea though is that you shouldn't see them, or realise that they've seen you... until you get the fine in the post.

Yes, we've seen what happens with fines through the post.......

odyssey06

[QUOTE=desertcircus;988
69641]Policing involves setting priorities. Focusing on cyclists jumping lights rather than on drivers jumping lights would be a catastrophically stupid misallocation of resources.[/QUOTE]

Who said anything about focusing? Enforcing the rules of the road is enforcing the rules of the road. Focusing means a targeted blitz. Since when does applying the rules of the road to all road users count as focusing? It means not ignoring offences when they are happening right in front of you. We will never have enough resources to be everywhere all the time.

If 'priority' setting was the way to go, then the logical thing to do would be to hand ownership of the rules of the road over to the Guards to rewrite, because the attitude here seems to be, well if the Guards aren't enforcing it, it's not a real rule. So let's get that set of real rules.

As it is, we're not covering all our current priorities. Looking back, we've gotten to the mess we have gotten on our roads because of successive, selective 'priority' setting. All that's done is engender a disrespect for the rules of the road, endangering all road users.

We need a new approach... is the Australian route the way to go? For us, I would say no, because massive fines are all very well in theory, but first you need to detect and process and convict. Though as someone who is not philosophically opposed to a national ID card system, I'm open to the ID idea.

odyssey06

Actually - separate to the pros and cons of each law - what is to be admired in Australia in general is that people are taking these laws seriously. The legislators seriously expect these laws to be enforced. Cyclists seriously expect that they will have to obey these laws which is why they are kicking up a fuss.

Here, the attitude to similar laws (whether they applied to cars or bikes) would be "ah sure, the Guards'll never enforce that". So legislators throw law after law onto the 'theoretical' statute book. I don't know if they really expect the law to be enforced and don't seem to make ease of enforcement a priority. The people don't expect the law to be enforced, so they don't kick up a fuss. The Guards are then put into the unfair (and improper) situation where the onus is on them to turn a blind eye.

Jawgap

odyssey06 wrote: »

Actually - separate to the pros and cons of each law - what is to be admired in Australia in general is that people are taking these laws seriously. The legislators seriously expect these laws to be enforced. Cyclists seriously expect that they will have to obey these laws which is why they are kicking up a fuss.

Here, the attitude to similar laws (whether they applied to cars or bikes) would be "ah sure, the Guards'll never enforce that". So legislators throw law after law onto the 'theoretical' statute book. I don't know if they really expect the law to be enforced and don't seem to make ease of enforcement a priority. The people don't expect the law to be enforced, so they don't kick up a fuss. The Guards are then put into the unfair (and improper) situation where the onus is on them to turn a blind eye.

They're kicking up a fuss because they're shortsighted measures and a staggering overreaction. Measures like that depress cycling rates which increase collision rates (fewer cyclists on the road), increase car usage and adversely affect health outcomes.

Are the Aussies right, or are the Dutch and Danes right?

Charles Babbage

desertcircus wrote: »

So we're in agreement: as long as the fining split between cars and bikes for red-light jumping is eight hundred to one, then we're all go on fines.

People committing the same crime should get the same penalty.

rubadub

Unknown Soldier wrote: »

We don't want people doing that stuff... right? As society has decided.

it would seem they do not mind about some stuff. Remember how they did not put cycling on footpaths on the list of fineable offences. When the fines were proposed I was posting a lot questioning what would happen if they did make it an easily fineable offence.

odyssey06 wrote: »

Why shouldn't cyclists have to carry ID? Drivers have to carry ID.

Same reasons as why pedestrians do not have to carry ID, even though they are probably the worst offenders of all road users.

esforum wrote: »

Why do you not wear a helmet?

Same reason you probably do not wear one in a car, even though it is said to give you more potential protection in a car to wear a cycling style helmet -and that is taking into account seatbelts and airbags. Probably the same reason you or others do not wear one while out drinking, even though A&E is brimming with alcohol related casualties. Others have bothered to read up on studies and feel it is safer not to wear a helmet while commuting.

mamax wrote: »

With a kid common sense could/should be used, .

Common sense is already used wtih adults as well as kids. This is why enforcement of the law is so lax with pedestrians and cyclists. It makes perfect sense, some genuinely are too stupid to realise why, I think and hope most just feign ignorance.

desertcircus

Charles Babbage wrote: »

People committing the same crime should get the same penalty.

Grand. Except breaking a red on a bike at 20kph and breaking a red in an SUV at 40kph aren't the same thing, just as throwing a tennis ball at someone isn't the same thing as throwing an axe at them.

Kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared, divided by two. So if a cyclist on their bike weighs 100 kilos and is travelling at twenty kilometres per hour, and a driver in their car weighs two tons and is travelling at forty kilometres per hour, then the cyclist has a kinetic energy of about 1,512 joules. The car, meanwhile, has a kinetic energy of a hundred and twenty one thousand joules, or roughly eighty times that of the cyclist.

Now, my handlebars are (I think) 40cm width, and a Volkswagen Golf is almost exactly 180cm wide. We'll add an extra 5cm to the bike, just to make calculations easier, and figure out that a cyclist is at least four times more likely to be able to avoid hitting a pedestrian, given that they only have to move about 45cm in either direction to avoid the hit, while the car could need to move a solid three feet. The real figure for how easily a cyclist can evade a collision in this situation is almost certainly far higher, given the lower speed and the fact that a cyclist will have far more time to react than a driver in the same distance, but let's leave the multiplier at four. Plugging that into our kinetic energy calculations from earlier, we can see that the danger level from a car breaking a red light is about three hundred and twenty times as high as the comparable figure for a cyclist.

I bravely submit that a legal system which insists upon treating these two things as identical is a stinking heap of dog vomit. They're not the same thing, and pretending they are does nobody any favours.

*I should point out in the interests of openness that my initial figure of 800, mentioned in an earlier post, was wrong. The correct figure, as broken down above, is 320. If you're furious about my error, read the last post as though it says 320 rather than 800. I don't think it loses much.

desertcircus

odyssey06 wrote: »

Who said anything about focusing? Enforcing the rules of the road is enforcing the rules of the road. Focusing means a targeted blitz. Since when does applying the rules of the road to all road users count as focusing? It means not ignoring offences when they are happening right in front of you. We will never have enough resources to be everywhere all the time.

If 'priority' setting was the way to go, then the logical thing to do would be to hand ownership of the rules of the road over to the Guards to rewrite, because the attitude here seems to be, well if the Guards aren't enforcing it, it's not a real rule. So let's get that set of real rules.

As it is, we're not covering all our current priorities. Looking back, we've gotten to the mess we have gotten on our roads because of successive, selective 'priority' setting. All that's done is engender a disrespect for the rules of the road, endangering all road users.

We need a new approach... is the Australian route the way to go? For us, I would say no, because massive fines are all very well in theory, but first you need to detect and process and convict. Though as someone who is not philosophically opposed to a national ID card system, I'm open to the ID idea.

Police forces across the world make decisions on a daily basis to prioritise certain offences over others. That's how they operate, from southern New Zealand to suburban Johannesburg, all the way to northern Canada. They do this because their resources are limited. Requiring Gardai to stop every single offender of road traffic law would bring the entire system to a grinding halt within days. You can demand it all you want, but it would still be a completely ridiculous mode of operation.

Incidentally, though, we could get a huge amount done with a reasonably small outlay in terms of punishing road traffic offences. All you'd need to do would be the following:

1. Pass a law requiring that any sale of a car (either new or secondhand) also incorporate the fitting of a GPS-controlled speed limiter. If the limiter knows you're in a 50 zone, then your car cannot go above fifty. The technology exists already, so all that's required is to pass the law. It'll cause chaos in the car market, but that's as nought compared to the need to ensure ALL road traffic offences are punished or prevented, right?

2. Retrofit every set of traffic lights in the country with a camera that photographs licence plates for every car that breaks a red, and issue automatic fines and penalty points off the back of them. Set the first ones up along the Grand Canal and the N11, and the revenue will cover the cost of installation in the rest of the country within a week.

If you do those two things, then road traffic offences will fall to near zero in weeks. At that point, the Gardai will have plenty of capacity to take a long hard look at cyclists, and doing so won't involve a massive opportunity cost in terms of failing to dissuade far more dangerous behaviours. What's not to love?

tomasrojo

Jawgap wrote: »

They're kicking up a fuss because they're shortsighted measures and a staggering overreaction. Measures like that depress cycling rates which increase collision rates (fewer cyclists on the road), increase car usage and adversely affect health outcomes.

Are the Aussies right, or are the Dutch and Danes right?

Since this is treated in all benighted jurisdictions as an indicator of healthy economic activity, it's quite possible that this was considered when drafting the law.

Cycling levels, while very low by European standards, have been rising in Sydney. (Even that growth, probably about to be snuffed out, doesn't match what you might expect from population growth, which is very strong in Australia.)

tomasrojo

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Assault only a nuisance?
My house was burgled last week, in the view of many here because I wasn't murdered I have no right to complain or expect the Gardai to do anything.

You'll have to show your workings for this. How did you get from lax treatment of misdemeanours to ignoring a felony?

(You have my sympathy; my house was burgled once, and it's a very unpleasant experience.)

On a more general point, there's a good podcast about Morality and the Law, which covers a lot of these notions of when we should follow the law and when it should be enforced.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01m5jkl

Pretty good, I thought.

Charles Babbage wrote: »

I don't expect the Gardai to apply the same priority to my burglary as to murder, but I do expect then to act in a proportionate way to catch the criminals involved, likewise I expect them to act in a proportionate way to catch criminals cycling on the footpath.

This is a usage problem in the English language, leading to uncritical, simplistic thinking. It's exemplified by a sign my old Spanish teacher saw in Dublin: "Littering is a Crime". This really took him back. In Spanish, there are two words used where people usually use "crime" in English, "crimen" and "delito". Littering is a "delito", burglary is a "crimen". In English usage, crime is mostly not a well-defined term, unlike (until recently) "misdemeanour" or "felony". I think the modern equivalent is "summary offence" and "indictable offence".

To put it another way: I don't have a bell on my bicycle; it is a legal requirement to have a bell on my bicycle; I am a criminal; my neighbours should be advised that there is a criminal residing on their street.

Ronaldinho

Jawgap wrote: »

Or what if it's a kid, does the Guard takes his bike and leave them by the side of the road?

Take him home and throw one of his parents in the slammer for the night in lieu.

Ronaldinho

desertcircus wrote: »

Policing involves setting priorities. Focusing on cyclists jumping lights rather than on drivers jumping lights would be a catastrophically stupid misallocation of resources.

Yes and no, because if they're monitoring a junction they can catch all manner of indiscretions by motorists, cyclists and pedestrians at the same time.

Jawgap

Ronaldinho wrote: »

Yes and no, because if they're monitoring a junction they can catch all manner of indiscretions by motorists, cyclists and pedestrians at the same time.

You do understand that involves 'time'? - every FCN issued by a Guard has to be duly recorded in such a way that a prosecution can be initiated if the person fails or declines to pay. Admittedly that's a very small minority, but the administration is significant, even for those FCNs that are paid promptly.

I would've though the last thing we'd want is significant number of Guards in stations doing admin work when they should be out and about protecting the community.

Jawgap

tomasrojo wrote: »

Since this is treated in all benighted jurisdictions as an indicator of healthy economic activity, it's quite possible that this was considered when drafting the law.

Cycling levels, while very low by European standards, have been rising in Sydney. (Even that growth, probably about to be snuffed out, doesn't match what you might expect from population growth, which is very strong in Australia.)

.....never mind the climate!!

tomasrojo

Jawgap wrote: »

.....never mind the climate!!

Indeed, the weather does encourage some beachfront cycling, about to be suppressed:

Opposition to the fines by the Manly Warringah Cycling Club led to a meeting with NSW Premier Mike Baird, who is also the member for Manly, where organisers discussed their concerns about the impact of the laws on northern beaches cycling culture.
"The majority of cyclists [in Manly] ride along the beachfront without helmets and that's something which is replicated in a number of communities across NSW," the president of the Manly Warringah Cycling Club, Jim Buda, said. "All we've done is reinforce the nanny state.
"If these laws are to be enforced, and if the fines are to be levied to these cyclists, then I think there will be a great impact on the amenity of those suburbs."

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/new-cycling-laws-fines-will-affect-suburban-amenity-advocates-warn-20160214-gmtpyb.html

Ronaldinho

Jawgap wrote: »

I would've though the last thing we'd want is significant number of Guards in stations doing admin work when they should be out and about protecting the community.

Agreed - but there out to be a cost and time-effective solution to be found, and there's no way that any but the most egregious cycling offences should be going anywhere near a court.

Judging by the tiny number of posters taking my side of the debate it seems it's not perceived to be nearly the problem I think it is. I'm not too proud to admit that I may well be wrong.

Still, I can only see it getting more chaotic the more people start cycling. Might be back in a few months/year to tell ya told ya so

Jawgap

Ronaldinho wrote: »

Agreed - but there out to be a cost and time-effective solution to be found, and there's no way that any but the most egregious cycling offences should be going anywhere near a court.

Judging by the tiny number of posters taking my side of the debate it seems it's not perceived to be nearly the problem I think it is. I'm not too proud to admit that I may well be wrong.

Still, I can only see it getting more chaotic the more people start cycling. Might be back in a few months/year to tell ya told ya so

Well, people need to be allowed their day in court, if that's what they want.

As for 'chaos' - I've never understood why motorists aren't doing their level best to make people cycle; to encourage it in every way possible - the more who leave their car behind, the more road space there'll be - I take up a lot less room on my bike than I do in my car!

hardCopy

Ronaldinho wrote: »

Agreed - but there out to be a cost and time-effective solution to be found, and there's no way that any but the most egregious cycling offences should be going anywhere near a court.

Judging by the tiny number of posters taking my side of the debate it seems it's not perceived to be nearly the problem I think it is. I'm not too proud to admit that I may well be wrong.

Still, I can only see it getting more chaotic the more people start cycling. Might be back in a few months/year to tell ya told ya so

As the numbers of cyclists hopefully rise you'll eventually see motor traffic lanes being removed so there should be plenty of room for lots of harmless bike on bike chaos. Look at the perfectly pleasant chaos on Grafton Street on a sunny day.

Carawaystick

mamax wrote: »

I recently witnessed a little **** tell a cop to "f*ck back into you car you fat bast*rd"
No sympathy for those scumbags either that have no respect for the law or the cops or even themselves if they don't wear a helmet.

But if they wear a helmet, they can call the cops any thing the feic they want right?!

There's Chaos on Grafton st every morning when the trucks are driving up it....

Charles Babbage

Jawgap wrote: »

You do understand that involves 'time'? - every FCN issued by a Guard has to be duly recorded in such a way that a prosecution can be initiated if the person fails or declines to pay. Admittedly that's a very small minority, but the administration is significant, even for those FCNs that are paid promptly.

I would've though the last thing we'd want is significant number of Guards in stations doing admin work when they should be out and about protecting the community.

By identifying lawbreakers, the Gardai are protecting the law abiding community. Perhaps the paperwork could be reduced, for instance by requiring cyclists to have numbers and machine readable id as motorists are.

It is quite repellent how this thread, and other similar threads on boards, concentrate on spurious arguments about how the Gardai should concentrate on other types of crime, presumably types of crime of less interest to the posters concerned, and how people sneer at anyone who advocates any effort to reduce the lawbreaking concerned.

Things such as cycling on the footpath may not be the worst examples of anti social behaviour, but there is no need for it at all and no justification for it at all.

Jawgap

Charles Babbage wrote: »

By identifying lawbreakers, the Gardai are protecting the law abiding community. Perhaps the paperwork could be reduced, for instance by requiring cyclists to have numbers and machine readable id as motorists are.

It is quite repellent how this thread, and other similar threads on boards, concentrate on spurious arguments about how the Gardai should concentrate on other types of crime, presumably types of crime of less interest to the posters concerned, and how people sneer at anyone who advocates any effort to reduce the lawbreaking concerned.

Things such as cycling on the footpath may not be the worst examples of anti social behaviour, but there is no need for it at all and no justification for it at all.

I know we like to label everything we subjectively regard as offensive as 'anti-social' - footpad cyclists are just being inconsiderate 'd1cks' just as pedestrians / joggers etc in off road cycle lanes are inconsiderate - it's not anti-social as its transient and doesn't chronically impact quality of life for those affected.

Police have to prioritise because we'll never have enough of them - that's why they should start on those issues that have a high potential / risk for causing physical harm and work down from there.

RLJing is not, on the basis of the evidence presented, worthy of more than nominal police attention - if they've time they should do it, but really there are much more important things for a beat Garda or even a Traffic Corps Garda to concentrate on that would do much more to improve the communities in which they police.

desertcircus

Charles Babbage wrote: »

It is quite repellent how this thread, and other similar threads on boards, concentrate on spurious arguments about how the Gardai should concentrate on other types of crime, presumably types of crime of less interest to the posters concerned, and how people sneer at anyone who advocates any effort to reduce the lawbreaking concerned.

These aren't spurious arguments. I'm disagreeing with you, not because I want to sneer or be a jerk about it, but because I think asking Gardai to spend increased time on policing cyclists' behaviour is an incredibly ill-advised thing to do. We have a limited number of Gardai and a limited number of hours they can work, and so we expect them to prioritise certain things over others. I happen to think that asking Gardai to prioritise cyclist behaviours is close to being the worst use of police time you can get without asking them not to actually do any work. Even if we limit ourselves to the Traffic Corps, then the focus should be on driver behaviour. One week of the Gardai rigorously enforcing the rules of the road for cyclists would see cyclist behaviour slightly improved, and not much else. One week of the Gardai rigorously enforcing the rules of the road for drivers would probably see a statistically significant drop in the number of deaths on the road. On that basis, it makes absolutely no sense to start talking about cyclists as a priority, and even less to start talking about requiring number plates and machine-readable IDs for bikes. Not only that, but the disconnect is so drastic - punish bad cycling and people behave a little better, punish bad driving and fewer people die - that I'm automatically suspicious about the motives and motivations of anyone who wants to shift the conversation to cyclists rather than drivers.

Try to see this from the perspective of someone on the opposite side of the debate: I cycle a fair bit, I don't break red lights (and it really bugs me that some cyclists do), but what scares the absolute bejesus out of me is watching cars routinely go through red at close to every junction I see in Dublin. Those cars could very easily kill me, through no fault of my own, and very little if anything is done by the state to regulate or prevent that dangerous behaviour. Instead, we get people periodically complaining that not enough Garda attention is being paid to cyclists.

RainyDay

Charles Babbage wrote: »

By identifying lawbreakers, the Gardai are protecting the law abiding community. Perhaps the paperwork could be reduced, for instance by requiring cyclists to have numbers and machine readable id as motorists are.

It is quite repellent how this thread, and other similar threads on boards, concentrate on spurious arguments about how the Gardai should concentrate on other types of crime, presumably types of crime of less interest to the posters concerned, and how people sneer at anyone who advocates any effort to reduce the lawbreaking concerned.

Things such as cycling on the footpath may not be the worst examples of anti social behaviour, but there is no need for it at all and no justification for it at all.

Risk-based enforcement is a fundamental principle of any enforcement activity. There will always be a limit to resources available for enforcement, so it makes perfect, professional sense for law enforcement to focus their time and attention where greatest risk applies. The risk of a ton or two of metal travelling at 80-150 kmph is in a slightly different league to a 20kg bike travelling at 10-20 kpmh. That's why we end up with about 200 people killed each year on the roads by motorists, and about zero people killed each year by cyclists. That's why it makes perfect sense to focus enforcement activities on motorists, not cyclists.

Fian

odyssey06 wrote: »

I think it's a false dichotomy.

Why can't a guard who is at a junction enforce any breaches of the rules of the road?
Start turning a blind eye here and there and people start to take an ala carte approach to the rules of the road. That's what we want to avoid.

Because if they do they will be tied up in court for a day for some pointless prosecutions.

Similar to rationale they used to take on drink driving checkpoints, when deciding whether to breathalize. They knew if they catch someone who is on two pints and just over the limit they have to go back to the station with them and they are likely to miss the guy on 5 pints who will be coming along in the next 15 minutes. So sometimes they would let the guy who they suspected was just over the limit continue on, so that they didn't miss the real menace who was inevitably going to come along after.

I think now they breatalize everyone but in any case there are far fewer people driving over the limit nowadays.

tomasrojo

Nobody has answered my question about what to do about criminals who don't have bells on their bikes.

ThisRegard

We're saved guys! Get one of the Healey-Raes in as minister for Transport and we won't have to be worrying about mandatory helmet use for a while, they obvious don't put much importance on them themselves.



Although Danny did think that maybe he should wear one a but later just in case, might have almost got side swiped by a local driving home with the permissible 5 or 6 pints on them.

Fian

tomasrojo wrote: »

Nobody has answered my question about what to do about criminals who don't have bells on their bikes.

S.I. No. 190/1963 - Road Traffic (Construction, Equipment and Use of Vehicles) Regulations, 1963.
93. (1) Every pedal cycle (other than a cycle constructed or adapted for use as a racing cycle) while used in a public place shall be fitted with an audible warning device consisting of a bell capable of being heard at a reasonable distance, and no other type of audible warning instrument shall be fitted to a pedal cycle while used in a public place.

tomasrojo

Fian wrote: »

S.I. No. 190/1963 - Road Traffic (Construction, Equipment and Use of Vehicles) Regulations, 1963.
93. (1) Every pedal cycle (other than a cycle constructed or adapted for use as a racing cycle) while used in a public place shall be fitted with an audible warning device consisting of a bell capable of being heard at a reasonable distance, and no other type of audible warning instrument shall be fitted to a pedal cycle while used in a public place.

Exactly! Now since we shouldn't go soft any infraction of any law, this needs addressing NOW.

(To whom do I turn myself in?)

buffalo

94 Every pedestrian-controlled vehicle while used in a public place shall be so constructed or equipped as to be capable of being braked in an efficient manner.

What's a pedestrian-controlled vehicle? A skateboard? A non-motorised wheelchair?

edit: I scrolled up:

"pedestrian-controlled vehicle" means a mechanically propelled vehicle, not exceeding 8 cwt. in weight unladen, which is controlled by a pedestrian and which is not constructed or adapted to carry a driver or a passenger;

Jawgap

tomasrojo wrote: »

Nobody has answered my question about what to do about criminals who don't have bells on their bikes.

Please pay attention

odyssey06 wrote: »

........

As an aside, I do think we need a small education campaign to the effect that it is polite to ring a bell if you are on a bike and approaching a pedestrian from behind in a shared space... e.g. a park, and that a ring of the bell might actually be appreciated by the pedestrian to alert them to your presence... Or else we need to deploy a word similar to Fore! If we could agree on that, drop the bell from the statute. Until then, bikes are supposed to have a bell, please use it appropriately. Go on, it makes a nice noise.