Stereo wrote:This country blames car drivers for everything....... I mean, sure I dont want school children to be hurt.... but why not teach them to cross the frickin road correctly... rather than slow seventy gazillion drivers down to 40Km ph during the hours of magic and fluxom depending on day, and public holidays and special days...... its rubbish....
In the US they say slow to 20mph when in a school zone and children are present, regardless of the time of day, which i think is more reasonable than this arbitrary time thing (though admittedly the flashy lights thing does help me know when i have to slow down, not being a kid and not having a kid i get quite confuzzled about when they have time off.
The thing is, kids may get taught the road rules, but they are still impulsive. E.g. a kid has a game of soccer, someone puts the boot in, "fark its gone out of the schoolyard, i'll get it!" *run* *in the excitement of retrieving that ball, forgets he is going onto a roadway *bang*. We can try and teach children about crossing the road, but kids being kids, we just cannot beat or teach some things out of them.
Stereo wrote:The only thing that the australian public loves more than putting everything on to the car driver is blaming the bike rider...... The general concensus seems to be "well... they knew what they were getting into when they bought that death machine"........
Yeah that is kinda true, but still, a lot of it comes down to "me vs everyone else", the quantity of "me"'s that includes non riders just because they don't/won't/can't/shan't/are too dumb or uncoordinated/would-burst-into-flames-by-just-putting-the-key-in-the-ignition-on-a-bike severely outweighs those who ride/have ridden/are rational/think outside their little box, by a staggering ratio. Then theres the fact that as well as the sensible rider as well as high performance car enthusiast, there is a metric arseload of wankers/idiots who are attracted to the smoke & noise of the whole thing too, who tend to be the ones who attract attention, e.g. that idiot who was regularly doing 200km/h through the harbour tunnel. There weren't as many cops around there before that happened, and now look how heavily policed the warringah freeway is.
Oh and then there's the whole "today tonight" thing with their sensationialism and "the world is an asshole, heres why its bad, oh and here, oh and here's a horror story of someone eating razorblades to make you wortry about the next time you eat icecream too!
And god knows the australian public is severely of the "fuck you all, as long as it doesn't affect ME i dont give a shit what the government does" mindset. Which is unfortunate, as the government has far too much leeway in the shit they get away with "on behalf of the public who voted them in".
Stereo wrote:
This is in a country where the government spends millions every year, on speed cameras which apparently make a loss (dont make me laugh).... but dont even spend any money on advertising campaigns that promote the "basic" rules...... I.e.
1. Dont follow too closely
2. Indicate before changing lanes
Instead they blame everything on "speed"...... Well... no shit sherlock..... the car was moving...... it hit something, ofCOURSE speed was a factor.....
Don't be fuggin stupid as if they are going to do that when they have an easy metric to measure via km/h and %BAC to go on. I mean how much harder would it be to do that than to get a posecution happening for someone tailgaiting/keeping an unsteady line, etc.
The coppers are blatantly under-resourced for the quantity of land that they have to cover, so work with the easiest metrics to go with. Then there's the whole government attitude towards those same easy metrics.
bonester wrote:I wear the vest as well as my students when teaching them to ride. It doesn't stop the blind trying to push you out of your lane. Otherwise I don't bother- my hazard perception is good enough most of the time to avoid the wankers.
Well you and your students wearing them comes under the whole OH&S act as well as your working/doing training on the road. Then again as the saying goes "every little bit helps".
bonester wrote:Funnily enough I realised an important statistic this week- I have not been hit by a car since 1994 on a bike, and have done about 300000km since.
fingers crossed you keep this statistic rolling.
bonester wrote: My Hyundai I have put 120000km on, and has been hit 4 times! (Twice this month, fuck it!- Just got it out of the paint shop and some other fuckstick retard cunt took out the complete driver side.......) I have to pay an excess, and will be out of work to the tune of $2k or so while it is fixed. Whole deal may cost me close to $2.5k due to someone else.
Uninsured? hit & run? ever since the whole "privacy laws" b-s came into effect they've made it a real slut to try and get compensation for someone hitting your car and pissing off. Im lucky in that the one time my car was hit, the person was kind enough to leave a note, then again, he DID live in my street.
bonester wrote:I can't see reflective vests becoming law.
Theres the whole safety equipment thing that's standing in the way of that. Then again i've seen someone who had waterproof skins over his bike gear, and it was eye stabbingly bright fluro yellow. I could see him on top of his bike from around a kilometer away!
