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this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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Pinging @ApeNo1@lemm.ee, who left a lengthy critique of the video which, while ultimately wrong, was at least more reasonable than some of the dumb takes that have been left up in this thread by other users.
The issue with motornormativity is the notion that penalising people who choose modes of transport other than car in precisely the same way as cars are penalised without regard for the actual level of risk involved is insane. Hundreds of people die in this country every year as a result of cars. Guess how many die because of cyclists? Going 10 km/h over the speed limit in a car is a much, much greater danger to the public than going 10 km/h over the speed limit on a bike.
This is even greater when the speed limit itself is poorly thought-out. We allow cars to drive past schools full of 6 year-olds at 4 times the speed we allow cyclists to ride the Kurilpa Bridge. When the Minister for Transport himself, escorting a foreign dignitary, shares himself going an average of 6 km/h over the speed limit on the bridge, it's a pretty solid indication that the speed limit here is inappropriate. As the video itself said, the normal minimum speed you'd expect a bike to be doing on a shared path is about 16 km/h, and going under 11 km/h is—according to the government's own recommendations—unstable and risky.
Something the video didn't quite go in to as explicitly, but hinted at in a way that was very clear for those already aware, is how the speed limit changes are indicative of the hefty car-brain of our current government. This speed limit was changed at some point after November 2021, without any consultation or public information. That never happens with roads. Even a modest change reducing a speed limit on a residential street from 50 to 40 undergoes heavy review and is unlikely to happen if even a small vocal minority opposes it. That's motornormativity in action.
What's more, this speed limit change (and frankly, even the old speed limit itself) was made completely without evidence. There have been no pedestrian injuries on this bridge in the last 20 years. Usually, we try to make policy based on evidence. Or if we don't, that's certainly what we should be aspiring to. The evidence here tells us: this is not necessary. If there's an area where cyclists are frequently endangering pedestrians, first of all: we already have rules in place to enforce that, without going to unreasonable speed limits. But second, maybe, if there were evidence suggesting it would actually help, we could consider putting a speed limit in place in that location. The simple fact is: cyclists aren't expected to have speedometers, so trying to enforce speed limits against them is ridiculous.
And, if you were going to enforce it, the fine should not be the same as it is for drivers. Because the amount of damage they're likely to cause is orders of magnitude less.
I took down my comment as I kept on reading more articles after I posted it and saw there was more to it than just this video and individuals comments and felt my comment was pretty misinformed. Glad you took the time to respond as again I had never seen the term motonormativity before and was keen to learn more.
Yeah for sure, it's a term that's fairly new to me too. I probably first heard it earlier this year. I actually thought your comment was a really respectful one, even if I disagreed with it.
Another term you might come across is "car-brain". This term is basically synonymous with motornormativity, though perhaps somewhat more focusing on how motornormativity infects individuals, and less so on its systemic problems.
I found on many government sites that a fairly common consensus was that safe bike speeds for areas shared with pedestrians should be around 12km/h to 25km/h, one even said 15 to 25, so being fined $400+ for doing 22km/h was unnecessary. I still believe having speed limits defined for these types of areas is important to ensure public safety, but agree 10km/h, which is essentially just a jogging pace, is unreasonable, with a more appropriate fine being say sub $100 for people doing 30km/h+ in a shared zone.
The complication I also saw is that few people would have a speedometer on their bike so it would need some common sense and judgement. People could use their phones for this but it would make more sense that they are looking at their surroundings and what is up ahead rather than looking down at a phone screen.
It's slower than a slow jog.
This exactly. But you don't need speed limits to do that. Just enforce the usual reckless driving/riding laws.
Police like speed limits because they're lazy as fuck and can just set up a trap without having to do any real work. They like it against cyclists especially because they're arseholes who hate cyclists. (As evidence for this, I submit the fact that they regularly do "bell blitzes" despite the fact that bells are a completely useless implement when you have a voice, as well as how they enforce these ridiculous speed limits. And the fact that they refuse to ever prosecute dangerous driving by drivers when reported by cyclists with video evidence.)
I think saying it is slower than a slow jog underplays it a bit. 10km/h is a 6 min km which is a common running speed for amateur runners and a reasonable speed, 12km/h is a 5 min km which requires above average fitness, and 15km/h is a 4 min km which is an elite amateur pace. Anything approaching 20km/h is elite professional athlete level.
I think the point is still the same though. You have now introduced another new term to me. “Bell Blitz”. Really going after those worst of crimes.
I'm a runner and personally, my slow easy runs might go as slow as 5:30s, at the extreme end, which is why I said that 10 km/h is slower than a slow jog. 5:00s is more my usual slow run pace for runs less than 12 km in distance. But yeah, I guess it's mainly a semantic point. The important thing is that when running, one can easily exceed the supposed speed limit on that bridge, which is just crazy.
The bell blitzes strike me as the same kind of stupid as when they crack down on "jaywalking" by pedestrians in the CBD. In a better world, our entire CBD would be a shared-use zone where cars can drive if they need to, but pedestrians always have right of way. Likewise, the bell law should just be done away with. But our politicians are so car-brained the idea of these is abhorrent to them.
Pedestrians do have right of way, at least in QLD. There's no situation where it's acceptable to run over a pedestrian except if it was literally impossible to avoid doing so (e.g. if a pedestrian sprints across the street unexpectedly and the driver has no time to swerve or hit the brakes).
That doesn't mean it's legal for pedestrians to obstruct traffic. J-walking leads to traffic jams which leads to situations where pedestrians/cyclists/etc are more likely to be run over and killed. When someone j-walks on a busy streat they are placing lives of other pedestrians in danger.
Incorrect. Yes, a driver will get in trouble if they recklessly run into a pedestrian, but the driver still has right of way when continuing along a straight road, or when at an intersection where the pedestrian has a red light.
I'm not interested in that semantic argument some people like to get into about the difference between "right of way" and "must give way to". One is just the inverse of the other. No more, no less.
It's not the same as a fully pedestrianised mall, like Queen Street, or a mixed-use area like Albert Street between Adelaide St and Burnett Ln. That latter is what I'm chiefly talking about here. That's how the CBD should be designed.
That doesn't happen in my city.
For example there are two intersections on my commute that are virtually identical (they're on the same stretch of highway and they are exits for neighbouring beach suburbs with the same intersection design). One of them is 100km/h for through traffic and the other is 40km/h. Why? No idea. But if there was "heavy review" then surely they would have the same speed limit. It's been like that for something like ten years, locals just ignore the speed limit on the slower one and if there's a cop car behind you they'll be annoyed if you slow down. Police setup speed traps near that intersection all the time (almost every day), but I've never heard of them doing it on the intersection. They enforce the 100km/h limit, not the 40km/h limit.
Going back on topic - this is a bridge built specifically for cyclists. The speed limit is absolutely intended to be obeyed by cyclists and has nothing to do with cars. And if you can't ride 10km/h safely then you shouldn't be riding at all.
I won't speak for what goes on in your city, but it is definitely the case in Brisbane. And honestly, I'd be surprised if the one specific example you're pointing to isn't an oddity for some particular reason, and the general trend is the same.
We literally had the Lord Mayor call it "socialist" to suggest that 30 km/h speed limits on local residential streets is best practice. That same Lord Mayor's government voted down a petition that was apparently signed by every single resident on the street to reduce their speed limit because it was being used for ratrunning by trucks doing construction nearby.
I'm in regional QLD, and this is no where near the biggest problem we have.
For example a major highway (National Route 1, which passes through every major city in Australia) goes through a a mountain range just 20 minutes from the CBD and closes almost once a week for an average of 6.6 hours due to car crashes which are difficult to recover. The detour when the road is closed adds 3 hours to the drive time and worse it's unsafe (and illegal) to perform a U turn anywhere on the entire stretch of road up the mountain so whenever it closes thousands of people get stuck and just have to wait until the road opens (which again, takes hours). Emergency services are forced to drive on the wrong side of the road around hundreds of narrow blind corners to reach the accident, and anyone who does turn around is risks crashing into them.
A multimillion dollar review into wether something should be done about it was delayed repeatedly for years and then finally carried out during a full covid lockdown when we had the highest number of covid cases the city saw in the entire pandemic and businesses were only allowed to open if they were declared an essential service. Nobody could leave their home except to go to those essential services and even then you weren't allowed to travel to other cities or towns except for very rare excuses. Traffic on roads between cities/towns, like the range being assessed, was obviously almost zero and surprise! They determined that traffic was minimal, nothing needed to be done, they didn't observe any crashes during the short review period, and recommended re-assessing the situation in 30 years time. When the population of the city is expected to be more than double what it is right now. Great.
The silly speed limits on my commute are, frankly, way down on the priority list compared to issues like the one I just detailed. I could list more serious problems that are being ignored. And these issues are state or national highways, so the local council doesn't have the juristiction (or budget) to deal with them.
That doesn't sound good, but it's like...completely unrelated to this thread. Not sure why you brought it up.