Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to SteveH,
I just want to note that it’s not illegal to pass stationary vehicles on the left.
It becomes questionable when you're passing a queue of traffic, however, because the moment that traffic starts to move you're absolutely breaking the law. Which was the situation in which Jane Bishop found herself being attributed a level of blame for her own death, because she was passing traffic to the left.
That particular bit of donkey law is utterly confounding, because the moment-to-moment legality of an entirely sane act is so dynamic. It's downright dangerous to try and stick with the flow of summer Sunday afternoon traffic along Tamaki Drive (stop-start at 15-20km/h), but if one is to try and pass to the left one is alternatively complying with and then breaking the law.
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Hard News: Media3: Bad News for the Force, in reply to Sacha,
broken windows
In the context of a discussion about electronic habitats, that's unintentionally hilarious.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to BenWilson,
dozens of kilowatts of dinosaur juice awaiting my merest beckoning foot movement.
What kind of weakmobile are you driving? Suzuki 800 or something?
Primera, SR20DE engine. Nominal output is 110kW, which is dozens. Between nine and 10 dozens, but still dozens :P
And as for bicycle speed, most of my driver-only friends are pretty staggered when I tell them I can maintain 45km/h if the wind is right and the road is flat. I can also, again with the right wind, overtake cars on parts of Pakuranga Rd. Drivers just don't understand that bicycles can achieve speeds comparable to cars even when they're not being ridden by Lance.
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Hard News: Media3: Bad News for the Force, in reply to Russell Brown,
A strategy ain't the same as a policy, though, Russell. Someone will be getting nervous about being tagged as a censoring fascist if they remove these vile posts, so is dithering in the face of a lack of clear guidelines on what's acceptable.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
I can send the info to NZ Police (though there is evidence that they don’t bother doing anything about the offence).
I'll second that. Aforementioned incident where I got clipped by a car in Otahuhu (and got the bird when I shouted a profanity of surprise) was soundly ignored by the Police when I provided date, time, make, model and vehicle registration. I'm pretty sure the driver did it deliberately, because they had a whole lane to their right in addition to space within the lane.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
How on earth would you enforce that? Would there be patrols logging who was cycling and you’d have to have so many stamps to qualify to move up to a motorbike, with the same thing before you moved on to a car?
Decide the principle is worth investigating, then figure out the details and if it's possible. Can do amazing things with GPS tracking these days.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I had friends who insisted that having a really powerful motorcycle made them safer because they could accelerate out of danger … they died.
Can also accelerate into danger. And a motorcycle is not a bicycle, in any case. The piddliest ICE moped is vastly more powerful than even Lance Armstrong.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Maz,
Not convinced, at all. It's pretty much impossible to isolate a single factor and say "Ah ha, that's it" when you're talking about social change. In NZ's case it's absolutely impossible because the helmet law came into effect at the same time as other huge changes to the availability of affordability of private motor vehicles. Did it have no effect? Of course not. It is, however, complete bullshit to put the entirety of the blame onto helmets.
I note that the Australian research quoted on Wikipedia did nothing in attempting to control for school children being driven to school due to the pervasive "stranger danger" terror that was doing the rounds in English-speaking countries at the time.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Deborah,
So… the road code doesn’t apply to cyclists?
Of course it does, and I freely admit that I am not obeying the law. However, the law is an ass. It requires cyclists to ride as far left as possible, then declares them lawbreakers if they pass on the left. It requires a 100W (at best) motor to become completely stationary and then try to safely pull away while sharing with other vehicles that have engine outputs that are hundreds of times greater, with no regard for the possibility that the cyclist could have safely slowed down and then proceeded through a clear intersection; or even continued through and shared the space with other vehicles in a way that's impossible in a car.
It's hard work getting a bicycle going again from a full stop, and it's my work not the un-work of a tank full of petroleum pixies.
When I'm a driver I obey the law to the letter. I indicate everything, I observe following distances, I follow the speed limit (even those annoying 30km/h signs that should've been taken down weeks ago)... But in a car I've got the protection of a steel cage and I've got dozens of kilowatts of dinosaur juice awaiting my merest beckoning foot movement. As a cyclist I have neither of those things, and my attitude to the law changes accordingly.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Part of being a cyclist is not abusing the privilege.
See, here’s the thing: When I’m a cyclist, I’m safer when I’m moving. While moving, my choices are dodge, stop, slow down, maybe speed up, and if all else fails I can take my chances on bailing off the bike. When I’m stationary my choices are fall over or get collected, unless I’m really on the ball and might have a chance of beginning to accelerate out of danger. As a consequence I much, much prefer to keep moving whenever possible. If I can blow a red light across the top of a T without interfering with traffic, I will. Likewise a left turn or any other traffic control where I’ve not got traffic crossing from my left.
If that makes me a bad person, so be it. All I care about is being as safe as possible, and as with an aircraft motion is life to a cyclist.