Poll: Should drivers be fined for driving too close to cyclists?

Sleeper12

As the title says Now you have your chance to vote on this in today's Journal

http://www.thejournal.ie/poll-fine-for-drivers-cycling-3252087-Feb2017/

Personally I'd forget about a fine but make the motorist cycle a bike around the city for half an hour.

Tenzor07

Straight to the Psychotic cesspit comments section on the Journal! :eek:

Sleeper12

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Straight to the Psychotic cesspit comments section on the Journal! :eek:

Right now only 34% of voters think motorists should be fined. I'm a little shocked it's so low. Don't cycle myself but I recognize the importance of giving space to the more vulnerable road users. Funny thing is most motorists will give ample room to huge trucks & lorries but not cyclists.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Lots of laws and no enforcement make Ireland something something.

You could introduce the death penalty for driving too close to cyclists and nothing would change.

arybvtcw0eolkf

I don't see a poll.. But IMO 'NO'.

No point as it won't be enforced and so won't be a deterrent.

And in my experience there's a sizable majority of cyclists who put themselves in danger but to the casual eye it would look like the driver was to blame, ie cyclists filtering with disregard to pedestrians, cyclists and motorized vehicles around them. Dismounting pavements etc ~ the whole thing would be a clusterfook to enforce fairly.

Just my two cents.

Moflojo

NO BUT YEAH BUT NO BUT ONLY IF CYCLISTS GET PENALTY POINTS FOR CYCLING ON THE FOOTPATH AND THEY SHOULD HAVE LICENSE PLATES AND INSURANCE AND ROAD TAX AND HELMETS AND HI VIS AND WINDSCREEN WIPERS AND THEY'RE TAKING OVER THE WHOLE ROAD. And I say this as a motorist and a cyclist...

Wanderer78

Moflojo wrote:

NO BUT YEAH BUT NO BUT ONLY IF CYCLISTS GET PENALTY POINTS FOR CYCLING ON THE FOOTPATH AND THEY SHOULD HAVE LICENSE PLATES AND INSURANCE AND ROAD TAX AND HELMETS AND HI VIS AND WINDSCREEN WIPERS AND THEY'RE TAKING OVER THE WHOLE ROAD. And I say this as a motorist and a cyclist...

You forgot the nct as well!

Right2Write

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Personally I'd forget about a fine but make the motorist cycle a bike around the city for half an hour.

This and/ or take them out of the car and drive past them at 80kph, skimming by. I've always felt that every motorist should be obliged to walk/ cycle every year to remind them of reality.

That said, this idea of penalty points is just more Nanny State stuff. The first and only thing a cyclist or walker needs to know is how to survive. You can have all the laws you want, but it's up to the individual to keep their wits about them.

Chuchote

Don't forget

• "…and they should have number plates so they're identifiable" (like all the motorists fined for using their smartphones while driving, yeah)
• "…and they should have to pay road tax" (presumably when fume-emitting motors are added to their bicycles)
• "…and they should have to pay insurance" (and I'll happily pay for the fleets of extra civil servants and gardaí to administer this)

…and "cyclist vigilantes", and "equality on the roads" (between 2- to -40-ton steel murder machines at killer speeds and 50kg cyclists on two skinny wheels), and "hi-viz" and "mandatory helmets" and…

dolallyoh

Loads of places in Dublin where the cycle lane is just a white dotted stripe inside a normal car lane making it physically impossible for the two not to overlap.

And of course you then have places like Braemor road where there is a superb brand new cycle lane which is completely ignored by many cyclists.

I'd be in favour of license plates for cyclists.

Edit to add - we have to be grateful for cyclists - if they were all in cars we would be in big trouble.

Chuchote

I haven't cycled on Braemor Road for a few months, but last time I was there the cycle lane had a broken surface, making it uncyclable.

Have you costed out the number plates nonsense? Do you realise that they've been tried and abandoned as useless in several countries?

dolallyoh

Chuchote wrote: »

I haven't cycled on Braemor Road for a few months, but last time I was there the cycle lane had a broken surface, making it uncyclable.

Have you costed out the number plates nonsense? Do you realise that they've been tried and abandoned as useless in several countries?

Just need to come up with a better design. Braemor road was totally redesigned.

https://goo.gl/maps/yD2YphFryCK2

Tenzor07

dolallyoh wrote: »

I'd be in favour of license plates for cyclists

Where do you suggest this licence plate could be placed, on a cyclists back side?

dolallyoh

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Where do you suggest this licence plate could be placed, on a cyclists back side?

That sounds good to me, nice idea cheers.

Chuchote

dolallyoh wrote: »

Just need to come up with a better design. Braemor road was totally redesigned.

https://goo.gl/maps/yD2YphFryCK2

That's 2014. I've cycled on it more recently, and it was nasty.

Chuchote

dolallyoh wrote: »

I'd be in favour of license plates for cyclists.

How many bicycles are there in Ireland? Half a million? A million? Ten million?

Would you be in favour of paying for the licence plates, the civil servants to administer the registration of every bicycle, and the extra garda jobs provided to police this, plus the gardaí diverted from crime, and the extra court staff, prison places, etc for those wild men who broke the new law? Gosh, it would be a nice little levy on your tax! I can see the Department rubbing its hands at the thought.

Sleeper12

Kylen Obedient Klutz wrote:

I don't see a poll.. But IMO 'NO'.

The pole is in the link on the first post. The journal is doing the pole today. I just thought some of the board cyclists might want to have a vote

meeeeh

I actually don't know why not. It's penalizing dangerous driving likre speeding, that's not nanny state. If they are making changes mandatory lights during the day should be brought in too.

dolallyoh

Chuchote wrote: »

How many bicycles are there in Ireland? Half a million? A million? Ten million?

Would you be in favour of paying for the licence plates, the civil servants to administer the registration of every bicycle, and the extra garda jobs provided to police this, plus the gardaí diverted from crime, and the extra court staff, prison places, etc for those wild men who broke the new law? Gosh, it would be a nice little levy on your tax! I can see the Department rubbing its hands at the thought.

You sound rattled.

magicbastarder

ah here, you can do better than that.

fliball123

Sleeper12 wrote: »

As the title says Now you have your chance to vote on this in today's Journal

http://www.thejournal.ie/poll-fine-for-drivers-cycling-3252087-Feb2017/

Personally I'd forget about a fine but make the motorist cycle a bike around the city for half an hour.

No lets make cyclist pay insurance and tax then they can have use of the road like motorists. nearly every incident with a cyclist is due to the gombien cyclist

Chuchote

fliball123 wrote: »

No lets make cyclist pay insurance and tax then they can have use of the road like motorists. nearly every incident with a cyclist is due to the gombien cyclist

Didn't take long!

Moflojo

fliball123 wrote: »

No lets make cyclist pay insurance and tax then they can have use of the road like motorists. nearly every incident with a cyclist is due to the gombien cyclist

Go away. Over there somewhere. Go. Drive there if you like, you've obviously paid for the right.

groovyg

dolallyoh wrote: »

L

And of course you then have places like Braemor road where there is a superb brand new cycle lane which is completely ignored by many cyclists.

That new cycling lane makes a superb parking spot for the residents who have no space in their driveway when they have visitors. Even if this goes through I can't really see it being enforced. Far more serious offences like drink driving, driving while on the mobile are not taken seriously here.

I would like minimum over taking distances.

Legal measures like strict liability are much needed also.

Simply stated, the measure puts the burden of care on the larger road user for road safety purposes.

amcalester

fliball123 wrote: »

No lets make cyclist pay insurance and tax then they can have use of the road like motorists. nearly every incident with a cyclist is due to the gombien cyclist

I've been in 4 collisions with cars.

1) Car pulled out of side road on my left onto Main Road and I went over the bonnet.
2) While moving up the inside of traffic a car turns into a driveway without indicating, I ditch. No impact with the car, so not sure this is really a collision.
3) Same as number 1
4) Car hit me from behind while I was on a roundabout.

So according to you they were all my fault? I'll give you 1 was maybe partly my fault but you can't nearly all incident is the fault of the cyclist.

Captain Havoc

This thread is about drivers cycling too close to cyclists not license plates for cyclists which has been discussed in-depth previously. I recommend that any new posters to this forum familiarise themselves with the charter or I will ban then instantly.

mp31

Seems to be working well in England according to this http://www.roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/5516.html

"Speaking at the time of the launch of Operation Close Pass, PC Mark Hodson, West Midlands Police traffic officer and cyclist, said: "As a police force we must do our upmost to protect vulnerable road users and show that anyone who puts them in danger through poor driving will be dealt with"

It seems to be catching - http://road.cc/content/news/215826-close-pass-policing-could-be-rolled-out-16-forces-yours-one

Kaisr Sose

Kylen Obedient Klutz wrote: »

I don't see a poll.. But IMO 'NO'.

No point as it won't be enforced and so won't be a deterrent.

And in my experience there's a sizable majority of cyclists who put themselves in danger but to the casual eye it would look like the driver was to blame, ie cyclists filtering with disregard to pedestrians, cyclists and motorized vehicles around them. Dismounting pavements etc ~ the whole thing would be a clusterfook to enforce fairly.

Just my two cents.

You can't enforce anything without a law that defines an offence ...the current "must pass within a reasonable /safe distance" is a joke. What's that distance in law? It's nothing in law.

How can you put the blame on cyclists when a vehicle comes from behind and passes close, no effort made to make it safe? That's the point of the law, not the examples you are pointing out.

Sleeper12

fliball123 wrote:

No lets make cyclist pay insurance and tax then they can have use of the road like motorists. nearly every incident with a cyclist is due to the gombien cyclist

I wouldn't know how to respond to this.
It doesn't take long for these threads to become us against them.

onmebike

I haven't read The Journal in a very long time because of the comments section. Some percentage are professional trolls, but the comments generally left me feeling sad for society.

I just voted on this anyway and the results are, so far:

Should people be penalised for driving too close to cyclists?
Yes: 2634 - 35%
No: 4318 - 58%
IDK: 368 - 5%

So, according to this, the indication is that 58% of respondents think that it's OK or acceptable to drive too close to a cyclist.

Time to leave The Journal again.