War on bicycles

[warthog1]

Howdo Andrew - sorry missed any info on this - to save me hunting down the details where should I look? ( or even better a link)
Putting up as much good healing moral as possible!

viewtopic.php?t=102550&start=850

[warthog1]

Thks Warty!
Yes, kinda been thinking what we have been doing in the past is just not working. It all seems to circle around getting away with it be it speeding, changing lanes, giving space to other... The police could be doing other simple things that need doing

Just how do you get more people to want to be better all round road users? My feeling from this place is that most people do the best they can when they get behind the wheel but we just end up managing our ever decreasing expectations.

Prolly not the spot to chat about it, but raised the cost of living and high helmet fines with the local state MP- he gets it and as the community of the whole is quite pro biking, he agrees it could be a window in time to considers to change things toward a national parity on fines.
He is also an old obstetrician so he tends toward the status quo of his community's safety and the laws as he has a large and wide group of local kiddies who he has brought into the world. He does want them to be safe and healthy and does consider that the more they bike, the slower the community drives around them and importantly, gives space to both young and them other people who they see on bike.

Short story is he understood that the cost of living is a good excuse to try to reduce the big fines down. He also agrees that hefty fines do little to help build road fellowship and when kiddies bike more they also become more space aware and possibly better drivers than when bundled in the back of a parents car to drive three blocks to a pals place to just hang out.....

Dunno I will keep pondering, but would like to get something around community biking and road fellowship out to the teals and independents so they can have a very simple basket of pro bicycle policies that says blah blah blah...positive things around biking in Aust - hopefully some chit chat will then link in with the other indis for some sort of simple common policy of supporting the good things that are happening in local bike communities before the next rounds of states and finger crossed federal elections.

Bike Bugs have been culled due public liability issues but the work many of them did is now showing results.

Grrr, I really miss the potential that the Australian Cyclists Party had...

Yes we are proceeding very slowly with improvement.
As others have said elsewhere, I have given up on any major positive change to make the Australian driving public safe and courteous.
Separated infrastructure is the only plausible path to greater cyclist numbers it seems. Getting the infrastructure is a big problem though

[g-boaf]

Nobody rides bikes, so nobody is going to build infrastructure.

Nobody is going to ride bikes without infrastructure. So there we have it. Not going to happen.

We need politicians with guts to stand up to noisy, idiotic radio and newspaper loudmouths and somehow to cut their influence out to politicians so we can actually get things done like better laws to protect bicycle riders on the roads and infrastructure being built without delay.

But then we have cyclists staunchly supporting anti-cycling political parties and even acting as though they are paid to do PR for those parties, they certainly tow the official party line. And then they whinge when motorists to the wrong thing. Well, what do you expect?

[warthog1]

Nobody rides bikes, so nobody is going to build infrastructure.

Nobody is going to ride bikes without infrastructure. So there we have it. Not going to happen.

We need politicians with guts to stand up to noisy, idiotic radio and newspaper loudmouths and somehow to cut their influence out to politicians so we can actually get things done like better laws to protect bicycle riders on the roads and infrastructure being built without delay.

But then we have cyclists staunchly supporting anti-cycling political parties and even acting as though they are paid to do PR for those parties, they certainly tow the official party line. And then they whinge when motorists to the wrong thing. Well, what do you expect?

Accurate summary unfortunately.