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Frank
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"Terryc" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden].
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Quoted message said:Bleve said:
What makes you so paranoid that you feel the need to be armed with a
camera on all the time?
"Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they are not after you"
Over the decades, I have experienced enough incidents of assault from
just rinding along that a video recording of it would be a wonderful
thing to get fat constable plod off his [censored] and to go out and talk to
the offender.
The problem is that the time they sucessfully pull me off my bicycle, I
am the one who suffers and they get away scott free, even if I get their
number.
Yup - sh1t happens with astonishing regularity.
Saturday evening in Gosnells, WA, I rode to my shop in Kelmscott to pick up
a few things. Along a few kms on Corfield St I was yelled at four times, had
a can and a bottle thrown at me (the bottle hit my bars, smashed, and cut my
finger) and I was forced off the road. Every car involved had P plates
displayed.
I can't help thinking of conversations with the local police I've had: when
my partner's 13 year old son asked a cop happens when the cop sees a kid
riding without a helmet, the reply was "We've got more important things to
do" - needless to say, the young bloke (who previously rigorously wore his
helmet) now rides bare headed. Another conversation, when my partner's son's
friend, borrowing son's bike, was pushed off the bike, bashed and the bike
nicked by members of one of the local problem families: Me: "What are you
doing about it? We've told you where the bike is, and who stole it!"
Response: "Do you know how busy we are here?" Me: "If I was bashed and $450
cash (the cost of the bike) was stolen you'd be treating it as a robbery
with violence!" Response: " Don't worry about it - it's only a bike. Can't
you claim it on the insurance?"
At least two things occur to me: First, the local police seem to think that
bikes are not important and that bike safety is too trivial to bother with.
Second, it seems to me that they are making rods for their own backs. By not
enforcing the "little" laws - like helmet use - they create a culture where
non-compliance is the norm. That might be relatively harmless in the case of
kids and helmets, but those kids turn into motorists with an embedded idea
that non-compliance is OK. The cops have said they are too busy to worry
about 'minor' stuff. Any wonder the Gossie (and similar areas) are so
fraught? Motorists expect cyclists to not comply, cyclists expect motorists
to be abusive - everyone expects 'hoonism'.
Some time ago an old dear was hassled for money while sitting at a cafe. She
was pushed to the ground and abused when she didn't hand over a couple of
dollars. The paper reported that people should be safe when just having a
cuppa and how sad it is that an elderly woman now feels threatened. My first
thought was "Gee, I wouldn't go to that cafe - to many hassles in that area"
Then I checked myself and thought it's even more sad that I (and most
others) don't expect to feel safe in Gosnells. That's especially true when
riding in the area - so many incidents and aggression and so little action
from the police. I don't even bother reporting anymore. Sad, sad, sad.
Carl - perhaps you are lucky (or I'm unlucky!) to not cop all this cr@p. If
you lived and/or cycled in one of the areas where policing is so cavalier
perhaps you'd think differently about wanting to take more personal action,
like fitting a helmet cam...
Cheers,
Frank
