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this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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Yeah the video didn't really focus as much on that point as it probably should have to earn its title. It made a few points in that regard, but the focus was more on that specific speed limit.
But I would ask, very simply: why should the punishment be the same? That's really the most relevant way of framing it, because that's the positive claim being made, and you can't really prove a negative other than to suggest that there's no evidence in favour of the positive. (I can't prove "there's no yeti", but I can say "well there's no evidence on which to justify believing in a yeti.") It shouldn't be on cycling advocates to justify why the punishment should be less, but on the car-brained to explain why they should be the same.
So why should the punishment be the same? The risk is drastically less, as evidenced by the crash rates and crash severity. So what is it?
For the same reason we don't fine drivers $10 for driving like idiots. If cyclists can ride around town with no regard for safety and the law, because the worst they'll face is a $10 fine, then why should they be safe riders?
That's the car brain talking. It's not a cogent explanation.
Why, when cyclists factually do not cause anywhere near the same level of harm as drivers, should the fine be the same?
It's nothing to do with that. It's about lack of consequences. A $10 fine is no deterrent at all for obeying the law. For any road user.
It's well-known that severity of punishment has very little bearing on deterrent effectiveness. What works is likelihood of facing that punishment at all.
But again, enforcing speed limits on bikes just makes no sense. It's responding to a risk that basically doesn't exist, and any resources that could be spent on it would be far better spent ensuring drivers don't break the law.
Of course, that would require cops doing the right thing in the interest of actual safety. But the truth is, cops don't give a fuck about that. They're as car-brained as our politicians, if not more so. They'll spend heaps of resources enforcing these nonsense speed limits, while they refuse to enforce laws like the minimum passing distance for cyclists even when they're literally handed the evidence needed.
It's not enough to show video footage of a car passing a cyclist. The cops need to know who was driving the car.
Police speed/red light/mobile phone/etc infringement notices are only issued if they have an accurate photo of the driver's face (or, if they pull over the vehicle immediately and identify the driver). To achieve that they use powerful flashes when the photo is taken. They send the notice to the registered owner of the vehicle but they also need the photo to sort things out when the driver says "that wasn't me".
A bicycle GoPro is just too small, and has no flash. You'd never be able to identify the driver.
Because riding around unsafely is a good way to end up in the back of an ambulance.
It's not about the $, it's about the survivability of an accident.
Sitting here, that sounds like a reasonable argument. Yet experience shows us that people are idiots. They go around with the mentality of 'It will never happen to me.'
Have a look at this on the ABC today. Specifically the bit about the lack of road rules in the late 60's:
There you are - evidence that laws about road safety save lives. That's no statistical outlier. Road deaths plummeted after the introduction of safety laws. Yes, they have reduced even further in the past 20 years with the introduction of better vehicle safety features, but that doesn't come close to explaining all of it.
I know we're not literally talking about removing the laws for cyclists. Yet, my argument remains: If the fines for cyclists are negligible, they will be disregarded. They may as well be removed.
Is it? Vic Roads claims you are up to 10x more likely to be killed if you travel by bicycle vs car. And it would make sense to me that you're more likely to be killed if you ride fast. Certainly all of my own bicycle crashes have involved speed - I've never suffered any injury at all, not even a bruise, when I was riding at a leisurely pace.
Your claim that there's no risk to cyclists is clearly wrong. Injuries when a cyclist hits another cyclist or pedestrian are severe.
It would, obviously, be ideal to separate pedestrians and cyclists so they don't share the same bridge. Or make the bridge wide enough to have separate lanes... But in the real world that's those just won't happen and it still doesn't help with crashes between two cyclists - which are a lot more likely to happen when you have a mix of fast and slow cyclists on a narrow bridge.
But anyway, I generally reject your assertion that the punishment should be matched to the level of risk. For me the punishment should be set at whatever level is necessary to encourage the majority of riders to ride safely. And it's not up to the police to determine what speed is "safe". That determination is up to the town planning contractors who set the speed limit on the bridge.
If it was a slap on the wrist fine, everyone would ignore the speed limit. That doesn't seem right to me at all.
None of the bridges on my commute have speed limits. When I cross them I generally do drop down 1st gear and ride at less than 10km/h (and my bicycle does have a speedometer, so I know I'm going less than 10). If there are pedestrians I slow down to walking speed or even stop while they walk past. Why risk hurting someone? I'm not in a hurry.
Yes, that's caused by the cars. It's a different conversation.
We're talking about the risk to pedestrians caused by cars versus cyclists.