I had my head stuck in another space over the weekend so I didn't hear about this act of sheer stupidity until yesterday:
A car-load of hoons ploughed into a group of 13 cyclists who were on their way to the starting point for yesterday's Around the Bay in a Day ride.
Police said the riders were north-bound on the Nepean Highway at Mount Eliza about 4am when the car, said to be a burgundy EB Falcon, drove past the cyclists before the driver doubled back and deliberately swerved into them.
Words cannot describe the kind of imbecile that would do something like that. If this knob gets caught he should be barred from driving for life because he's clearly incapable of accepting the responsibility of controlling a motor vehicle.
From the cyclists' point of view, this was clearly a terrifying experience:
Mr Oxford said the group first knew of the carload of hoons when they drove past and yelled abuse through some kind of loudspeaker.
"They yelled out 'wankers'. They said 'bloody bike riders, we're going to kill you bastards'," he said.
They threatened the riders. They carried out the threat. Premeditated. That's not a hit-and-run "accident", that's assault with a deadly weapon and should be prosecuted as attemtped murder. I bet it won't be though.
Other weird stuff
A couple of other worrying things cropped up around this incident. Firstly, note the comments attributed to Senior Constable Danny Lean of Mornington Police
"People do get frustrated with cyclists on the road, there are cyclists out there who don't obey the road rules, don't stay in their designated lanes.
"We all bloody get jacked off with it because the cyclists are on the road and they are travelling two or three or four abreast chatting away to each other, but it doesn't justify the behaviour that's happened in the early hours of Sunday morning."
Gee, thanks Senior. Is that really the best way you can endorse cyclists as legitimate road users? Is there any suggestion whatsoever that the cyclists who were targetted by this moron were doing anything wrong at all? Talk about avoiding the real problem.
And on a related matter, where the hell does the Herald Sun get off? At the bottom of their coverage of this story, they tacked on a survey question: Are cyclists responsible road users?
Excuse me?!? Just who in this situation was acting responsibly? Clearly in the addled mind of some News Corp hack, the drunken dickheads lobbing beer bottles and insults from a moving vehicle were just quietly on their way to church when they were assaulted by a marauding band of cyclists travelling three or four abreast and chatting away to each other.
As Neil Kearney put it in the same august journal:
If those hooligans had bowled over a bunch of grannies going to church, would readers be having their say on whether senior citizens are responsible road users?
Well put, as is his key message to all road users:
If this culture of intolerance continues, people will die because of it. And other people will have blood on their hands.
What we need is an understanding between road users. We need everyone to realise that the global popularity of cycling is here to stay, and that bikes and cars must safely coexist.
Just relax and share the road. Sheesh, it's not that hard.
Tri Boy has a good point in that the minor negative is presented as the story, when the reality may be that most motorists and cyclists get along just fine.
In regards to the terrible press, Constable Lean's comments are worth writing to the Police Minister over. This is promoting a the kind of intolerant tolerance that full identifies with the views of a motoring majority while lamely attempting to dissuade any actual acts of violence or vilification .... (ie. I know full well and I agree with you that cyclists are bloody annoying pests on our road, and some of you may at times feel like running them over BUT ... I would recommend that you do not, even though I fully understand why you may want to".
The coverage has not been great on this issue but I agree with the last part. EVERYONE RELAX AND SHARE THE ROAD.
Both drivers and cyclists have to accept some of the blame. Its the old 5% of cyclist/drivers giving the rest a bad name.
I did the ARB and on the whole both cars and bikes got on well. Lets keep it that way and stop the slanging match. Its not a competition.
Comments
Also in agreement with Triboy, but why is it that the cyclist is always the one treated as a second class citizen when things break down?
Sigh.