Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

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queequeg
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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby queequeg » Thu May 31, 2018 10:20 pm

Thoglette wrote:
Jmuzz wrote:Text from Cycliq Facebook.
Media are asking them for close pass footage etc. if anyone has good stuff
Point them at the Moron Motorist's threads. Thread #3 is up to 703 pages and absolutely packed with close-pass videos
I have not posted this one before, but I did a Charity Ride a couple of years ago. Not far past Williamtown RAAF Base we had a Council Truck ignore the two trailing support vehicles, two rear escort motorbikes, plus the lead motorbike and lead car, and decide to try and overtake into oncoming traffic.

Language Warning.



In this section of the road, the shoulder was all dug up coming past the base, and we stayed in the left lane, then it ended as we went around this bend, and it was a couple of km until the shoulder became safe to ride in again. However, Mr Important in the Council Truck decided that the best place to attempt an overtake of an escorted ride was just as there was a bend and an oncoming car, which is why you hear me exclaim "he going to overtake now?!" when I heard the call come up the line.
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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby wombatK » Thu May 31, 2018 10:24 pm

Most two abreast peloton's that I come across (or pass me) are typically riding at 30 kph or more. That's faster than any motorist can average in a trip from A to B in Sydney - even on a Sunday. If the haters took the trouble to look at their average speed and not their instantaneous speed, they would quickly learn they won't get there any slower if they just follow behind the two abreast peloton. Passing it produces little to no gain.
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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby John Lewis » Thu May 31, 2018 10:26 pm

The West today had an article re the Minister rejecting the call for a single file rule.
https://thewest.com.au/news/perth/miche ... b88851502z

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby Mike Ayling » Fri Jun 01, 2018 9:46 am

Cyclophiliac wrote:
Mike Ayling wrote:Bring backl Tony Abbott for PM!

Mike
I hope not. As far as I can recall, he did nothing to support cyclists whilst PM, and his environmental credentials are pretty poor (anyone recall the phrase "coal is good"?).
But he does ride in peletons!

Mike
Recreational e bikes - for the sick, lame and lazy!

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby human909 » Fri Jun 01, 2018 9:51 am

wombatK wrote:Most two abreast peloton's that I come across (or pass me) are typically riding at 30 kph or more. That's faster than any motorist can average in a trip from A to B in Sydney - even on a Sunday. If the haters took the trouble to look at their average speed and not their instantaneous speed, they would quickly learn they won't get there any slower if they just follow behind the two abreast peloton. Passing it produces little to no gain.
So, so true. Many if not most cars should have computer showing average speed. I suspect a pretty large number of motorists if not the majority would have an average speed UNDER the average speed of a fast bunch rider.

In many of our big cities average commute speed is UNDER 20kph!

(I'm currently a cage commuter. I average about 55kph as per my car computer. I'm against peak traffic on a freeway. My bike is used for most of my other urban transport needs.)

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby AdelaidePeter » Fri Jun 01, 2018 10:22 am

wombatK wrote:Most two abreast peloton's that I come across (or pass me) are typically riding at 30 kph or more. That's faster than any motorist can average in a trip from A to B in Sydney - even on a Sunday. If the haters took the trouble to look at their average speed and not their instantaneous speed, they would quickly learn they won't get there any slower if they just follow behind the two abreast peloton. Passing it produces little to no gain.
Not sure about that. Peletons have to obey traffic signals too, so their average speed would be lower too. While I agree a single rider can outpace a faster car by going past stopped traffic in a bicycle lane, that doesn't apply to cyclists riding two abreast.

I think the real answer is that the two abreast generally happens on weekends when traffic isn't heavy anyway. I think that two abreast in heavy traffic is unsociable (usually), but that's not a reason to ban two abreast entirely.
Last edited by AdelaidePeter on Fri Jun 01, 2018 10:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Thoglette
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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby Thoglette » Fri Jun 01, 2018 10:27 am

queequeg wrote: However, Mr Important in the Council Truck decided that the best place to attempt an overtake of an escorted ride was just as there was a bend and an oncoming car,
Hope that's been lodged as a complaint: with Mr Plod; the Council and (probably) SafeWork NSW
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queequeg
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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby queequeg » Fri Jun 01, 2018 3:06 pm

Thoglette wrote:
queequeg wrote: However, Mr Important in the Council Truck decided that the best place to attempt an overtake of an escorted ride was just as there was a bend and an oncoming car,
Hope that's been lodged as a complaint: with Mr Plod; the Council and (probably) SafeWork NSW
The footage was passed to the organisers of the ride at the time. I have no idea what, if anything, they did with it. It was a multi-day ride, and this happened on Day 2, so I didn't even get to review the footage until I got home a week later, and it was another week or so until I was able to get that footage to the ride organisers, and as stated, it was over two years ago now.

I have posted it now only to show that even when you are under full escort with support cars displaying signs "Caution: Cyclists Ahead", you will still get motorists who do stupid things at inappropriate locations. Probably the main thing to note is that the ride happened a couple of weeks after the MPD laws were introduced, so the truck was now permitted to cross the solid lines at any point in time t overtake cyclists if it was safe to do so. As you can see, he overtook on the bend, over solid lines, pulls into the group when he sees the oncoming car (which is why you hear me express my surprise), and as a result he spread our group all over the place. He was not the first vehicle to do it, as many had a major case of MGIF and were trying to get past. I still have the raw footage.
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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby uart » Fri Jun 01, 2018 8:35 pm

Having just read that petition all I can say is please everybody, PLEASE ride only single file from now on - If for no other reason than to prevent world over population from blowing out to catastrophic levels.

Look at the diagram below and see how 9 riders spontaneously multiply to 18 riders if allowed to ride two abreast. And even worse, 22+ riders if allowed to ride however they please.

With world population already predicted to reach almost 10 billion by 2030, can you imagine the devastating effect that this spontaneous people multiplying effect could have if this two abreast riding is not reigned in! 8)

Image

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby hiflange » Fri Jun 01, 2018 11:04 pm

Too funny uart :-)

It's great that this stupid petition has been met with some degree of rejection in the media and the political arena. It's still very concerning that this muppet has got 105K signatures to date. But banning live export has only managed 125K and it's been running for a couple of months. The numbers count regardless of how many signatures are bots or out of towners.

A couple of interesting links relating to everyone's favourite petition site;

Forum post - buyin' a bot

Change.org denials in the Brissy Times

Despite all the talk about the petition being filled with fake names I haven't seen any evidence, anyone else got the gos on that?

I've long regarded online petitions as a place to raise awareness around issues, not necessarily to effect change directly, however there is a counter petition up that you might care to put your name to. Link

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby BJL » Sat Jun 02, 2018 8:25 am

Referring to the image uart posted above,

A couple of points they neglect to mention.

One, there's probably a row of parked cars to the left of the bike lane, conveniently not shown. Let's just not mention all the cyclists who have been killed or injured from 'dooring' by a negligent motorist.

Two, the condition of the bike lane is not considered and around my way, bike lanes are rarely actually constructed to any particular standard, they're whatever crappy piece of road was there beforehand, now with a line and bike symbol painted on it.

Three, the images clearly show up to 22 cyclists using same amount of road as THREE cars, which are probably single occupant.

Four, how many roads does this actually occur on? Beach Rd in Melbourne is the ONLY one I can think of. Yet motorists think it's okay to clog up EVERY other road in Melbourne EVERY day of the week. And yet they're complaining that cyclists are 'taking over the roads'.

Five - The author of the image bemoans the fact that the car in the left hand lane has to wait for a safe opportunity to pass. So?

Personally, I find that 99 out of 100 drivers on the roads are okay .; It's only the 1% who cause the majority of the problems. Funny how the number of people who have signed this petition is about 1% (or less) of the number of drivers on the roads. I'd highly suspect that if EVERY single driver who signed this petition was stripped of their driver's license, the roads would be a far better place.

Idiots.

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby mikesbytes » Sat Jun 02, 2018 1:08 pm

BJL wrote:One, there's probably a row of parked cars to the left of the bike lane, conveniently not shown. Let's just not mention all the cyclists who have been killed or injured from 'dooring' by a negligent motorist
There you go, all they need to do is lobby the govt to replace the parking lane with a 2 abreast cycling lane and then they can overtake without having to shift from their lane
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby AdelaidePeter » Sat Jun 02, 2018 1:18 pm

BJL wrote:Referring to the image uart posted above,

A couple of points they neglect to mention.
Six, the diagram bears no relation to the petition. The diagram shows a bicycle lane (or at least, strongly implies one), and it's already illegal to ride outside a bicycle lane: the situations in the 2nd and 3rd pictures are already illegal. Yet the petition gives the impression that the 2nd picture is legal but dangerous. In other words, the diagram is misleading and deceptive.

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby AdelaidePeter » Sat Jun 02, 2018 1:21 pm

RobertFrith wrote:Despite all the talk about the petition being filled with fake names I haven't seen any evidence, anyone else got the gos on that?
I suspect they're mostly real; and certainly the upsurge since it hit the news (another 20k or so) would be mostly real. I put it down to misinformation (see my post above - the diagram is misleading) and misunderstanding, rather than bots.

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby Thoglette » Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:30 pm

AdelaidePeter wrote:I suspect they're mostly real; and certainly the upsurge since it hit the news (another 20k or so) would be mostly real.
I expect that the first few thousand are duplicates or bought. Old fashioned astroturfing and branchstacking. But the usual *****heads'll be real.
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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby trailgumby » Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:49 pm

RobertFrith wrote:Despite all the talk about the petition being filled with fake names I haven't seen any evidence, anyone else got the gos on that?
Harvested from posts on his page or others.

Interestingly the denial took the form of "we detected no unusual activity". Sounds suspiciously like someone who once said "I've never failed a drugs test."

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby AdelaidePeter » Sat Jun 02, 2018 4:11 pm

trailgumby wrote:
RobertFrith wrote:Despite all the talk about the petition being filled with fake names I haven't seen any evidence, anyone else got the gos on that?
Harvested from posts on his page or others.

Interestingly the denial took the form of "we detected no unusual activity". Sounds suspiciously like someone who once said "I've never failed a drugs test."
That was Change.org, not the petitioner, who said that. What else could they say? They couldn't phrase the denial more strongly (e.g. "no unusual activity took place") because no detection method is perfect. I still think the signatories are mostly genuine (and mostly ignorant).

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby BJL » Sat Jun 02, 2018 4:19 pm

AdelaidePeter wrote:
BJL wrote:Referring to the image uart posted above,

A couple of points they neglect to mention.
Six, the diagram bears no relation to the petition. The diagram shows a bicycle lane (or at least, strongly implies one), and it's already illegal to ride outside a bicycle lane: the situations in the 2nd and 3rd pictures are already illegal. Yet the petition gives the impression that the 2nd picture is legal but dangerous. In other words, the diagram is misleading and deceptive.
I haven't looked at the actual petition lest I accidentally see some of the comments.

And you only have to use the bike lane if it's practical to use so it's not illegal to ride outside of the bike lane. If you're riding two abreast, it wouldn't be practical for the rider on the right to ride in the bike lane as they're often two narrow for riders to ride two abreast so picture 2 is also legal as far as I know. Picture 3 rarely happens outside of Beach Rd (at least in Melbourne). It's a complete exaggeration of the truth designed to appeal to the limited intelligence of the bogan redneck brain in an attempt to discredit us.

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby AdelaidePeter » Sat Jun 02, 2018 4:47 pm

BJL wrote: And you only have to use the bike lane if it's practical to use so it's not illegal to ride outside of the bike lane. If you're riding two abreast, it wouldn't be practical for the rider on the right to ride in the bike lane as they're often two narrow for riders to ride two abreast so picture 2 is also legal as far as I know.
I am pretty sure that is an incorrect interpretation of the law. If the left hand rider is inside the bicycle lane, then it is practicable to ride in it. Therefore to not ride in it (as is the case for all the cyclists riding in the right hand "column" in Picture 2) is against the law.

But that's *already* against the law, so I'm not sure what its purpose is in the petition, other than to mislead people in signing.

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby Thoglette » Sat Jun 02, 2018 5:49 pm

AdelaidePeter wrote:, so I'm not sure what its purpose is in the petition, other than to mislead people in signing.
What other purpose do you expect it to have?
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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby hiflange » Sat Jun 02, 2018 8:18 pm

AdelaidePeter wrote: it's already illegal to ride outside a bicycle lane
Really? Where is that law?

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby human909 » Sat Jun 02, 2018 9:24 pm

RobertFrith wrote:Really? Where is that law?
The same place it has been for a quite a while. The road rules. If that is new to you then I suggest you get up to speed for your own safety and knowledge.

(Though like is very frequently observed it isn't really that practicable to enforce nor are legally signed bike lanes that common.)

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby piledhigher » Sat Jun 02, 2018 9:28 pm

It's interesting that the whole argument is based on why 20 people need to get of the way of the most important 3 people in the cars.

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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby wombatK » Sat Jun 02, 2018 10:02 pm

piledhigher wrote:It's interesting that the whole argument is based on why 20 people need to get of the way of the most important 3 people in the cars.
Sometimes, everybody misses the obvious :D
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Re: Ban on riding two abreast or riding on roads without cycling lanes

Postby hiflange » Sat Jun 02, 2018 11:28 pm

Thanks, WA's Road Traffic Act;
213. Riding in bicycle lane
Wherever a bicycle lane is provided as part of a carriageway, and is in a reasonable condition for use, a rider of a bicycle shall use that portion of a carriageway and no other.
It has to be said that a bicycle lane is defined by bicycle lane start and end signs. There are precious few of these in Perth!

Here's another part of the WA RTA that seems to prohibit riding two abreast;
130. (1)Riding 2-wheeled vehicle alongside more than one other rider
The rider of a motor cycle, moped, power-assisted pedal cycle or bicycle shall not ride on a carriageway that is not a multi-laned carriageway alongside more than one other rider, unless the rider is overtaking the other riders.

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