Y’all are missing the key point, if the headline and my understanding are to be believed. They’re proposing making it a CRIMINAL offense, not a fine you misdemeanor, but a can put you in jail criminal offense (felony for you yanks), that’s way over the top.
They want to heavily disincentivice any cycling.
Also worth noting not are people on a bicycle are “cyclists”, just like not all people in a car are “race car drivers”.
There’s various types of bicycle, such as riding for pleasure, casual riding, entertainment, or racing. Not to mention the various ages of bicyclists. These distinctions are important, just as much as safe well designed infrastructure for all roadway users, weather they are on foot, or a bicycle, or in a car.
A example of “cyclists”
A example of causal bicyclists
The word cyclist if perfectly fine to describe someone who rides a bicycle without any conotations about racing.
I do think it’s fine, though I do want to point out the word “cyclist” does carry some “weight” to it especially in North America.
For example a individual like Forester would disagree, this dudes “studies” are essentially what all North American city planners follow regrettably. Link to a summary of this topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRPduRHBhHI
Its also why its so hard to explain why dedicated separate bike infrastructure is so important. Most city planners for some reason forget that children and older individuals cycle.
If they’re going to do that, they should also go back to requiring motor cars to be preceded by an attendant on foot, waving a red flag.
You know, for safety.
This one actually makes sense as cars and automobiles are technically heavy machinery. Thus so, they should technically at all times be operated with a spotter outside of the vehicle at all times.
The thing is that the bicycle is the only means of transport for medium distances which statistically makes your life longer, not shorter.
The reasons are the health effects of cycling, compared to the health effects of sitting in a car and not doing daily excercise. The number one cause of death is cardiovascular diseases, which are also caused by lack if excercise. These risks are far larger than the risk of accidents.
Aka if a driver hits you and you aren’t in uniform you get injury and a fine and some complementary salt to pour in any open wounds.
If road safety is so important, it should also be mandatory for passengers and drivers to wear helmets.
Their cars and lorries also need high-vis striping, no less than 7 stripes front to back, and 3 wrapped around the body. The stripes must also be painted into the base coat, they may not be part of a wrap.
Is this the same Ireland where a TD couldn’t get into Dublin to propose a congestion-mitigation policy to the Dáil Éireann because he was stuck in a traffic jam for THREE AND A HALF HOURS? But, yeah, go ahead, discourage bicycling with punitive laws. What could go wrong?
Maybe distracted driving should be made criminal offense first, and controls on drivers increased.
2 days ago a car driver in front of me was watching a skiing contest on his phone on the dashboard, last year I followed one who was playing candy crush.
I’m glad my daily commute is 80% on bike paths separated from car traffic, those 20% are why my kids can’t go to school with their bikes and my wife does not take her bike.
They should create a law that makes it legal for civilians to assassinate the drivers of vehicles who veer into bike lanes.
This is fucked and no way something like this should pass.
Also if a cyclist is expected to wear a helmet and high reflection vest then car drivers should be required to do the same, windows should also be completely down with no music playing what so ever. If you go a cellphone or you are eating a burger or snack bar straight to jail for attempted manslaughter.
I agree with wearing helmets & punishing cyclists who do not, like motorcyclists & such drivers & like having to wear a seatbelt, but that is going to far. This almost seems like a made-up article, almost like The Union.
This is worth a watch regarding helmet use for a person choosing to ride a bike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1HgInvm-gY
Also it’s worth noting that not all people that ride a bicycle are “cyclists”, just like not all people that ride a car are “race car drivers”. Relevant video that talks about this exact distinction.
I am a precise person,
Helmet over no helmet is always best.
Would this be required in a car free town/city?
I never seen that in my entire life, so obviously this rarely happens. Does not happen enough to enter this discussion.
Plus, I said a reply person was sarcastically asking if a helmet rider wears his other amour (SP?) as well, as if it is wrong to do so. I am proudly answering BLANK yes, it is the most dangerous county inThe USA to bicycle ride in & I live in near outlaw area as possible, so yes, I am not only wear a helmet, but wear as much protection as I can.Plus, without automobiles, I will still cycle (thank you, for NarritiveBear) with a helmet on, been other people’s actions that cause me to need it.
tbf people should be wearing all of those things… should never trust anyone behind a wheel.
Feels like blaming the victim to me.
Why don’t drivers put their phones down? They’re the one running bicyclists over, not the other way around.
It’s a safety precaution, like bike lights and seat belts. It’s better that people take precautions. I’ve worn a hard hat on job sites for years because it’s Union mandated for safety.
Funny, the job site comparison is also in the article:
Cannon said: “In every other hazardous environment, particularly workplaces, we apply an internationally recognised hierarchy of controls: eliminating danger where possible, engineering risks out of the system and separating people from hazards. Only as a last resort do we rely on personal protective equipment. On our roads, we invert this logic entirely, skipping straight to: ‘Be visible’ and ‘Watch out’.”
It’s much easier to make rules for private warehouses. We do need to redesign transit infrastructure to accommodate cyclists safely. But it’s a massive undertaking and there’s a heap of cunts out there who don’t give a fuck about cyclists and want to spend the money adding lanes to freeways or other dumb shit to make cars lives easier (sell more fuel)…
I suppose pedestrians need hi-viz jackets, too. And a siren on their head.
Put hi-viz jackets on squirrels and deer, too.
Put a warning sign on every tree.
Or, you know, hold drivers accountable for their actions instead of letting get away with literal murder.
I hold the government responsible for cycling fatalities. They’re the ones who provide the shit infrastructure. You can sing you “hold drivers responsible” tune all you want but it’s still the government that is the one expected to hold them responsible… which they aren’t. You’re gonna be correct and dead with that attitude. Meanwhile I’ll happily wear a high viz vest, bike lights and a helmet because that’ll help me be safer and come home to my family.
You do be wearing your full body armor then yes? Because where is the line?
Don’t answer me because it’s rhetorical.
Ok
We used to wear helmets whenever we rode after witnessing a fatality on the Great Victorian Bike Ride when we were teenagers.
Dude had his helmet hanging on his handlebars, came off at speed and skidded on his head. When the Ambos came (they weren’t called Paramedics back then), he was still alive, but his brain was exposed.
We never wore our high-vis vests though, they were loose and would droop off our shoulders and we would get tangled.
There was also the story about the dad so was fooling around with his kids bike without a helmet in the back yard; fell over, cracked his head and died instantly; (plausible, but unproven).
I’d be dead a few times if it wasn’t for my bike helmet.
It always amazes me how more helmet-pushers claim to have had their lives saved than the total of all cyclists to die from non-collision head injuries (as cycle helmets aren’t intended or tested for collisions) since bikes was invented.
Yeah helmets are excellent for cycling sports like road racing or downhill mtb, situations where the crash is caused by something below the bike and you go over the bars head first. They don’t make much of a difference in most cases when you’re being hit or going under an automobile at speed.
What about low speed collisions where the impact does kill you but your head hitting the curb like a melon does? My city has 20mph zone in most locations now so most collisions aren’t fatal directly but you’re still going to hit the ground
Ever been to The Netherlands? Whole dang country is cycling in a 20mph zone without a helmet.
NL has the infrastructure and civic sense to respect cyclists.
The two roads near me are 60 and 80 km/h with no cycling lanes. People are absolute cunts to me on the road near my house. I basically own a van to drive my bike to the bike path.
As an Australian who has lived with compulsory helmets for decades I think wearing a helmet and high vis is probably bare minimum if you have to share with cars and not nearly enough if you have to use door lanes and deal with Ford Rangers and garbage trucks.
Unfortunately once you go down this route cycling partipation drops and its a net fail for public health.
Sedate cycling on seperated pathways and through parks gets lumped in with high risk road cycling. It ends up being completely inappropriate for the type of cycling most people would like to do (not high risk vehicular cycling).
Why bother building expensive dedicated safe infrastructure when people have a magical inch of styrofoam on their noggins and a yellow shirt to protect them from 2 tonnes of murder machine.
Removed by mod
Highest risk cycling is motor vehicles not following the rules. If cyclists safety is the priority, educate other drivers, and enforce penalties.
When there are road works they tend to close the high way or at least some lanes because a hi vis jacket doesn’t protect you against speeding lunatics.
There are also a lot of photos of hi-vis roadworks and emergency vehicles that motorists have crashed into. It’s almost like it’s not visibility that’s the problem…
Visibility helps
We are not invisible. The problem is that motorists aren’t looking or aren’t caring. Put some plain-clothes cops on bikes as bait and catch the incompetent.
Added visibility still helps
It really doesn’t, especially if it makes you look less like an ordinary human. You absolutely don’t want them to think you’re an expert rider who doesn’t need space, or something like that.
You don’t need them to see you from space. You need them to see you from just far enough away, but actually care enough not to endanger you.
Bizarre to argue against added visibility improving safety
