[bikeqld] Cycling across crossings enforcement

[Ian Lister]

Hi Peter,

Getting Main Roads to "upgrade" one intersection or getting the police to 
ignore the law is just a band-aid that ignores the real problem. The real 
problem is the law.

On most crossings it's perfectly safe for all concerned to allow cycling 
across. If there are some crossings where that is really not the case they 
should be the exception, not the rule. A sign saying "cyclists must 
dismount" (ugh) on such an intersection is surely far more sensible than 
needing expensive cycle-specific lights at each intersection where it 
should be permissible to cycle across (in terms of cost effectiveness for 
the desired result, ignoring whether we really want such signs at all).

The only real issue is discourteous cyclists causing a hassle for 
pedestrians. It's not really any different from the same situation on a 
footpath (which is typically much narrower than a crossing) or a shared 
path. Existing or slightly modified laws about keeping left, unreasonable 
obstruction, causing a traffic hazard, etc should be entirely appropriate 
for enforcing safe behaviour on crossings. Of course there will always be 
some cyclists who ignore the law and behave discourteously or dangerously, 
but those people are almost certainly already cycling across the crossings 
anyway.

Of course, law change is difficult and takes a long time, so pursuing the 
band-aids in the meantime is still worthwhile (particularly as it may 
increase pressure for law changes), but we should really be aiming for the 
big goal and not the little ones.

Cheers,

Ian

On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Peter Whittle wrote:
> It completely sucks that the police should decide to enforce this. The 
> main reason cyclists ride across is because it is too hard to walk in 
> cleats and hence it safer to ride - nor is it dangerous! This seems to 
> be recognised by Main Roads who say they are getting around to changing 
> the crossings to make it legal. So the police in enforcing it are just 
> being pricks - they are quite able to make a policy decision not to 
> enforce a particular law, and they do this all the time. I wonder if 
> they have bothered to consult? I hope BQ is going to take up the cudgels 
> on this - please Ben?
>
> Pete