Pete Jones wrote:
> On Tue, 2 Mar 2004 16:41:15 +1300, "Westie" <
[email protected]> blathered:
>
>>
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040301.wbike0301/BNStory/National/
>>
>> I can remember the law being introduced here maybe 20 years ago.
>>
>> We had all that hoo-hah about freedom of expression and the personal right to brain damage and
>> the like. Last time I heard the stats thrown about I seem to recall that that 20 kids a year are
>> spared serious brain injury or death because of helmets. And that's directly attributable to
>> helmets, apparently. Not just "child helmet wearers that survived accidents in general" figure.
>
>>Seems to be a small price to pay.
>
> It's hard to take lectures on safety from a native of the country with most dangerous roads in the
> Western world.
I fail to see how my comments could be construed to be a lecture.
While I sympathise for your injuries sustained while biking in New Zealand I fear that you are being
bitter and unfair. Particularly when the problems for cyclists are just as relevant in your part of
the world. A quick google also brings up cyclist versus traffic issues in just about every other
country in the world too.
Having said that, as you well know yourself from your personal experience, the "major highways" in
New Zealand are usually very basic two lane road often without shoulders that wind dangerously along
coastlines and mountainsides for hundreds of miles. Add to that the multitude of 18 wheeled trucks
(including ever present logging trucks) because of a lack of rail service to transport goods and you
have an environment hostile to bikers.
I've tried it once and I wouldn't be caught dead riding on our highways again. Try driving many 18
wheeled lorries at 80-110km/hour along a narrow tree-lined english country lane and you get an idea
of what our roads can be like. I am surprised that there are not more fatalities.
> Article in Christchurch Press, 30th Dec 2003 -
> -----------------------------
> A beer bottle thrown from a car has brought a Swiss couple's round-the-world cycling trip to a
> halt in New Zealand. The bottle crashed into the frame of Nadine Rist's bike....shards of glass
> cut into Rist's right leg, severing tendons near her ankle and below her knee.
<snip parts of article>
One idiot throwing a beer bottle and an extremely unfortunate piece of luck is not representative of
the majority of drivers. And nor is this behaviour isolated to New Zealand.
>Motorists often did not give any space around cyclists and were impatient and abusive.
Often there is no space to give on a narrow road. I would be and have been annoyed at having to
frequently reduce my speed to less than 25km/hour on a open road journey. Just this morning I
travelled two hours on the open road and there was a cycle tour with support bus ahead of me. On at
least 12 occasions I had to reduce speed to a crawl and wait for passing opportunities because it
was not safe to pass even a single cyclist cycling hard on the shoulder - let alone the idiots
cycling two abreast. A few times I don't mind, but it IS the open road with a speed limit of
100km/hour. You'd be annoyed at cyclists slowing traffic to 15mile/hour on the M5, wouldn't you?
> -----------------------------
>
> The Kiwi faith in helmets is quite touching. A Brazilian triathelete practising for a competition
> there was knocked off his bike by a laden timber wagon during my visit. The Christchurch Press
> reported (in all seriousness) that 'the truck rolled over his head, and it was only his helmet
> that saved him'. Class.
Well, all sarcasm aside, it _was_ a good thing he was wearing a helmet. I seem to recall As I said,
Narrow, windy road + logging truck = death. Rationally, a giant truck carrying logs cannot make room
or slow down and give way to a cyclist when they are travelling at 100km/hour on twisty two lane
road that just barely allows a car travelling in the other lane and the truck to pass each other.
There is simply no room for bike, truck and car, three abreast, on these roads.
> Let's be honest. The compulsory helmet legislation in New Zealand was not introduced after a cool,
> rational examination of the facts. It was enacted as a result of campaigning by a woman who's kid
> was knocked off and killed by a car. Oddly, she didn't campaign for restrictive motoring
> legislation, she just ensured that all cyclists, in all circumstances, were forced to wear
> helmets. What kind of perverse system of logic persecutes the victim? Cycling is not inherently
> dangerous, although being hit by a ton of metal doing 50 can smart a bit.
Cycling _is_ inherently dangerous when you try to share a narrow road with a ton (or fifteen) of
metal travelling at 100+km/hour. It's like saying that smearing yourself with catfood isn't
inherently dangerous. It is if you walk into a Lion's enclosure at the zoo with a dozen hungry
lions. I'm sorry, but New Zealand open roads and cyclists should not be mixed. The roading is not
capable of supporting the two different types of traffic simultaneously.
> If New Zealand (and Canada, and the US, and the UK) are serious about reducing cycling related
> injuries, maybe they should look at what countries like Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands
> are doing.
--
Westie (Replace 'invalid' with 'yahoo' when replying.)
