Sup with australia

http://www.bikepaths.com.au/news/fines_jail_for_hoons

Please tell me this is a joke.
I understand there are some ‘rogue cyclists’ in every country, city, state, and town, but this seems a bit excessive.

12 months in jail for ‘dangerous riding’
WTF?

I never liked australians or south africans. they’re creepy white people. I do not recommend.

i can’t tell, but that seems legit-ish. if so…wtf? 12 months for ‘dangerous riding’ who the hell decides if you’re riding dangerously?
just before i left they were fining messengers, even ones on road bikes and 2 brakes $150 for not having a fucking bell.

buggar

yeah the bell crackdown was insane. a few bikestores said they sold as many bells in the first week as they did in 2008.

still fucked that you can kill someone with your car (and now bike) and the max. sentence is 5years

wow, my $90 ticket for stopping at a red and then going through doesn’t look so bad now.

wow australia, you used to be cool.

ONLY VICTORIA AY

MY STATE IS STILL BALLIN’

It’s pretty much come about because around three years ago an old guy got killed by a cyclist on the “hell ride”. The hell ride is an informal saturday morning hammerfest down to the peninsula that can get a pretty big peleton of up to a couple of hundred riders. There aren’t too many traffic lights to deal with, but if a light happens to change, cyclists would continue through it as part of the pack as stopping could cause a nasty pileup, or cause them to get dropped. Anyway, this old guy saw the lights change and stepped out into the middle of the pack.

I feel sorry he died, but it was a foolish thing to do, he saw that the cyclists weren’t about to stop and walked anyway. Also, I think it was selfish for the cyclists to hold everyone up so that they didn’t have to catch up.

So, after that happened a lot of people on bikes copped abuse, which is weird because so many pedestrians get killed by cars but people don’t randomly yell at car drivers being killers (except maybe at Critical Mass or something).

And, of course, they’ve now taken action to increase the penalties for “rogue” cyclists. I find it hard to believe anyone will go to prison for dangerous riding, just like very few people go to jail for white collar crimes. I think it’s just there in case something really full-on happens.

The bell thing is stupid. I always ride with a bell (and use it often), so it doesn’t affect me but it’s still a bit rough, you can still yell warnings louder than any bell. If you’re mute and don’t have a bell, then maybe…

Instead of twelve months, he should just get the boot.

Had to be done.

This is Stefan… his name is Stefan. Haaden tha feck up stefan.

[quote=bonechilling]Instead of twelve months, he should just get the boot.

[/quote]

lol

Here’s a thought, why not just enforce the laws that already exist and apply them equally to automobile drivers and cyclists? It’s fucking insane for cycling recklessly to be punished more severely than driving recklessly.

Kemmer I was actually just thinking about that pertaining to the US.

I don’t really know if I support the concept that you should need to attain a license or something to ride a bicycle, but I think there should maybe be something that gets people to consider traffic laws and how they pertain to cycling.

Cyclists want rights on the road… perhaps the way to that is through professionalism?

[quote=EivlEvo]Kemmer I was actually just thinking about that pertaining to the US.

I don’t really know if I support the concept that you should need to attain a license or something to ride a bicycle, but I think there should maybe be something that gets people to consider traffic laws and how they pertain to cycling.

Cyclists want rights on the road… perhaps the way to that is through professionalism?[/quote]
Realistic cycling laws that are well enforced would be nice. As well as enforcement against anti-cycling driving, parking in bike lanes, etc.

parking in the bike lane will get your car goned in socal. fact.

[quote=Ash][quote=EivlEvo]Kemmer I was actually just thinking about that pertaining to the US.

I don’t really know if I support the concept that you should need to attain a license or something to ride a bicycle, but I think there should maybe be something that gets people to consider traffic laws and how they pertain to cycling.

Cyclists want rights on the road… perhaps the way to that is through professionalism?[/quote]
Realistic cycling laws that are well enforced would be nice. As well as enforcement against anti-cycling driving, parking in bike lanes, etc.[/quote]

sigh… yeah. But lots of people don’t know that they’re breaking laws and they’re the ones that are more likely to be annoying motorists. If there was some sort of test or license or fuck i dont know… then people would have a less “wtf” when they hear about a law, and also it might prevent lawmakers from putting rediculous laws on the books. It would also get cycling advocacy rolling because people might care.

Or I suppose they might just say, fuck that noise… and stop cycling.