Rant: Cyclists, Oz Bureaucracy ....
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<p>Normally I don't have too much of an issue with cyclists. I normally drive around the North Island and they are pretty few and far between and I haven't seen hardly any nitwit behaviour.</p>
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<p>Recently however they had the 'Round the Mountain' cycle race in Taranaki and I had the misfortune of driving between Stratford and New Plymouth while this was on.</p>
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<p>This was god awful, heavy rain, poor visibility, amatuer cyclists who struggled to stick to the left and every now and then for shits and giggles appear to lose control and swoop right at the most inopportune moments..oh and lets not forget fuck-head drivers who didn't give a shit about the life threatening situation on and figured fuckhead overtaking maneuvers among this chaos was a great idea. I had at least 4 instances where I came within cm's of killing a cyclist or colliding with a car deciding to overtake me as I was overtaking a wobbly cyclist. I was a shaking mess my the end of that trip. Only a matter of time until there are fatalities in that event, and as much as I get the cycling is great and healthy you are always going to get fuckhead drivers who will kill indiscriminately just so they can get to their monthly fuckhead meeting on time. This event should be scrapped in its current form and instead the route should be altered to the backroads closer in to the mountain. There are a few sections where that may not be possible but there is no reason why the race should be on the main highways for the majority of the ride.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="WillieTheWaiter" data-cid="560622" data-time="1456347621">
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<div>The level of self-absorbed whining from a position of massive privilege you get from drivers on cycling-related matters is astounding.</div>
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<div>This country spends billions and billions of dollars creating the infrastructure for you to be able to drive your car around the country, including multi lane roads/freeways/eyesores, ugly safety infrastructure, petrol facilities and so much more. This involves de facto exclusion of non-drivers from large proportions of built-up areas. Due to the inability of a large minority of drivers to obey the law, measures are put in place which cause considerable inconvenience to other citizens (e.g. barriers, speed bumps etc.). Also provided are large areas of public land for you to leave your cars (which apparently is still not enough given the amount of whining about full car parks and parking tickets).</div>
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<div>To fuel your cars we have to enter into deals with despotic regimes, and ship the fuel around the world at considerable risk to the environment. The pollution from your cars causes thousands of deaths per year and harm to the development of children costing billions of dollars in healthcare costs and lost working hours, as well as major environmental damage in the form of wildlife-damaging water and air pollution and global warming. This is to add to the more direct form of death and injury which is being actually hit by a car which is over a thousand deaths per year nationally.</div>
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<div>One of the biggest causes of death in this country is inactivity. Cars, by their hogging of public land and their danger to other citizens doing healthier activities such as walking or cycling, are a It</div>
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<p>Nice post. You wouldn't want people to get the wrong impression or anything.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="WillieTheWaiter" data-cid="560622" data-time="1456347621">
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<div>The level of self-absorbed whining from a position of massive privilege you get from drivers on cycling-related matters is astounding.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>This country spends billions and billions of dollars creating the infrastructure for you to be able to drive your car around the country, including multi lane roads/freeways/eyesores, ugly safety infrastructure, petrol facilities and so much more. This involves de facto exclusion of non-drivers from large proportions of built-up areas. Due to the inability of a large minority of drivers to obey the law, measures are put in place which cause considerable inconvenience to other citizens (e.g. barriers, speed bumps etc.). Also provided are large areas of public land for you to leave your cars (which apparently is still not enough given the amount of whining about full car parks and parking tickets).</div>
<div> </div>
<div>To fuel your cars we have to enter into deals with despotic regimes, and ship the fuel around the world at considerable risk to the environment. The pollution from your cars causes thousands of deaths per year and harm to the development of children costing billions of dollars in healthcare costs and lost working hours, as well as major environmental damage in the form of wildlife-damaging water and air pollution and global warming. This is to add to the more direct form of death and injury which is being actually hit by a car which is over a thousand deaths per year nationally.</div>
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<div>One of the biggest causes of death in this country is inactivity. Cars, by their hogging of public land and their danger to other citizens doing healthier activities such as walking or cycling, are a major contributor to that problem. The biggest losers in this are children, who have lost almost all of their places to play due to cars and their drivers.</div>
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<div>So poor you, a cyclist delayed you for 5 seconds or you witnessed a cyclist running a red light. Just remember there wouldn’t be a need for red lights if car drivers were capable of operating without something telling them when to go or stop. A world without cars is a world without traffic lights.</div>
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<p>Here's an idea. Let's ban these nasty motor vehicles and all ride bikes.</p>
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<p>The economy will be booming.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Cookie" data-cid="560631" data-time="1456351102">
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<p>Cyclists who drive and vice versa deinitely helps in simple understanding.<br><br>
For anyone who thinks driving is "the answer" I'm often reminded of a work trip I made to Scotland a few years ago. I was visiting a big call centre and office of a company I was working for at the time. It was a lovely award winning building in its own splendid isolation in the Scottish countryside.<br><br>
But there was something amiss about the place - took me a while to realise that the majority of workers were fat, some very fat. Problem was most people drove to work, parked in the copious car parks, ate in the subsidised restaurants, sat at their desks, ate some more and drove home. There was nothing else to do on site and most lived a distance that was just convenient to drive from - so just piled on the pounds.<br><br>
Maybe they should have run, walked or cycled.</p>
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<p>Well that's endemic of today unfortunately, we don't live in times where we have to get together with our mates and go out and club a mammoth to death just to eat and survive. If the office is that flash though surely installing a gym wouldn't go amiss. When I was doing shift work in a contact centre I was warned I'd put on the kg if I wasn't careful, most did but I managed not to purely because I'm not a big fan of donuts and cake but I did have the odd 3am service station pie which was delicious every now and again. </p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Crucial" data-cid="560650" data-time="1456355347">
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<p>Here's an idea. Let's ban these nasty motor vehicles and all ride bikes.</p>
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<p>The economy will be booming.</p>
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<p>I was thinking about that.</p>
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<p>I could ride tandom with my seriously ill wife to the hospital each week. Or maybe drag her behind me when she's not up to it. Or do they have bike-powered ambulances? Perhaps the hospital is powered by thousands of people riding bikes in the basement?</p>
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<p>I could also cycle with my kids across town and up and down the coast to their various sporting events at the places to play that apparently no longer exist because of the evil motor vehicle. If they play at 9, I could set off at around 5.</p>
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<p>And if cars are the devil then you sure as heck shouldn't travel by plane. Sailboat (made only out of renewable resources) or pedal-powered boat is the only option.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Rancid Schnitzel" data-cid="560657" data-time="1456356159">
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<p>And if cars are the devil then you sure as heck shouldn't travel by plane. Sailboat (made only out of renewable resources) or <strong>penal-powered boat</strong> is the only option.</p>
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<p>now there's a fucking idea. No more over-crowded prisons, smaller carbon-footprints. </p>
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<p><img src="http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b8a019f2bc231c12ccd53249e752065e.jpg" alt="b8a019f2bc231c12ccd53249e752065e.jpg"></p> -
<p>Fixed.</p>
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<p>But, yes why not, car drivers should be forced to row because they're all so fat</p> -
<p>why not just go back to horse and carriage, and if you don't clean up your own horse droppings, councils can employ someone to do a half arsed job of it for everyone, recycle the droppings as fertilser and everyone wins!</p>
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="taniwharugby" data-cid="560666" data-time="1456359759">
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<p>why not just go back to horse and carriage, and if you don't clean up your own horse droppings, councils can employ someone to do a half arsed job of it for everyone, recycle the droppings as fertilser and everyone wins!</p>
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<p>Recycle the droppings to create a bio fuel......</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Rancid Schnitzel" data-cid="560661" data-time="1456357027"><p>Fixed.<br>
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But, yes why not, car drivers should be forced to row because they're all so fat</p></blockquote>
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Maybe a rowing machine set-up in one of these driverless cars... -
<p>that too...man, this running a country gig would be a breeze!</p>
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="mariner4life" data-cid="560660" data-time="1456356733">
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<p>now there's a fucking idea. No more over-crowded prisons, smaller carbon-footprints. </p>
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<p><img src="http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b8a019f2bc231c12ccd53249e752065e.jpg" alt="b8a019f2bc231c12ccd53249e752065e.jpg"></p>
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<p>Better than penile-powered.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Nepia" data-cid="560564" data-time="1456293953">
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<p>I don't tend to enjoy driving into other moving vehicles. ;)</p>
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<p>I don't get this comment then "Cyclists 1: As most Sydney residents will know there is a <strong>three lane road </strong>running from the Harbour bridge to Manly"</p>
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<p>Why can't you use third lane?</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Hooroo" data-cid="560692" data-time="1456364662">
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<p>I don't get this comment then "Cyclists 1: As most Sydney residents will know there is a <strong>three lane road </strong>running from the Harbour bridge to Manly"</p>
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<p>Why can't you use third lane?</p>
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<p>The third lane <u>was</u> being used - there was traffic already in it. The cyclist's were taking up two lanes. </p>
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<p>Lane 1: Two cyclists riding side by side. Lane 2: Cyclist riding just over the white line, us driving in the lane behind him. Lane 3: Cars driving at a steady pace.</p>
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<p>Ah, I see what you mean - sorry, I should have said 3 lanes each way. </p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Nepia" data-cid="560706" data-time="1456367182">
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<p>The third lane <u>was</u> being used - there was traffic already in it. The cyclist's were taking up two lanes. </p>
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<p>Lane 1: Two cyclists riding side by side. Lane 2: Cyclist riding just over the white line, us driving in the lane behind him. Lane 3: Cars driving at a steady pace.</p>
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<p>Ah, I see what you mean - sorry, I should have said 3 lanes each way. </p>
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<p>Ok, now I understand better what was going on. 3 cyclists taking up 2 out of 3 lanes are indeed cyclists being dicks.</p> -
Proper investment in cycling infrastructure harms no one and benefits all. Surely even the most pig-headed of drivers can appreciate seeing more of this sort of thing?<br> <br><img src="http://i.imgur.com/ynNoEkgl.jpg" alt="ynNoEkgl.jpg">
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Nepia" data-cid="560706" data-time="1456367182">
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<p>The third lane <u>was</u> being used - there was traffic already in it. The cyclist's were taking up two lanes. </p>
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<p>Lane 1: Two cyclists riding side by side. Lane 2: Cyclist riding just over the white line, us driving in the lane behind him. Lane 3: Cars driving at a steady pace.</p>
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<p>Ah, I see what you mean - sorry, I should have said 3 lanes each way. </p>
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<p>OK, I see know. The key to this operation is sitting on your horn just as you pass them to scare the living $hi! out of them! :)</p>
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<p>Antipodean! I couldn't agree more. The better infrastructure for cyclists, the quicker they are off the road slowing me down!</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="antipodean" data-cid="560710" data-time="1456368092">
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<p>Proper investment in cycling infrastructure harms no one and benefits all. Surely even the most pig-headed of drivers can appreciate seeing more of this sort of thing?<br>
<br><img src="http://i.imgur.com/ynNoEkgl.jpg" alt="ynNoEkgl.jpg"></p>
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<p>that pic looks more like some dodgy dude hiding behind that pole taking the photo...</p> -
<p>I quite liked that idea a couple years back in the UK of creating a cycle track above existing railway tracks. I know I'd have definitely bought a bike and used it as opposed to fighting public transport each day. You might be able to set up some sort of toll system which could offset the cost. Obviously no use in NZ though!</p>
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<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2014/jan/02/norman-foster-skycycle-elevated-bike-routes-london'>http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2014/jan/02/norman-foster-skycycle-elevated-bike-routes-london</a></p>