[Pil-pc-oceania] bike crash

[Daniel Rossi]

On 07/04/2008, at 10:54 AM, ONEILL Patrick R (SVHM) wrote:

>
> (Place soap-box on ground, stand on it)....Recumbents are indeed
> designed for the road...they are certainly not designed for shared
> paths. The major reason why bike get run over by cars and trucks is  
> not
> because of lack of rear vision mirrors or lack of visibility, but
> because the drivers of those cars do not take due care when driving  
> (hop
> off soap-box, pick up soap-box, move on).

That is untrue. Having to negotiate with recumbents in my cage in the  
past, it's not as easy as having care of constantly watching out for  
recumbents. I've had recumbents come up the blind corners before in  
the past trying to come up through traffic on the sly when I was just  
about to change lanes, and all I can see is a thin flag pole. I  
understand how efficient they may well be, but I would like to see  
recumbent systems in a more higher position and with a cage over it as  
well, so they are indeed visible and people think they are just like a  
car. I believe cycles need to look like little car mobiles for people  
to treat them as transport rather than just for the hardcore mobile  
exercise bike freaks who hate going to the gym to use exercise bikes :)

I went to a talk at the UTS the other night, and I'm not too sure how  
quickly they are trying to act on proper facilities for local cycle  
traffic, rather like 20 year plans for dedicated 'greenways' and  
spending most of it on more public transport routes as they see  
cycling as just for the hardcore folk for longer distances. I  
certainly have some ideas to create change immediately but I doubt  
that would ever happen. I absolute can't stand how planners like to  
give themselves buffer times with these 20-50 year outlooks when we  
have to act now.