WITH all the talk about cities over the past fortnight, we should do something about Australia’s woeful approach to cycling.
Sixteen years ago I did a cycling trip from Copenhagen to Venice. The most dangerous part, by far, was cycling from where we were staying in Bondi (having driven up from Canberra to leave the car with friends) to the airport.
Indeed, friends asked, “Just how to you propose to get your bicycles from Bondi to the airport. You will have to hire a truck.”
Us: “We propose to cycle, of course.”
Friends: “You are mad.”
They were right. Cycling in Sydney then, and now, is a nightmare.
Yet we were proposing to (and did) cycle in Copenhagen, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Zagreb and dozens of cities and towns in between.
Things have improved since then, but in the past four of five years they have levelled off or got worse.
Cyclists now comprise 30 per cent of road-crash hospitalisations in the Sydney metropolitan area.
Australia wide cyclist hospitalisations have gone up from 3676 in 2005 to 5527 in 2013, with not much increase in cycling participation.
Cyclists comprise 3 per cent of road deaths and 15 per cent of hospitalisation, yet only 1 per cent of journeys.
The vast majority are in 50km/h or 60km/h zones.
The statistical story (from the federal Department of Infrastructure and Develoment) is pretty bleak. Essentially car and truck travel is getting safer while cycling travel is getting less safe.
It seems that the approach to car and truck safety is one of continual attention to safety and continual improvement. This is especially true of truck travel where the logistics industry has taken the matter in hand with a chain-of-responsibility approach.
Indeed, the trucking industry gave critical funding to the Amy Gillett Foundation to help get the one-metre rule into law. This would require cars and trucks to keep at least a metre away from a cyclist when over-taking in 60km/h zones and 1.5 metres in higher-speed zones.
It is being trialled in Queensland and comes into force next week in South Australia.
But it is a very small step – just requiring the obvious. Some cycling groups say it will not make any difference.
Moreover, the way the law is coming into force shows another weakness – the lack of national approach to dealing with what seems to be a peculiarly Australian phenomenon – outright aggression and hostility to cycling and cyclists.
It seems like a macho thing. “Cycling is for children. I am a man now and drive a car.”
The aggression seems to stem from a sense of entitlement – to travel at or above the speed limit at all times everywhere. So if a cyclist, or a group of cyclists, prevents a driver from doing that, it invites yelling abuse or overtaking at a perilously close distance.
But no-one seems to behave like this is they are impeded by a forklift or tractor on the road.
The aggression and safety fears, which are backed up by the statistics, are stopping people from cycling altogether or from cycling for more journeys.
This year’s damning Ausroads survey said “there appears to have been a decline in Australian cycling participation since 2011”.
Given the value of cycling to health, the environment and reducing congestion, we should be doing something about it.
We need to change attitudes; improve the law; improve infrastructure for cyclists; and improve safety on bicycles themselves.
Changing attitudes and changing the law go partly hand in hand. We did it for drink-driving. In Europe, many countries if a motorist hits a bicycle, it is deemed to be their fault unless they prove otherwise. European attitudes are far more civilised.
Conversely, cyclists need to improve their conduct. Hand signalling is a good start. It helps motorists if they know where you are going.
Indeed, I once saw a cyclist use a hand signal to indicate he was going straight ahead. I was coming up the stem of the T. He was going across the top.
I have now taken to using the straight ahead signal when cycling. It is also helpful on roundabouts.
The other advantage is that the hand movement can help you be noticed by motorists, giving them a sporting chance of not running you down rather than a non-sporting chance of doing so.
Part of the fury at cyclists seems to be that they have not paid their way and so have no right to the road and certainly no right to slow motorists down. Regsistration with a fee (exempting children) might be an answer. But motorists should look at it another way. For every bicycle on the road there is one less car and therefore less congestion.
Greater emphasis on cycle awareness is needed at licence testing time.
More bicycle lanes covering complete journeys and not ending abruptly when some road engineer thinks it too costly or too inconvenient to put a bicycle ramp across a kerb or cut some space for continuous bicycle lanes.
The ACT has done reasonably well in the past few years. Let’s hope the ACT government incorporates cycling in the construction of light rail with secure storage at stations.
Another significant development is already happening – electric bicycles. The battery power can be used to help go up hills or even for the complete journey to the station or bus stop or the whole journey to work, so you don’t work up a sweat necessitating a shower and change (particularly in summer).
Then the cyclist can pedal like fury on the way home.
Battery technology is getting better, as is portable satellite technology warning of impending rain storms. Together they will make commuting by cycle much more attractive as congestion gets worse and parking prohibitively expensive.
So amid with all our talk about more agile and smarter cities we should make cycling less dangerous and more attractive.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Fairfax media on 17 October 2015.
Great article. I like the European approach if you hit a cyclist you need to prove its not your fault. It’s not as if they’re kangaroos jumping out into oncoming traffic.
Good article – thanks. I cycle to work on an electric bike (38km return each day) and love it. Thankfully I am on bicycle paths all the way, although my husband was knocked over by a car on an on-road cycle path!
Perhaps it would be useful to suggest people riding bikes two abreast (or three sometimes!) on fast roads use a bit more common sense. It is difficult when you are driving at 80km an hour around a sharp corner to find bike riders ambling along taking up the entire lane. And then they get shirty when you nearly clean them up! I would like the law changed so that cyclists riding in groups are required to ride single file on roads. That would introduce a safeguard for all road users, including car drivers.
I think both cyclists and motorists have to stop thinking of cycles as vehicles. If you realise that someone on a cycle is just as vulnerable to injury as a pedestrian in traffic then it is obvious the two cannot mix with absolute safety.
well said. these days i stay on the bike paths, never ride at night. don