Unfortunately, the weirdness didn’t want to stay put on Bizarro World, so we made a VCAT application and parked it there for much smarter legal people to figure out.
While we’re on this somewhat odd journey, we’ve realised we require extra beer money. See below for a subtle tip on how you can help top up our beer money to assist us getting through this thirsty testing time.
Subtle hint: Donations contributing towards copious amounts of Mountain Goat Steam Ale are greatly appreciated
(Note: this is an illustration only. God does not kill kittens. I’ve asked Her and She said She’d never do such a thing)
As my real blog’s login was slightly screwed up, here’s a rough outline of a Theory x-posted to Melb Cyclist that’s been ruminating in my mind for a little while.
The Theory: The Real Reason Why Some Bicycle Riders Run Red Lights
The reason why some cyclists run red lights has little or practically nothing to do with the individuals moral fiber, intellectual ability or capacity to distinguish between basic concepts of right and wrong.
The act of cycling requires physical effort to keep momentum, starting and stopping requires more so.
Driving a car requires a certain skill base, but not fitness. To accelerate a vehicle mostly requires putting the foot down on the accelerator pedal.
Traffic signals and road management systems are designed with that fact in mind: a total emphasis upon petrol-powered transport, not human powered mobility.
Many cyclists prefer to keep a steady momentum and in all likelihood, don’t even consider red lights as something they should seriously pay attention to.
Put simply, some cyclists (like some car drivers and many humans in general) behave like automatons with little regard to all the “moral crises” generated about red light breaking lycra lizards and black-clad inner city trendies that regularly pop up in the more excitable sections of mainstream media.
Another point; the actual issue probably isn’t about simplistically pigeon-holing people via their mode of transport at all. It’s more to do with how people interact with technology. Some people get it, some people avoid it, some people can’t be stuffed and some people shouldn’t ever be allowed on the roads, regardless of transport mode choice. But lets not delve off into subtexts about law & order issues right now …
Although there’s no excuse for being ignorant about common sense, responsibility, safety issues and the road rules, but the conflict that (to me) that is consistently ignored is expecting human powered mobility to be compliant to automated traffic signals that are most of the time, were never designed to accommodate their requirements.
Not forgetting, traffic engineers & advocates are now looking at different traffic signalling, such as advanced starts, bike lanterns (City of Yarra) and awareness raising infrastructure, such as the Green Wave (see below), although more R&D is required for this to be cost-effective for mass implementation.
But I’ d be far from the first to admit that a Nice Cup of Calm the Fuck Down wouldn’t go astray either, whenever the topic is raised.
So what’s being going on here at Beer Can Hill HQ? Plenty, hence the relative inactivity on this internerd fridge magnet.
Firstly there was a WIN with the Bin the Bike Ban campaign last month, which requires monitoring and follow up. Then the peaceful re-education of several anti-cyclist facebook groups and their subsequent conversion to Bike Pride chapters. Although we shouldn’t really be surprised by the rank stupidity that people (using their real names) are capable of on a public forum.
There’s been so much activity that’s it’s difficult to put it all in context, from Roberts exceedingly kind offer of getting the plastic Igor eagles for Team Captain Bike (MS Summer Cycle), and media monitoring of even more rank stupidity in public, this time on the radio waves. Read the rest of this entry »
Are you sitting comfortably? Good, now lets begin.
Cue: Robert Gottliebsen style voice over.
Once upon a time there was a big, big business. They were most successful in selling their shiny widgets to the market. Or they thought they were. One year they did terribly well for themselves and sold approximately a massive 711, 836, 200 shiny widgets. They were feeling very chuffed with themselves.
But the next year something went terribly wrong. They sold only 499, 627, 500 shiny widgets. The bean counters hit panic stations. “Good gracious, what will we do? what will we do. One more year like this and we’ll all be rooned“, they yelled during internal meetings. In their panic, they schemed a grand scheme.
Why not undercut all our competitors, target their markets and attack, attack, attack! Yes, indeed, that would be a grand plan! And we will keep attacking until we win and sell even more shiny widgets!
Unfortunately some of them didn’t remember a vital lesson from business school. Bad business decisions that hurt the market will ultimately hurt everyone, including their big, big business. In the real world of business, such inept business practices call for a immediate change in management. But that stuff is for people with ethics and transparent decision making processes, not silly people who haven’t learnt anything from Ansett, OneTel, HIH, Enron, WorldCom or Global Crossing.
But this is all just a fairy tale, a cautionary, yet cryptic fable to scare the kiddies.
Yes we’re still around, avoiding the suns rays and dodging high UV levels.
So what’s being going on here at Beer Can Hill HQ? Plenty, hence the relative inactivity on this internerd fridge magnet.
