*Insert childish farting noise here*
Off yer bike - for the sake of all of us on the roads
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/o...422105845.html
By Michael Duffy
December 3, 2005
IT'S TIME to get bikes off our roads. As a mainstream form of transport, the bicycle has proved itself the equivalent of communism: a lovely idea that failed dismally in practice. Bikes are dangerous to ride and slow traffic, which creates more pollution. For the good of all of us, we need to ban the bike.
When Government started to encourage bike riding a few decades ago, it was like the balmy days after the Russian Revolution: the future looked golden. It was hoped that a significant proportion of all trips made in Sydney would soon be by bike.
Where it all went wrong was that almost no one showed any enthusiasm to get on their bikes. Today, fewer than 1 per cent of all trips in Sydney are made by bike. The bike activists blame this on the paucity of bike lanes and tracks, but this is like Marxists excusing the failure of communism in the Soviet Union by blaming the nature of its regime. The sad truth is that in both cases a vanguard tried to impose a new form of behaviour on the populace and was rejected. The only difference is that the bike lobby hasn't accepted this.
Every week I travel 10 kilometres down a crowded, four-lane, inner-city road. Whenever it contains bikes, the traffic is frequently forced to slow to a crawl as drivers wait for a chance to pass them. This increases the pollution given off by the cars, as well as raising tempers all round.
Many bike riders hog the centre of their lane, legally and perhaps wisely, but also slip between traffic when it stops. Where there are traffic lights, this means you can find yourself grinding along behind the same bike several times in the space of a journey. So thousands of cars are inconvenienced by two or three bikes, and the amount of greenhouse gas produced increases.
Bike riders tend to be unhappy and resentful people. They relish telling stories of narrow escapes from death at the hands of stupid car drivers. While glad the individuals involved survived, one has to wonder why they persist. We all know that significant proportions of the population are depressed, tense, on a vast range of attention-limiting prescription and non-prescription drugs, or like using their mobile phones while driving.
For bike riders to launch into city traffic expecting everyone else to respond instantaneously to their unexpected appearance in the same lane, or when they flash through red lights at intersections, suggests a desire for self-harm. As does their preparedness to engage in sustained exercise where they breathe in large quantities of monoxide, with health consequences that can only be guessed at.
Possibly their thinking has been adversely affected by the smog. Consider some of the proposals the lobby group Bicycle NSW made at the last state election. These included "affirmative action" such as forcing people to stop driving by introducing parking restrictions and imposing a general urban speed limit of 50kmh for all of Sydney. Considering the tiny number of cyclists who would benefit from such a change, you wonder if the bike lobby is suffering from delusions of grandeur.
Given the threat bike riders pose to themselves and others, the big question is whether it is right to encourage them. Unfortunately, bike riding is one of those activities that has acquired an aura of virtue. Supporting it (with other people's money) is an easy way of demonstrating your moral stature. The new Westlink M7 has a 40-kilometre cycleway stretching from Prestons to Baulkham Hills. This was recommended in the tollway's environmental impact statement on the sole grounds (here quoting from the one-volume summary) that it "would improve cycling opportunities in the region".
Now, almost no one rides bikes on roads in the western suburbs. According to a Westlink spokesman, there are not even any estimated usage figures for the new bike path. Very wise, that - but it makes you wonder just why building an unwanted 40-kilometre strip of concrete to be lit at night by coal-powered electricity should be considered environmentally beneficial.
The Westlink spokesman refused to disclose how much the cycleway had added to the cost of the project - or to the toll that will be charged to road users.
Fortunately the State Government is less enthusiastic about spending its money on bike infrastructure and has recently halved such expenditure. But more needs to be done. A public campaign encouraging people not to ride bikes in traffic would be a responsible start.
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Originally Posted by SMH Dickhead
