Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Russell Brown,
Because it’s not what you’re saying.
There is no doubt that having a parking space there was stupid. But it was stupid because it is predictable that drivers will not check before opening their car door.
IF every driver thought about the possibility of a cyclist being there before opening their door and checked thoroughly then that parking space would have been safer.
But we know most drivers never think about cyclists when opening a door (or even when driving). Hence it was predictable that an injury or death would occur at that spot. And CAA did predict it.
Their point is that having predicted it - it becomes the council's fault for not acting on that prediction.
Both things are true
It is true that it is the council's fault because they could have and should have removed that parking space
And
It is true that if the driver had taken more care exiting his car the death would not have occurred.Are you arguing that asking a driver to take that level of care to protect another human is unreasonable?
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
tired of the idea that cyclists are always the blameless victims of evil drivers
Oh so it was her fault?
Cyclists aren't legally allowed to ride on the footpath. Some do, I've done so as well. I can understand the cyclist riding on the footpath because the roads are a bit dangerous and for your one instance of being put at risk by a cyclist do you want to guess how many cyclists were put at risk by drivers. But your point is simply a distraction isn't it.
Don't pretend it's Ok for drivers to open doors on bikes. If you can't get out the passenger side and you can't get out the driver side without putting another human at risk then how about you park somewhere else and walk a bit further to your destination.
All very well to blame the council for having the parking bay there but the driver made a choice as well, he had other options as do drivers every day in Auckland they simply choose to put cyclists at risk for their own convenience.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
Trouble is you are so more vulnerable on a bike and the only real way to fix this is dedicated bike lanes that are safe
Or we could install disintegrator rays to the handlebars of our bikes and zap anything that gets in our way - I always used this when I rode
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Having been "doored" I guess I'm less charitable. I don't for a second doubt there is no legal case to answer and that the judge made the only decision he could. But I don't feel able to say the same about the driver, drivers simply don't think about what is behind them when they open their car door and while it is always possible this is the one driver in a hundred who really did look, I'd don't find myself believing that.
But convicting one driver isn't the solution. the way I see it there are a couple of options open to us.
We could ban cycles from the roads - simply put, too many of them are dying and being grievously injured on our roads. It's a public health issue where the responsibility to protect cyclists argues quite strongly they should not be on the roads. But even with the risk to their health they are a public health benefit because the fitness they gain from cycling reduces the load they place on our health system - but that's a horrifying equation to calculate.
We could build a network of separate cycleways at huge expense, because we have so much spare cash and everyone is happy with a rates rise. This would encourage more cyclists to ride, improving the fitness of the nation and reducing the health care load, it would only cost money. Oh and probably require land to be bought and houses to be demolished to make way for cycle lanes ...
We could force our drivers to take care of the cyclists. In California if a driver hits a pedestrian it is assumed the driver is at fault. How about similar laws here. How about police ticketing drivers who put cyclists at risk - instant 50 demerit points. How about legally defended cycleways on the roads where any car (or bus!) entering them gets instant fines. A legally enforced change in driver attitude - because our police don't have much else to do and would love to spend their time writing traffic tickets.
We could do nothing. Which is what we will do. We will in fact wring our hands and say how sad and then just ignore the problem. And when someone we love and care about has their hip shattered we will visit them in hospital and cry and then drive home.
Sorry, I'm sad and cynical today.
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Capture: Laneway 2012, in reply to JacksonP,
It's Neil!
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to nzlemming,
If the person accused of committing crime is the one who owns the bank, quite possibly.
Oh come on. Yes technically that might happen, in practice?
The reality is MU is being treated differently from many other organisations. Banks with illegal property in deposit boxes, U-Tube, Amazon, Share traders, Lawyers ... and many others all have situations where some users of their services are using the service for illegal activity. In those cases the illegal activity is addressed directly by police and courts without shutting down the legal activity.
That the owners of MU have engaged in illegal activity themselves is a different issue but again does not of necessity demand that MU get shut down including all the legal activity that it hosts. Again nobody expects a bank or law office to be closed because a clerk acted illegally, some funds may be frozen for a short period but the presumption is that most activity is legal, as it should be.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
So, when someone says "those are drugs", the police should wait until after trial before seizing the wads of cash when they raid a drug house? And the drug-sellers should be able to continue selling their drugs until tests are back and confirmed by a court that those were indeed illegal drugs?
Wrong analogy.
So the police have evidence that a couple of safe deposit boxes in a bank contain illegal goods. They then shut down the bank and all it's websites and branches.
The bank remains closed until the case comes to court?
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Capture: Cats Love Cameras, in reply to Lilith __,
the awful responsibility
Yes! Having had to make that decision for another being more than once now I am amazed at those people who are able to help another person die. Whether they be doctors or hospice workers.
We anguished so much, trying to balance suffering with hope.
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grief is grief
Fortunately joy is joy, whether it comes from the love given to a pet or to a human.
And as we have seen here those cats can inspire so many wonderful emotions
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Capture: Cats Love Cameras, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
I'm so sorry for you Isabel.
They become such a integral part of your life. Part of the trade off for loving and caring for a cat is the pain of their loss. For me the pain seemed just as great as when my father died.