I have been guilty of being flippant about mobile phone usage by cyclists before:
the consequences of these dangerous behaviours are largely restricted to the rider: ride with a few pints of ale under your belt and you'll probably fall down, SMS while cycling and you'll probably fall down, and so on…
But after witnessing a few incident recently, I'm starting to rethink that view.
Obviously it's a sign of sheer stupidity for a cyclist to use a phone while riding in heavy traffic. But surely it's pretty safe on the shared pathways?
Maybe not.
I offer last night's incident as an example: trundling home in the dark on the Yarra Trail I spot a cyclist ahead weaving all over the track, his riding impaired by holding a phone to the side of his head. Now I wouldn't really give a damn about this—after all he's only likely to hurt himself—except that he totally failed to see an approaching cyclist, even though I had no problem seeing him from 20m further back. The approaching rider had to ring his bell and swerve to pass safely.
You know, I wasn't aware that talking on the phone also affected vision, but there you go.
And a few weeks back I was city-bound on the Gardiners Creek trail where it makes two tight curves that form an S-shape before plunging under High Street, as shown in the photo:
Ahead of me was a bloke riding one-handed all the way through the S-curve and onward under the bridge. With a phone held to his head by his right hand, there wasn't much effective braking going on and he was all over the trail.
Before I go on, I should point out a few things that might not be obvious from the photo: the path under the bridge is pretty narrow, and there is no run-off room on either side, with rock and debris on the left and a nasty drop into the creek on the right. It probably is obvious from the photo that there is a blind corner on the exit ramp as well.
The preceding is important to know because the dude with the phone clamped to his ear proceeded to overtake two pedestrians (mums with prams, to be precise) in this most unsuitable location. Frankly, I'd be pretty cautious making such a maneuver with both hands on the grips and all my attention on track—this clown was doing it one-handed and distracted.
But it gets better.
With the left side of the trail blocked by pedestrians and Mr Mobile Office occupying the right: where would oncoming traffic go? Sure enough…
It was very nearly an extremely nasty head-on collision, which was only avoided thanks to the skills of the poor bastard riding the other way—and he was well justified in serving up some choice abuse.
I'm not just talking about bad riding here, it was recklessly dangerous riding. And that's the problem: I really don't care if Mr Mobile Office falls off and fractures his collarbone, but it's a different matter when his stupidity endangers the safety of other trail users.
I know you can't really legislate against stupidity (well, I suppose you can) and it's never really been a problem before, but a couple of incidents in the space of a week or two makes me wonder. And the conclusion I draw is that with the rising popularity of cycling, there must be a corresponding rise in the dickhead count among cyclists.
The only thing that I'm left pondering is if it's simply proportional increase in dickhead cyclists or whether more dickheads are being drawn to cycling…
Comments
On the topic of dickhead cyclists, a couple of days ago I came up to a busy intersection as the lights were about to change to green in my direction, so I lined up behind the row of cars turning left rather than moving through the traffic to the front. Meanwhile another cyclist flies past on my left to overtake the 3 cars which were turning left, on the inside. He makes it through the intersection, and I after I pass through following the cars, I see him speeding down the slope on the other side and overtaking another car on the left as it is turning into a driveway!
Last night, I was riding home and copped a load of anit-bike abuse from a carload of idiots ... can you see how these things are related? Actually, to be fair these guys seemed to equate cycling with homosexuality and felt that this was sufficient reason to shout abuse at a stranger ... so all their problems clearly can't be put down to a traumatic encounter with a reckless cyclist in their past.
But still, the behavior of the likes of mr-overtake-on -the-left described above hardly help the cause of cyclists sharing the road.
The road rules state:
So the kind of stupidity Stu mentions is unquestionably illegal, but I can't quite get as upset about it because the only person likely to go bouncing across a car bonnet is the idiot him/herself. Injury to other people is unlikely, although damage to property is.
However, I take Stu's point about the actions of one reflecting on all cyclists and I've touched on this before in a slightly different context. So in this regard that sort of thing is just as bad, if not worse than careless phone usage.
While I'm thumbing the rule book, mobile phone usage by cyclists is definitely illegal:
Bearing in mind that:
And as no specific exemptions are made, I assume that the rule about use of mobile phones applies equally to bike paths as it does to roads.
It's a well-known fact that popularity will always attract dickheads. An activity practiced by only a very small minority of people will only attract people with a genuine interest in that activity. If it gains popularity, it will probably also gain people who join for the "Kewl, man" factor and think that legal riding doesn't apply to them. It's one of the reasons I have some serious reservations about simply trying to convince people to take up cycling without giving them some serious training first.
It will become a problem if a few of them throw themselves under cars and legislators enact bans on cycling on certain roads because "it's too dangerous".
That said, I don't subscribe to the argument that "one bad cyclist reflects on us all". That effectively says that one single three-second interaction is going to change the life-long perceptions of an observer, which is akin to a tadpole changing the direction in which a whale is swimming -- it just doesn't happen. If you don't believe me, try changing your own fundamental beliefs about a community group or issue and see just how much time and discipline that takes.
The "one reflects on all" argument is just a way in which people with pre-conceived bigotry against cyclists try to justify their beliefs to others (the old "he made me do it" line). Where it becomes dangerous is when you get police and judges subscribing to it, and excusing drivers for violent/abusive behaviour on the basis that it "isn't really their fault". If anyone is serious about promoting safety for cyclists, this perception needs to be stamped out.
It's good to see another thoughtful response from Chris. In fact, as this post reflects a view he has expressed before, I'd have been a bit miffed if he didn't have something to say!
I'll leave most of his comment to stand on its merits but I must expand on the "one reflects on all" thing. Of course I don't believe that one single action by one single cyclist is going to change anyone's opinion. Quite the reverse: it only serves to reinforce people's existing biases when they see cyclists breaking the road rules or even riding within the rules in a way that "inconveniences" them (on some things you can't win, even when you're doing the right thing). There's a cumulative effect at play here, combined with a confirmation bias. It's somewhat pointless to rail against this effect, because basically everyone does this sort of thing about something or other (which supports Chris's point about changing people's attitudes).
But there's a way in which this effect is insidious: it can lead to a view that the rightful position of cyclists on the road is contingent on the good behaviour of each individual cyclist. This is bollocks. If the rights of a group depended on all members behaving faultlessly, then it's drivers who would have less claim to the road: I need only point to things like drink driving, and the normalisation of speeding and distracted driving to support this line of argument. And it's still bollocks.
But unfortunately you do sometimes hear cyclists buy into it, expressing views that sound like "let's all be good little cyclists, so the big nasty motorists won't hurt us". This, too, is bollocks. However, there is one possible exception to all this bollocky—but I think I'll need to work up a separate post to explain it…