Cyclist Problem

[1fast1]

Realistically we're probably looking at cyclists making up about a fifth of all commuting vehicles, and our accidents (both fatal and not) account for about a tenth of all accidents.

 

I'm getting tired out by replying to so many people, so I'll just say that you seriously need to back up that statistic with hard data. A fifth of all vehicles implies that for every four motorised vehicles we should see one cyclist, on average. I don't think any reasonable motorist will agree with that observation.

[Taipan49]

The average speed for cars is calculated after taking into account traffic stops, etc. The average speed is computed by dividing total distance by total time. The usual cruising speed is, of course, much higher.

 

I'm curious about your figure of 25-27 km/h for your cycling - is that derived from total distance/total time? That would be a true measure of average speed.

 

Stopping at every traffic light means you don't have that illicit advantage against cars (and you're a responsible cyclist, so good on you). Which means that cars are being severely disadvantaged by congestion, which is why their average speed is brought down to a comparable level to yours. As a matter of fact, this has not been my experience, and my average speed is usually upward of 35 km/h. Perhaps it's because I'm lucky or smart in my choice of routes and timing.

 

But the fact that the average speed for cars for the whole of Singapore is not significantly higher than that for cyclists means that we are way too congested. And the gahmen's measures to curb congestion are simply not doing the job.

 

I use an iphone app called "Cyclemeter". I start the stopwatch when i leave the house, and turn if off when i arrive. The stopwatch runs the whole time, though there is an option for Stop Detection, but I don't turn it on.

 

This week I have average 25.4km/h (total so far is 100km). Last week was 25.25km/h (distance travelled was 121km).

 

So it is a true measure of my average speed. I do stop at traffic lights, but as mentioned before, I choose an appropriate route that may be a bit longer but minimises the number of traffic lights I have to contend with. Total number of lights is 9 over the route.

 

I have read overseas that traffic lights are generally more favoured to bikes than cars, but this is due really by the number of crossroads requiring lights than by actual preference to bikes. For example in Copenhagen, on the main arterial roads, if you average 22km/h on your bike then all the lights are green for you. Not sure if this exactly applies in Singapore, but with the conjestion and the number of traffic lights, I would guess it would be similar. This is why I believe I can achieve an average speed similar to cars.

 

So yes, car congestion here is high, but it isn't as bad as other cities. I choose the bike as I don't see sitting in gridlock as productive and i hate gyms.

[Elfenstar]

I'm getting tired out by replying to so many people, so I'll just say that you seriously need to back up that statistic with hard data. A fifth of all vehicles implies that for every four motorised vehicles we should see one cyclist, on average. I don't think any reasonable motorist will agree with that observation.

 

Its alright. You got to remember that the numbers of the type of vehicle varies according to location and time. You won't find any (hopefully) cyclists on the expressways, similarly you'll find a disproportionate number of heavy goods vehicles in say Tuas, etc. Not to mention many cyclists do cross between roads and PCN's as well, and not all of us cycle all the time (for e.g. when on reservist, I drive on the first and last day but cycle every day between).

 

The figure I came up with was based on our census data, and a NUS white paper. I used smaller figures when as much as I could to mimimise the number of cyclists. Even if I halved the amount it would still result in 25000 Singaporeans and PR's that commute via cycling, and the foreign worker bulk is still not included in the figure.

 

The average speed for cars is calculated after taking into account traffic stops, etc. The average speed is computed by dividing total distance by total time. The usual cruising speed is, of course, much higher.

 

I'm curious about your figure of 25-27 km/h for your cycling - is that derived from total distance/total time? That would be a true measure of average speed.

 

Stopping at every traffic light means you don't have that illicit advantage against cars (and you're a responsible cyclist, so good on you). Which means that cars are being severely disadvantaged by congestion, which is why their average speed is brought down to a comparable level to yours. As a matter of fact, this has not been my experience, and my average speed is usually upward of 35 km/h. Perhaps it's because I'm lucky or smart in my choice of routes and timing.

 

But the fact that the average speed for cars for the whole of Singapore is not significantly higher than that for cyclists means that we are way too congested. And the gahmen's measures to curb congestion are simply not doing the job.

 

Car's are severely disadvantaged by congestion, and the measures haven't been working well. Once during peak hour, I bumped into my mom on the roads. She was driving, I was on my bicycle. I got home before her even though we took identical paths.

 

Like our other bro, I base my timings on Runkeeper (when I want to log my path) and/or my cyclometer which doesn't stop unless I pull it off its mount.

[1fast1]

Its alright. You got to remember that the numbers of the type of vehicle varies according to location and time. You won't find any (hopefully) cyclists on the expressways, similarly you'll find a disproportionate number of heavy goods vehicles in say Tuas, etc. Not to mention many cyclists do cross between roads and PCN's as well, and not all of us cycle all the time (for e.g. when on reservist, I drive on the first and last day but cycle every day between).

 

The figure I came up with was based on our census data, and a NUS white paper. I used smaller figures when as much as I could to mimimise the number of cyclists. Even if I halved the amount it would still result in 25000 Singaporeans and PR's that commute via cycling, and the foreign worker bulk is still not included in the figure.

 

I'll take your word for it that you have good figures on the number of cyclists. But as I mentioned in my earlier posts, an appropriate risk measure is important. If many cyclists are frequently crossing over between roads and PCNs, etc. then their risk is consequently lower. A distance based measure (km travelled on public roads) becomes more appropriate. In fact, we may be able to refine this better by weighting the exposure by time-of-day and day-of-week related traffic volumes. But I hesitate to embark on that sort of analysis unless the gahmen is paying me the big bucks for a white paper!

 

Car's are severely disadvantaged by congestion, and the measures haven't been working well. Once during peak hour, I bumped into my mom on the roads. She was driving, I was on my bicycle. I got home before her even though we took identical paths.

 

This I can believe. Our roads are terrible during peak hours.

[Trebuchet]

Turboflat4, You picked two arbitary figures and built your case on it. Let's say we switch them around and see what 'common sense' reveals about your choice of denominator. Let's say instead of 2, I have 0 accidents in my journey while the speed demon has 1.

 

The time-specific rate for me is 0 = 0.0 accidents per hour. The time-specific rate for the speed demon is far higher at 4 accidents per hour.

 

Think about it - we both completed the same journey - same origin, same destination. I rode like a slow poke, yet had one less accident than the speed demon. That strongly suggests the speed demon is the worse driver.

 

Does the time on road now have anything to do with the measure of safety, or is it completely irrelevant as you assert? What is speed if not an expression of time taken on a road to travel a given distance?

 

The distance specific rate does not suffer from this bias. Your rate is 0 = 0.04 accidents per km. The speed demon's rate is 1/50 = 0.02 accidents per km. This intuitively seems a fairer measure, don't you think?

 

This may be a very simplistic example, but I hope it illustrates the point I'm making. The choice of denominator (as a measure of risk) matters, and it's exactly the opposite of the way you reckoned.

 

It would now be zero accidents for me per km but 0.02 accidents per km for the speed demon. Your example is simplistic only because you have left out speed as a factor. Plain intuition will tell you that the increase of speed is the reason for the difference in accident rates. Indeed if you zero in on speed rather than distance, you will find a decrease in accident rates as we lower speeds anywhere. Why does the Traffic Police enforce speed limits for high-accident prone roads, isn't it, rather than increase the speed limit? Does anyone say, hey, there's too many accidents on the KPE, let's *raise the speed limit*? Aren't lower speed limits, in essence, telling us to "take more time to travel this distance, it is safer" ?

 

All the distance denominator does is skew the accident rate lower for those who travel longer distances, and has very little measure of actual risk exposure. I think most people can intuitively agree that a driver who is flying at 200km/h is exposed to more danger than a slowpoke at 25km/h no matter how you want to slice this.

 

Well, that was kinda my point - there are fewer cyclists, so (as expected), the absolute number of accidents sustained by cyclists is lower. (There are other confounders here - for example, I believe many minor skirmishes between slow-moving cars and cyclists go unreported). What matters is the specific accident rate, as we've been discussing. Without better statistics (the distance specific accident rate for both classes of vehicles), noone can say for sure which is the safer mode of transportation.

 

There we go. Thanks for saying that. As for using the distance specific rate, you know my stand by now.

 

However, it's quite clear that in an accident between a cyclist and a car, the former will fare much worse. And that alone is enough to convince me of the intrinsic danger of cycling on public roads.

 

<--- I can agree with you there. However since you are talking about your personal convictions, I want to share mine: I've never ever been hit by a car in all my years of riding a bicycle on roads which is by now more than 30. Whereas as a driver, I've lost my rear bumper to a taxi, and had my front bumper dislodged by an idiot who reversed into it - in just 1 year alone. And that leads me to conclude that you're far more likely to be hit by another driver while driving, than when you are cycling. That is enough to convince me of the intrinsic danger of driving on public roads , over that of cycling.

 

 

There is a tipping point, but we have not reached there yet, because the bulk of those cyclists are seasoned, road veterans who respect road rules. And surely you don't mean to target these cyclists with your "cycling is unsafe" rhetoric?

 

I'm not following your point here. But I think you're presuming too much by asserting that the bulk of cyclists "respect road rules". If they did, there wouldn't be so many complaints levelled against them. Many of those "seasoned veterans" have a sense of self-entitlement that causes them to take liberties on the road - including riding two abreast or even in a peloton, a behaviour guaranteed to piss off even the most patient driver.

 

Well, whether their behaviour is good or right, I think they are *safer* when they ride this way. Let us find out how many riders in a peloton have been knocked down by cars before over the last 10 years. Would you believe that the numbers are much lower than you would expect? I would bet money on it.

 

It should already be apparent that there is no singular thing called "common sense". So how do you wanna slice it now, brutha?

 

Apparently, "common sense" is not all that common.

 

That's why I put the words in quotation marks, brutha.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Trebuchet

[inlinesix]

Talk & talk has no ending.

 

Ride to work for 1 wk & give your feedback here.

 

Riding on the road is all about self confidence & agility.

 

Self confidence = To project road presence.

 

Agility = To take note of surrounding & react to it.

 

I love my car but not in this madness traffic.

[Thestig]

After reading this thread, I have concluded that cyclists should not waste their time trying to defend cycling because there are a few Singaporean drivers who are irrational. Likelihood of turning these pissed off drivers into candidates for committing vehicular manslaughter increases everytime you argue/defend your point.

 

Unfortunately, you cannot control the actions of the cycling population as much as you can control the individual actions of the drivers here.

 

One of the main problems with the drivers in Singapore is not their fault. The cost of owning a car is too high for everyone. And by everyone I mean everyone, even billionaires who can afford to buy 100x Ferraris. Even they know that for the same amount of money that they bought their 100x Ferraris, they know they could buy 500x Ferraris elsewhere.

 

It is this high cost of ownership that sometimes makes the average driver here sometimes irrational, edgy, impatient, short tempered, etc. After all, they are thinking,

 

"I paid so damn much for this car and I'm stuck behind a bicycle!"

 

 

[1fast1]

Turboflat4, You picked two arbitary figures and built your case on it. Let's say we switch them around and see what 'common sense' reveals about your choice of denominator. Let's say instead of 2, I have 0 accidents in my journey while the speed demon has 1.

 

The time-specific rate for me is 0 = 0.0 accidents per hour. The time-specific rate for the speed demon is far higher at 4 accidents per hour.

 

Think about it - we both completed the same journey - same origin, same destination. I rode like a slow poke, yet had one less accident than the speed demon. That strongly suggests the speed demon is the worse driver.

 

Does the time on road now have anything to do with the measure of safety, or is it completely irrelevant as you assert? What is speed if not an expression of time taken on a road to travel a given distance?

 

 

It would now be zero accidents for me per km but 0.02 accidents per km for the speed demon. Your example is simplistic only because you have left out speed as a factor. Plain intuition will tell you that the increase of speed is the reason for the difference in accident rates. Indeed if you zero in on speed rather than distance, you will find a decrease in accident rates as we lower speeds anywhere. Why does the Traffic Police enforce speed limits for high-accident prone roads, isn't it, rather than increase the speed limit? Does anyone say, hey, there's too many accidents on the KPE, let's *raise the speed limit*? Aren't lower speed limits, in essence, telling us to "take more time to travel this distance, it is safer" ?

 

All the distance denominator does is skew the accident rate lower for those who travel longer distances, and has very little measure of actual risk exposure. I think most people can intuitively agree that a driver who is flying at 200km/h is exposed to more danger than a slowpoke at 25km/h no matter how you want to slice this.

 

First of all, your counterexample is completely pointless, because the slowpoke's absolute and relative rates are both zero, whereas the speed demon's are both nonzero. There is nothing to separate the two statistics. In both cases the person who had NO accidents has a lower statistic, as he should, so your example fails to show your reckoning is better than mine.

 

Secondly, statistics are not supposed to inherently skew the data one way or the other. They are merely supposed to give a fair reflection of the risk-adjusted probability of an event. To choose a time-based measure simply because it biases the statistics against people who drive faster is actually unfair and unsound.

 

There is no more sense in my arguing this with you - this is a very basic and obvious point you continually fail to grasp.

 

There we go. Thanks for saying that. As for using the distance specific rate, you know my stand by now.

 

Your stand simply does not "stand". It's a question of whether one wants a biased measure vs an unbiased one.

 

 

<--- I can agree with you there. However since you are talking about your personal convictions, I want to share mine: I've never ever been hit by a car in all my years of riding a bicycle on roads which is by now more than 30. Whereas as a driver, I've lost my rear bumper to a taxi, and had my front bumper dislodged by an idiot who reversed into it - in just 1 year alone. And that leads me to conclude that you're far more likely to be hit by another driver while driving, than when you are cycling. That is enough to convince me of the intrinsic danger of driving on public roads , over that of cycling.

 

OK, so your car had some minor structural damage. Problem is, a similar impact between a car and your bike, if it had materialised, would've meant a far more grievous injury to your person.

 

Well, whether their behaviour is good or right, I think they are *safer* when they ride this way. Let us find out how many riders in a peloton have been knocked down by cars before over the last 10 years. Would you believe that the numbers are much lower than you would expect? I would bet money on it.

 

So you're saying you're agreeing with the grossly inconsiderate "peloton" style of clogging up an entire lane (or even two)? I'm OK with cyclists sharing the roads with motorists, but I'm totally against them taking more than their fair share - which is what I referred to as "taking liberties". If you condone this sort of irresponsibility, your bias is clearly bleeding through.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Turboflat4

[Elfenstar]

I'll take your word for it that you have good figures on the number of cyclists. But as I mentioned in my earlier posts, an appropriate risk measure is important. If many cyclists are frequently crossing over between roads and PCNs, etc. then their risk is consequently lower. A distance based measure (km travelled on public roads) becomes more appropriate. In fact, we may be able to refine this better by weighting the exposure by time-of-day and day-of-week related traffic volumes. But I hesitate to embark on that sort of analysis unless the gahmen is paying me the big bucks for a white paper!

 

Car's are severely disadvantaged by congestion, and the measures haven't been working well. Once during peak hour, I bumped into my mom on the roads. She was driving, I was on my bicycle. I got home before her even though we took identical paths.

 

This I can believe. Our roads are terrible during peak hours.

 

The figures and my findings are as good as I can get based on the data given. IMHO the metric's that Singstat compiles in relation to road statistics is good for generic use, but when it comes to much deeper analysis, it's rudimentary at best. Esp for cycling where the data only shows Singapore and PR cyclists who commute, and omits the largest cycling base of the foreigners as well as the recreation cyclists who use the road.

 

Unless its a major road with a 60/70kmh limit, peak hours or there are road works, construction, etc, traffic flow technically is fine if you take the speed limit vs traffic lights into consideration. Could be better, but I've been in worse. During peak hours, timings are about the same if not faster because I get to use bus lanes. For commuting cyclists that don't stop behind buses and overtake them, it could be quite a bit faster. It does show that the bus lanes do work though as my speeds are essentially bus speeds During non-peak hours I'm about 20/30% slower as compared to when I'm driving. It's still faster than taking a bus though as the buses don't take the most direct route (why is why I don't like the distance based bus fare and prefer the stage based).

 

To be perfectly honest, cycling is nowhere as dangerous as some make it out to be. However IMHO even 1 fatality is too much regardless of which mode of transport a person takes. If the bulk of road users (i.e. the drivers) learn to be more accommodating, I suspect the fatalities across all groups will drop.

 

P.S. You both know that arguments with hypothetical data can be pulled in pretty much any direction right :P

Edited July 26, 2012 by Elfenstar

[Trebuchet]

First of all, your counterexample is completely pointless, because the slowpoke's absolute and relative rates are both zero, whereas the speed demon's are both nonzero. There is nothing to separate the two statistics. In both cases the person who had NO accidents has a lower statistic, as he should, so your example fails to show your reckoning is better than mine.

 

Secondly, statistics are not supposed to inherently skew the data one way or the other. They are merely supposed to give a fair reflection of the risk-adjusted probability of an event.

 

I was just showing you that you can't simply pick numbers that suit your case to draw a conclusion. Even if I raise it to 1 accident for the slowpoke and two for the speedster, the maths will still work out to about the same effect. And you haven't talked about the speed thing which I brought up. Speed kills right?

 

To choose a time-based measure simply because it biases the statistics against people who drive faster is actually unfair and unsound.

 

To choose a distance-based measure biases the statistics against people who ride slower. Is that not equally unfair and unsound?

 

There is no more sense in my arguing this with you - this is a very basic and obvious point you continually fail to grasp.

 

You too continually fail to grasp my point.

 

There we go. Thanks for saying that. As for using the distance specific rate, you know my stand by now.

 

Your stand simply does not "stand". It's a question of whether one wants a biased measure vs an unbiased one.

 

That's quite a statement to make, considering that my entire point of dispute is whether your chosen measure is actually biased or not. Begging the question.

 

<--- I can agree with you there. However since you are talking about your personal convictions, I want to share mine: I've never ever been hit by a car in all my years of riding a bicycle on roads which is by now more than 30. Whereas as a driver, I've lost my rear bumper to a taxi, and had my front bumper dislodged by an idiot who reversed into it - in just 1 year alone. And that leads me to conclude that you're far more likely to be hit by another driver while driving, than when you are cycling. That is enough to convince me of the intrinsic danger of driving on public roads , over that of cycling.

 

OK, so your car had some minor structural damage. Problem is, a similar impact between a car and your bike, if it had materialised, would've meant a far more grievous injury to your person.

 

I didn't disagree leh. I'm just saying that there's a much lower risk of a cyclist being hit than you think. All I am trying to say is, "The fear of cycling on roads is a pervasive paranoia with little basis in reality."

 

 

Well, whether their behaviour is good or right, I think they are *safer* when they ride this way. Let us find out how many riders in a peloton have been knocked down by cars before over the last 10 years. Would you believe that the numbers are much lower than you would expect? I would bet money on it.

 

So you're saying you're agreeing with the grossly inconsiderate "peloton" style of clogging up an entire lane (or even two)? I'm OK with cyclists sharing the roads with motorists, but I'm totally against them taking more than their fair share - which is what I referred to as "taking liberties". If you condone this sort of irresponsibility, your bias is clearly bleeding through.

 

My words only test the assertion that riding in a peloton is unsafe, not whether they are considerate or inconsiderate or piss other drivers off. I feel I have been quite dispassionate about it. You seem much more emotionally invested in this discussion than me.

 

[Nzy]

I use an iphone app called "Cyclemeter". I start the stopwatch when i leave the house, and turn if off when i arrive. The stopwatch runs the whole time, though there is an option for Stop Detection, but I don't turn it on.

 

This week I have average 25.4km/h (total so far is 100km). Last week was 25.25km/h (distance travelled was 121km).

 

So it is a true measure of my average speed. I do stop at traffic lights, but as mentioned before, I choose an appropriate route that may be a bit longer but minimises the number of traffic lights I have to contend with. Total number of lights is 9 over the route.

 

I have read overseas that traffic lights are generally more favoured to bikes than cars, but this is due really by the number of crossroads requiring lights than by actual preference to bikes. For example in Copenhagen, on the main arterial roads, if you average 22km/h on your bike then all the lights are green for you. Not sure if this exactly applies in Singapore, but with the conjestion and the number of traffic lights, I would guess it would be similar. This is why I believe I can achieve an average speed similar to cars.

 

So yes, car congestion here is high, but it isn't as bad as other cities. I choose the bike as I don't see sitting in gridlock as productive and i hate gyms.

 

I think the traffic lights do work in roughly the same way here as well. Cuz on my usual route I always get green all the way. But once I get stuck at one red light the rest will be red for me.

[Picia]

...

 

It is this high cost of ownership that sometimes makes the average driver here sometimes irrational, edgy, impatient, short tempered, etc. After all, they are thinking,

 

"I paid so damn much for this car and I'm stuck behind a bicycle!"

 

I have never thought to relate the cost of my car when driving and the cost of a bicycle when I encounter one while driving. To me, we are simply two vehicles sharing the roads. I don't see what cost of a vehicle has anything to do with safe driving and getting irritated. When I see a cyclist while driving I am thinking to give space to a vulnerable road user (1.5m), as well tinged with a touch of jealousy that I'm not out there (except when it's bucketing down). When I cycle to work, I arrive feeling rejuvenated, refreshed, relaxed yet alert. I don't get this type of feeling after driving to work and indeed, many times arrive feeling stressed because of the rude actions of other drivers (although I also get stressed from time to time by other drivers when cycling, it is slightly less than when driving and is blunted by the endorphin high!).

 

Neither have I ever sought to explain my stress while driving to the high cost of my car - rather, I attribute it to the inconsiderate actions of some road users and yes, from time to time, minor mistakes or misjudgments on my part also.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Picia

[Lightbringer]

That is just one way to slice the data. Sure, cyclists have lower mileage, but they spend more time on the road overall after adjusting for scale. If you now count rate of accident per total hours on the roads instead, I am very sure the cyclists would still come out safer than drivers.

 

There are also many thousands more bikes than there are vehicles. Yet are there thousands of cyclist injured every year? That surely is a cold hard stat too that is clear to see.

 

Which stat has the more convincing argument? I don't think you will change your mind, but maybe someone will read this and realise that the road safety debate is full of misconceptions and logical pitfalls.

 

No time nor the interest to argue with cyclists who feel the need to justify their own recklessness to the whole world (we don't give a s--t, why are you trying so hard to get us to give a s--t - it's your life and your death, not mine nor ours)....

 

But I do have this to say for people quoting y-o-y changes in cyclist fatalities on the road, citing the decrease of 1, ONE death over one year as irrefutable proof that cycling is now less dangerous. If only statistics were that simple.

 

There's a reason why non-economic, time-series data is usually measured over a 5 year period, using compounded annual growth rate. Go figure it out yourselves. That cycling is getting more dangerous over the years can be clearly gleamed from the statistics, only those hard-up to prove a particular point or to justify their own risky behaviour would quote y-on-y figures in the most favourable manner to the public.

 

Again I repeat - go get yourselves killed on the public roads. You're not my relative and you sure as heck ain't my friend. So it's not going to bother me when you get killed or maimed on the road, unless your blood happens to stain my steel rims or newly-washed paintwork.

 

I like to see you quote y-on-y statistics when you're dead or maimed though. Won't be long now, with your "I can do no wrong" attitude.

 

Arrogance won't stand up to 2 tons of pure steel smashing into you and your pathetic excuse for a "vehicle" on the roads.

 

[Trebuchet]

Why so much vitriol when none has been directed your way?

 

I already know you don't care about cyclists. I hope you also realise that this isn't really an attempt to seriously change what you think. The roads are public. Cyclists have a right to be on it. Your opinions count for jack. End of story.

 

See how much more mature it is possible to be about this matter?

[Trebuchet]

Again I repeat - go get yourselves killed on the public roads. You're not my relative and you sure as heck ain't my friend. So it's not going to bother me when you get killed or maimed on the road, unless your blood happens to stain my steel rims or newly-washed paintwork.

 

Who wants to be your relative or friend?

 

Despite that, I hope you drive as carefully as you newly (regularly?) wash your paintwork and steel rims.

 

If you do that, I don't see how anyone can get killed or maimed.

 

If it helps you, I heard the LTA report recently that the majority of acccidents are caused by inattentive driving. You don't have to be that kind of driver!

 

[Scoots]

Do you remember (or even notice) all the good cyclists or only the bad ones? There is a known psychological phenomena that addresses this.

 

Same question back: do you remember (or even notice) all the good drivers or only the bad ones?

[Scoots]

My apology for spelling ur nick incorrectly. I have no enemy here. Every1 is my dear friends.

 

My invitation to you remains open. It is up to you when u want to take it up. How do teach ur kid WHY not to play with fire?

 

Common Sense

 

And my response remain the same: I don't need to ride to know I don't find it safe. Neither do I need to ride to know that all your 'reasons' for NOT following the rules to be wrong.

 

 

Your way of teaching is to let him burn himself?... sorry ... I feel sorry for your kid.

 

Sad you can provide a link yet not read it .. try again => Common Sense

Edited July 27, 2012 by Scoots

[Scoots]

Actually perception and common sense are two different things. Based on extremely conservative cyclist figures (as it is not recorded in SingStat), it's probably safer to cycle than to drive.

 

Nobody is asking for special treatment or own rules. Though TP gives some special treatment (co-related to how vulnerable the road user is), the same rules apply to everyone. We are simply asking for the same due care that any road user should give to every other road user.

 

P.S. It's all here http://www.mycarforum.com/index.php?showto...p;#entry4529731, and http://www.mycarforum.com/index.php?showto...p;#entry4530574

 

As you have cited: Based on extremely conservative cyclist figures (as it is not recorded in SingStat), it's probably safer to cycle than to drive.

Isn't that just another (preferred) perception?

 

I have no problems with people who CHOOSE to cycle. Just as much as I think they should have no reason to fault me for CHOOSING to drive, or take public transport ...etc. But we all need to remember that there are rules for ALL road users and all who CHOOSE to use the common roads need to abide by those rules.

 

And if you had followed my past exchanges with davidtch, you should know why I say he evocates for 'special treatment'