[Pil-pc-oceania] Bike Moves

[Daniel Rossi]

On 29/03/2008, at 4:27 PM, kerry dawborn wrote:

> Hi dan and russ,
>
> sorry, no time to respond properly to what you've said, but I take  
> your point about badly-behaved cyclists Russ.I guess as a cyclist  
> and knowing how vulnerable one can feel on a bike in traffic, I just  
> can't imagine doing those silly things, but i mustn't assume others  
> are like me. I still think though that there does need to be much  
> more awareness and acceptance among drivers of bikes and other human  
> powered vehicles as valid road users, and treatment of them as such.  
> Perhaps it is time we stopped treating them in australia, in the  
> social psyche, as merely 'sporting equipment', and acknowledged them  
> as vehicles for a range of purposes that do belong on the roads.
> I am really tired of our approach to urban planning which still  
> seems to overemphasise cars, as if there were few other realistic  
> ways of getting around.

If you really want to talk about 'psyche' and psychology. Have a look  
at the subversive things going on in car tv advertisements, it's  
really disgusting. Every single one has to include a bike, and every  
time its signaling that the car is a superior transport object and  
that society are lazy mongers and bikes are too tough and 'doing it  
the hard way'. One funny one in particular is a 4WD / SUV or whatever  
giving a lift to a woman cyclist who seriously buckled her front wheel  
when it looked so serious she would have incurred some kind of injury  
requiring 'a lift to the hospital' instead :\ Ban subversive and  
subjective car ads to get them to consume more and think the way they  
want them to think ? :D

> if we really think about it, our city design and spaces are  
> dominated by cars as if nothing else existed; the trouble with this  
> is that if you design for one thing, then one thing is all you'll  
> tend to get.
>
> I also take your point russ about combined foot-paths and cycleways  
> - it's really the same sort of dynamic as you find on the roads -  
> travellers at different speeds and different needs that aren't  
> really compatible. There's more to say here, but  I've run out of  
> time...

You might want to read my comment about shared paths, and my question  
if the pedestrians are taking up the cycle lane as they tend to spread  
out not thinking. I got belled off the path in Berlin not realising  
what it was for, and the Germans don't kid around !

>
>
> one thing i will say though in response to Dan's thoughts is that  
> when cycling in places like Denmark and the UK, one key difference i  
> have found is driver attitude. drivers in those countries according  
> to my experience are simply much more considerate of bikes, much  
> less impetuous and impatient and aggressive. I think driver  
> education along with a major effort at shifting the place and role  
> of human powered vehicles, in people's minds, might go a long way  
> towards improving cycling conditions on our roads...

Here here.