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this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2024
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Not a carsupremacist fuckwad, however I think we should be using this as a lesson to prevent reoccurrence, clearly this is a narrow road, and narrow country roads are usually 100km/h zones, you can come around a corner and have no idea, theres a car, let alone a gaggle of bikes there (not to mention the riders that sometimes ride 3 abreast). Its a setup for disaster.
Whoever was organising the race should've organised an escort car to advise cyclists are ahead (I find this personally super helpful), else arranged a road closure. Changing every speed zone in this country to 50km/h will not stop this from occuring, and it is impractical to boot. Should the driver have slowed down of course, will the majority of drivers who have been driving through the country for the last hour and a half, on a relatively barron country road slow down? of course not.
Remeber our pollies are to busy focusing on re-election, so they'll do nothing to help us, so we've gotta do the steps ourselves.
This sort of race can't have an escort car because it's not going to be a single peloton. It'll be a whole bunch of cyclists riding solo or in groups of 2–20+ spread out all across the course as they go at their own pace. From the article it seems like they did have signs up warning drivers about it.
You're right that mixing a cycling race with cars is a bad idea. The road really should have just been closed. Unfortunately the amount that would have cost (a cost that is entirely up to how much the government decides to make it cost) would almost certainly have been prohibitive and never would have been possible. It needs to be made much more affordable.
But that doesn't really change the underlying behavioural problems. Education is never a solution to road safety; that's something we know very well. But to some extent, we know that drivers in this country have a behaviour issue. They get very aggressive. And in part, this is because they know they can be. Better education, along with stronger enforcement of rules against aggressive road behaviours (making a public show of that enforcement so word spreads about it), both in rural and urban locations, could help shift people's behaviour.
If you can't stop in your sight distance, you are driving too fast. Doesn't matter what the maximum speed is. There's no excusing this.
Exactly!
So many people don't slow down when conditions say you should it's infuriating.
Just this last week my city was engulfed in fog for most of the days and it was like the end of the with the amount of cars and pileups riddling the roads.
So what practical measures do you suggest to stop this from happening again?
People aren't reading Lemmy as they are driving from Armidale to heed your warning. What I was doing was suggesting some practical steps to protect cyclists. So that if perhaps someone was thinking of doing an event like this they wouldn't be relying on motorists 'just slowing down' cos it's not gonna happen. And will likely result in another tragic accident.
I'm not excusing the behaviour as you claim, I'm saying we need to do more to protect cyclists, cos motorists won't 'just slow down' (even moreso on country roads such as this)
I wasn't saying you were excusing the behaviour. I was saying that many, including the media do.
Every accident I have been to (and I've been to a lot), was either caused by driver impatience (driving faster than the conditions, drink driving, fiddling with phone, etc) or deliberate intent (suicide). The former is a driver education and training problem. We need to train young drivers to accept delays as OK. As a former motorcycle rider, I taught my kids the importance of patience and driving as if the rest of the world was out to kill you. Every driver should have to do (and pass) a defensive driving course. Also, too many bad habits are passed from parent to child, so every driver should have to spend a prescribed amount of time with registered driving instructors. In Germany, you cannot get your drivers licence without spending time with registered driving instructors, and if you fail your test it costs 400-500 euros to repeat, so there's a good incentive to learn the skills correctly the first time.
This was an organised event with signage etc.. There are many things that could be done, but better driver education to overcome the "bikes shouldn't be on roads" mentality would be a good start. Dedicated cycle lanes and a loosening of the ridiculous restrictions on e-bikes in NSW are some other things that would help imho.
I don't agree. Education and training can help and I do think they're a good idea. But fundamentally, they're not addressing the root cause of the problem, they're just a bandaid. The real fix is better road design. In cities, for example, clearly separating roads with a movement function from streets with a destination function, instead of the constant overuse of stroads that permeates our entire country's urban planning at present. It also means separated bike paths (which are actually not relevant in this post, because high-speed bunch rides belong on roads, not bike paths, but I'll bring it up because the conversation seems to have veered in a more generic direction) with raised priority crossings at intersections, offset from the road to provide maximum visibility. And yes, separated paths for bikes are also needed on inter-city routes.
We circulate the 'slow down and give cyclists space', and 'cyclists belong on the road' on every second bus and billboard. Everyone knows it they just don't do it.
I think defensive driving courses are a good idea for all drivers however they still won't stop this. The issue is complacancy and as you said, culture. Getting people to slow down on a quiet corner on a quiet road is near impossible in todays environment. To be clear they should do it, I just know they won't.
Driver education doesn't work, cos it's a cultural issue, youre right on the habits being passed from parent to child including the "just overtake this cyclist now" habits. This culture will be passed down irrespective of who does the driver training. And I'd also like to say on a sidenote, some consistency in driver training across states would be friggin amazing.
As a motocyclist (youre braver than i, for me driver behaviour will keep me off all motorbikes not on a farm) you would have experienced first hand bad driver behaviours even though motorbike messaging and education has been around for yonks.
That's why we need to take more proactive measures now like the escort cars (wilst maintaining the exisiting messaging), until that cultural shift occurs, which unfortunately in this country could be decades.