If you want to get emotions running hot there’s nothing that works quite as well as talking about cyclists on our roads.
Cycling star, Cadel Evans, has stirred things up by claiming that Australian drivers are far too agressive, especially towards cyclists. He has been quoted by News.com.au in an article titled, Australians drive cyclist star Cadel Evans to despair.
I drive on the road and I don’t like people just not having respect for other road users.
I spend half my year in Europe so I know what the traffic is like there.
It is really strange, to be honest, the way Australian drivers are.
Our roads have much less traffic, are far larger, and the drivers have much more space, but they are much more aggressive and negative to other road users.
When you ride a race in Italy or Switzerland or France, the roads are much narrower and there is much more traffic, but the drivers are much more tolerant and easier to deal with. It is a bit of a shame.
His comments have started a flood of comments on the article with both drivers and cyclists throwing insults.
I see the main problem being the lack of education for road users. Many drivers are unaware that it is perfectly legal for cyclists to ride two abreast. Unfortunately some cyclists will ride two abreast even when it isn’t safe to do so.
I’m currently cycling about 250 km a week and I’d admit that the majority of drivers are courteous but it would only take one errant driver to put me in hospital or a morgue so it concerns me that there are many drivers still don’t get it.
The argument from a lot of drivers is that cyclists break the road rules all the time. Let me tell you something, it not only annoys you, it annoys me. For some reason we all get tarred with the same brush so when some cyclists do the wrong thing, there are motorists who take that as a license to harrass the rest of us.
Common sense tells us that not all cyclists break the rules. Common sense also tells us that even though I’m seeing more and more motorists running red lights and making other dangerous and careless errors on the road, I don’t have the right to make blanket statements about ‘all drivers’.
Some drivers are dangerous. Some cyclists are dangerous.
Some drivers complain that cyclists slow them down. I wonder what those drivers would do with the extra 10 or 20 seconds they would gain if they didn’t have to slow down to pass a cyclist. (And lets face it, you probably don’t even lose that much time. You probably just get to the next red light a little later.) On the other hand, if the thousands of commuter cyclists in each city decided to jump into a car instead each day, could you imagine the extra traffic chaos? Could you imagine how much longer the daily drive to work would take?
Thankfully, most of my new commute is on a well built and well maintained cycle path. I have great joy in whizzing past rows and rows of cars which are stuck in peak hour traffic.
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I grew up in Perth and I almost always rode my bike on a footpath, even though it was illegal becuase I was too scared to ride on a road for fear of a bus to come up from behind. Those guys fly and often are totally unaware of just how close they are to the kerb. You have more courage than me Rodney. Enjoy that free feeling of passing the crowds. Believe me, they notice you and wish, just for a split second it was them…until they think of the energy that is required to ride all that way! 🙂