Moving the debate forward

Cycling safety is a massive issue. Cycling is a positive thing: it does good things for your health, the environment, and takes pressure off the roads & public transport. Unfortunately we have seen a massive spike this year in cycling fatalities on our roads in this state (up 43% to 46 deaths in NSW). Unfortunately the debates and discussions as to why have gotten stuck in a rut.

In short, the car drivers blame the cyclists, and cyclists blame the drivers. Drive a car for a week around inner city Sydney, and you'll almost certainly see some examples of poor cyclist behavior (running red lights, no helmets, riding the wrong way down one way streets, riding at night with no lights, riding with mp3 players on), but if you ride around inner city Sydney for a week you'll also emerge with tales of bad driving (running red lights, talking on mobiles illegally, speeding, failures to indicate and give riders adequate space) . In both the driving and riding camps you find around 90% of people behave entirely legally and responsibly, but that 10% of lawbreakers provides more than adequate number of examples to justify a given stance, hence both parties remain entrenched in their corners. And people keep dying.

If we want to move this discussion forward, both sides of the debate need to acknowledge the problem 10% that exists on _their_ side, then move on and make the roads safer for the 90% rather than focussing solely on the recalcitrant 10%.

Personally I'd like to see a major high visibility education campaign undertaken focusing on cycling on our roads. Cyclists have their own unique set of laws that are not well understood by drivers (such as the laws pertaining to overtaking, and use of lanes), and this leads to driver frustration and anger. Then having broadcast the rights and responsibilities of both parties, the police need to launch an across the board crackdown (which will address the 10%)