Furthermore, just as there are bad bike riders, there are plenty bad drivers. Here's a question - if a b-double was turning left at a roundabout, and by the time the last third is at the corner, would a car just go straight through him with the attitude that the truckie had to give way because the driver is on their right hand side?? The answer is obviously no. So why is a group of cyclists that can be 15 - 20 long (single file) be any different?? Most drivers just go straight through and don't have the patience to wait 5-10 secs until we can all get through.
I try to stay out these as it just tends to feed the arguement and I feel both groups get my feelings so no need to add.... But I find so many dont know the current roundabout rules......
There is no give way to your right when it comes to entering a roundabout. In the above example the vehicle entering the roundabout is required to giveway to the B double as it is already on the roundabout.
With 15-20 cyclists if one third wasn't on the roundabout when the car entered then the cyclists need to give way, so they are infact breaking the law..... Not the car in that instance.
Please be familiar with current laws before trying to say that you follow all of them. You mentioned that all of the things happened to you or a group, I suggest the group learns the road rules.
Oh now you got me started..... Now for a rant!
Sorry if it comes across harsh but I think I find that cyclists are their worst enemy. I had one the other day tailgating a bus and when it stopped pull out infront of me, he didnt look. Now I could see it happening and took action to prevent a collision, we avoid the collision with only a few cm in it. When the car behind me hit their horn as they only just missed me (they were tailgating me.....) he gave us the finger. Wow, I just saved his life and I get the finger, really nice, imagine how I would have felt if I had hit him and killed him (something I would have had to live with for life
). I wish I had saved the footage from my dash cam.
Just on Thrusday in the Sydney CBD I had one almost take me out as I was crossing a road on a green walking signal. He yelled at me for almost colliding, this was when I was at the other side of the road, ie he hadnt just crossed the line and it changed, he ran a red light well and truly, wow
.
Yes I see cars breaking major safety laws every day. I'd say less than 5% (most stop at red lights, stop at stop signs), when it comes to cyclists it would be closer to 90% that break the law that I see on a daily basis. I also saw a really good cyclist last week that indicated, stopped at lights and filtered only when safe to do so (as he was legally entitled to do so and I support this for cyclists). Note the 5% would be much higher (25%) if I include not indicating (another pet peeve).
I also saw several motorists queuing across lights the other day, another pet peeve. God knows you spent 5 mins in the CBD and you'll see lots of people breaking the road rules, but I see alot of cars so the % is much less.....
Overall I find peoples understanding of current road rules to be quite poor, we could all do with a refresher. I got my heavy vehicle license about 5 years ago, it was good as it forced me to relearn the road rules. I wish we all had to resit a test every 5 to 10 years, we'd have much better quality of drivers. Or the other thing is we should ban the use of parents as teachers for learning to drive, we all have so many bad habits.
For the record I also have had recent peer review of my driving as I am a response driver in an emergency service and all my response runs require a review afterwards.
Rant off
Both groups need to discuss there concerns, I agree that debate is good as it is what drives people to work the system to enact change.
Chris
