SMIDSYs

SMIDSY is an all too oft used term in cycling circles.

SMIDSY is an acronym for Sorry Mate I Didn't See You, and it's used by cyclists to describe many motorists. Sorry Mate I Didn't See You is all to often the reaction of motorists having hit or had a near miss with a cyclist. A SMIDSY caused a rather ugly crash between a truck and one of my Dulwich Hill club mates recently, and it damn near killed her. She got off "lightly" with a broken nose, collarbone and pelvis.

My club mate is no red light running madman on a bike (if you're wondering). Quite the contrary. She's 56, incredibly sane and is about as far from a cycling daredevil as one gets. She rides a bike that is lit up like a Christmas tree. How anyone missed seeing her is stunning.

I can only guess lycropia was at play. I did another post on lycropia recently - basically that's my logic as to why people don't see cyclists. In short, they don't see them because they are not looking for them. Hit the link and watch the video.

It's simply not good enough. The SMIDSY involved in my mate's crash has been charged. Not that it helps my friend's pelvis, but it last it shows police will no longer accept SMIDSY as an excuse for hitting a cyclist (about time!). Hopefully this proves a turning point for the matter moving forward.  

So let's quadruple car rego

So we are constantly bombarded with the bicycle registration thing.
"We pay for car rego? Why aren't those cyclists paying their share. User
pays" and so on.

The fact the roads are not paid for in full by rego, not even close ($3.4 billion rego revenue, $15.7 billion in road expenses, source: Dept of Infrastructure) all taxpayers including cyclists foot the bill, doesn't seem to cut through. So I suggest in the spirit of user pays that car rego is quadrupled, so it goes at least close to recouping the outlay on roads. It's only at that point drivers will truly be able to say the rego pays for the roads, and they have a leg to stand on claiming their rego paid for the roads and asking cyclists to pay up.


So what say you drivers? Wanna quadruple your rego?

Pedal Choice when you decide to go down the Cleat Path

This last week in Townsville I borrowed a bike off a mate along with cleats and pedals. I usually ride Shimano SPDs on an A530 pedal. The SPDs are sometimes (wrongly) called a mountain bike cleat. I chose this combo as I like the idea of being able to ride in street shoes, something the A530s enable (see the pic below - they are reversible)

This week I rode SPD-SLs on R540 pedals. Clipping out was identical. Clipping in was clumsy, but was improving as the week went on. I still though reckon the SPD/A530 was a vastly superior option, especially for someone learning to clip in. With the SL/R540s you really battled to turn a pedal or get any traction without being clipped in. With the SPD/A530 combo you can easily get up to speed without being clipped in, as you have a shoes sole that is flat and a flat surface on which to pedal.. That's great for riding bunch or uphill starts, when wresting to clip in and get up to speed can create headaches and cause crashes.

R540 pedals:

I think labelling SPDs as Mountain Bike pedals is both a misnomer - many shoe styles are entirely road -and real shame for beginners. When combined with A530 pedals they offer a big edge over SPD-SL/R540s. And don't worry. There are a heap of other pedals in the SPD range if you want to go down the weight weenie path or get a more "pro" looking pedal.

The Registration Chestnut Reheated

So off the back of the QLD decision to enshrine into law that motorists need to give cyclists at least 1 m of space when passing, there have been more than the average number of people nashing their teeth that cyclists don't pay rego. This article is fairly representative of said nashing, but is far from the only example.

I dealt with the registration chestnut a few months ago - here's the link. In short, the article makes the point that rego doesn't come close to covering the costs of roads and road costs are in fact heavily subsidised by _all_ taxpayers (including cyclists) so they have already paid their fare share, most cyclists already own a car & pay rego, and rego won't stop *some* cyclists breaking laws just like car registration doesn't stop *some* drivers breaking laws.

Given the issue was again floating around I again though it was worth linking my original article. I figured I'd specifically address the points raised in this article:

Bikes got in Front of me at the lights! Err, yes, that's called Lane Filtering and it's entirely legal. I think cyclists should be selective about when and where they use it (as I make the point here), but it is indeed legal.

I saw some cyclists break the law! Yawn. Go to your local school at pickup time or a busy intersection near the CBD at peakhour and tell me how many drivers you saw breaking the law.

A cyclist came within 1 meter of me! Well that's how the law works. They are the at risk party, not you.

Cyclists should have to get a licence. Most already do. In the order of 85-90%.

Bikes like cars should be subject to annual checks. Most cyclists I know treat their bikes immaculately and the bikes would fly through any such check. I certainly haven't seen any suggestion that bike maintenance is a cause of any recent incidents. Surely this is simply an attempt to add red tape to the process to make it inconvenient for cyclists. 

Cyclists should be fined for road breaches. They already are.

You must wear rego that a driver can easily see. Why exactly? What's the benefit? Try report a driver for speeding or an illegal U-turn down the local police station, and see how you go.

They should pay rego the equivalent of a small car.  I'd love to see some sort of logic behind this, but I reckon there's none and they've just pulled a big number out of the air that they feel would deter cyclists. A small car causes far more road wear and tear than a bike. Puts our far more pollution. Takes up a parking space. Even the fee a motorbike pays feels like a big stretch, let alone a small car.

Why don't cyclists use the footpath? Err, unless you are a child, it's illegal to do so.

Funny thing is I'd happily pay a couple of hundred a year to ride on the roads if there was genuinely going to be some respect from drivers and good infrastructure built as a result. Issue being our right to use the roads is already there under law, so I can't see rego working.

The Sydney Cycling Corridor: Is this a simple, cheap way to help address cycling safety?

OK, so there's been plenty of finger pointing, hand wringing and angst over the 48 hours since the Mascot bike crash but a distinct lack of solutions to address the key issue of cyclist safety. We've had god know how many drivers complaining that cyclists don't pay rego (I've no idea how that would have helped), and plenty of cyclists ranting about poor driving.

So here's the idea. And I do think it quite novel. I can't lay claim to it (I'm not certain of the origin - it came up in an office discussion) but it needs some air to get going.

So the idea is the Sydney Cycling Corridor. Every Saturday and Sunday 10s of hundreds of Sydney Cyclists make the run south from Metro Sydney to Waterfall. Here's the basic route. The precise run varies club to club and group to group, but the journey is largely the same regardless if you set off from Kings Cross, Randwick, Newtown or Ashfield.  It's a solid 80 to 90 km hitout with about 500m of vertical ascent (a decent hitout by most standards). And the ride doubles as a launch point and one can easily bolt on the Royal National Park if you are craving more hills or kilometres.

The ride is popular because the roads are wide and well surfaced, the journey largely uninterrupted and traffic is also light on weekend mornings. Although the speed limits top 80 for cars, being multi lane roads and traffic being light getting around the cyclists is normally no issue. Until Sunday that is.

So why then don't we make the left lane both ways a cyclists only lane from 4am to 10am (the Sydney Cycling corridor) on Saturdays and Sundays? Given the roads are quiet it'll make zero difference to driving times (the cyclists are there already), and drivers are already used to time dependant road conditions (look at bus lanes, clearways, T2 and T3 lanes, school zones, etc). And it requires zero new infrastructure (so will be cheap) - just a few signs and some paint.

That's got to help - it separates the drivers and cyclists, which is universally agreed to make cycling a safer affair. The Sydney Cycling Corridor - not my own idea, but a rather good one I reckon.

Today's Crash in Mascot

There was a fairly hefty cycling crash in Southern Cross Drive in Mascot today, a small pack of Eastern Suburbs Cycling Club riders all hit by a small 4WD.  The only good news is the cyclists all survived. The dust hasn't really settled yet on the incident and the police investigation still has to run its course, but the reaction on social media and in comments sections on assorted  articles has been quite striking. There doesn't seem though to be much debate about the party at fault (the driver appears to the at fault party: cyclists are allowed to ride there; he clearly hit them from the back; the road is straight, flat and the light was good and the roads dry, and there's no traffic lights or intersections nearby for the cyclists to pop out from. You've also got the weight of numbers. Were 6 people all in the wrong or the single motorist?). Indeed the ESCC rides appear to join Southern Cross Drive miles north (near Centennial Park) and rides the route routinely.

Here's an image of the car post-crash. Clearly they hit the riders rather hard:

So the social media stuff threw up the standard array of topics. The cyclists don't pay rego chestnut, as is that was some sort of justification or defence. Given bike rego doesn't exist, it seems rather daft to jump up and down when the cyclists involved didn't purchase it, and nor do the people give any indication how that would have helped them at all today.

Most other comments were similarly silly. They did though a rather striking insight into the depth of angst that exists about cyclists being on the roads. I think this is such a logical place to start addressing the cyclist-driver rift  - a campaign personalising the people in the lycra, and making it clear that they are 100% entitled to be there. That would be a great start to improving cycling safety.

Probably the only question I saw raised that was vaguely worthwile answering was why do cyclists ride there? Given Southern Cross Drive is a 3 lane road (each way) that forms the CBD - Sydney Airport corridor and the speed limit reaches 80 km/h, to non cyclists it probably seems like the sort of place to avoid on a bike. Thing is the same qualities that make it a good transport corridor also make it a good place for cyclists: A well surfaced, quite straight road. No traffic lights, and very few entry and exit points for traffic. That means less stop start, and ducking & weaving (both of which cyclists deal with daily, but don't really enjoy). And in the early hours on a Sunday, there's a lack of traffic, so getting around a slower moving cycling group should be quite easy. It's also 100% legal. There are motorways/expressways where cyclists aren't welcome, but this bit of Southern Cross Drive isn't one of them.

I hope the injuries aren't too serious, and justice is served.

Cyclists: lose the angry pills

I can't help but feel the way cyclists conduct themselves on and off the bike doesn't contribute much to their safety on the road. Cyclists often seem to have a hair trigger and totally lose the plot at even quite mild, sensible discussion or the most trivial of driving issues.

Now Remember, I'm a roadie and commuter myself. I'm well aware that studies have shown motorists are typically the wrongdoers in accidents involving cars and bikes and that cyclists aren't nearly as well protected as drivers and thus suffer ramifications of accidents far more severely.

I just though feel that launching straight into a bitter rant (be it on Facebook, or the road) and leading out with a statement like "all drivers are dickheads", totally puts the motorists offside, so they'll shut down and stop listening, thus stopping you make any decent points and perhaps changing their behaviour. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

It also adds to the idea that cyclists are illogical psychos that don't listen to reason. That's not helping. Showing we are entirely sensible and reasonable people does far more for the cause.

So keep this in mind next time you're involved in a fracas, be it on the road, on the internet or a chat at the office. No dramas taking a nice firm, clear, pro cycling position, but make sure it's not a bitter rant. That might be the popular route with mates in the cycling club, but you'll probably do some damage to how cyclists are perceived and treated.