Those accursed healthy people
August 10th, 2010 |I’ve used this week’s comic to give voice to an issue that’s been annoying me for quite a long time: Road cyclists. I don’t have some deep-seated philosophical objection to people getting healthy on the way to work but I do have an objection to general idiocy and lack of social conscience.
Drivers are expected to anticipate and adapt to their presence on the roads regardless of the cyclists’ actual adherence to road rules or weather conditions. Many cyclists have no concept that the onus is at least partly on them to make sure that they aren’t turned into twisted little smears of flesh, aluminium and carbon fibre on the tarmac by the two-tonne chunks of speeding metal that the roads were designed for. Yet for all the ducking and weaving between traffic, staying in blind spots and fostering bogan road-rage by driving two-abreast up-hill on major roads, there’s no give and take.
While most cyclists are very considerate road users there is a sizable minority that display a disproportionate sense of self-entitlement. They’re unwilling or unable to deal with the practical realities of where they live, expect special concessions and facilities, demonstrate unrealistic expectations on behalf of drivers, and completely fail to remember that unlike drivers, they aren’t actually contributing anything to keeping the roads they use in working shape through registration fees.
The topography and layout of good old Hobart doesn’t lend itself well to cyclists. The city itself is a smoking crater and the roads are crumbling to dust, most of the road funding goes up north. There is a bike track that goes basically from the waterfront to the northern suburbs and there are some streets leading into the the centre of town that actually have dedicated bike lanes, yet you will still see the smarmy gits on the opposite side of the road weaving in-between two lanes of cars to get up to the forefront of the intersection, or riding two-abreast up one of the lanes.
Anyway. I’ve had my vent and I’m sure many, many motorists will empathise with this position. Not much we can do really though. The onslaught of the yuppies has begun…
Agreed… it’s the minority that drive me insane. Perfect example, I almost got cleaned up by a cyclist on the domain walking to work.. granted, *I* missed him coming when I went to cross the road, but when cars come down that road, they almost universally go nice and slow.. personally, I go about 40km or so when driving up cause there are TONS of pedestrians walking down and it’s just the considerate thing to do.. nevermind reducing the chance of me killing some poor bastard whos still half asleep.
Not this guy though. That bike was clearing 60km/h easily going down that hill. Possibly more. I glanced up the road, missed him completely in his nicely blended in green and black bike outfit astride his dark blue frame only to have him swerve past me, yell at me I should ‘fucking look where I was going’ and continued to fly down the hill as fast as he could go – MUCH faster then any of the cars were driving, as they all were being careful due to the amount of pedestrian traffic (you can go 70km/h up that road if you want I believe).
See this right here is a case-in-point. It’s the double standards.
They expect car drivers to be situationally aware of them while not giving pedestrians OR drivers the same respect…. And as in the example you just gave, they can be just as dangerous as a car in the face in some circumstances.