Cycling in Sydney Australia
Poor Driving Skills ?
With all the charged emotional discussion that occurs in the media , here, and elsewhere, the helmet debate, the irresponsible cyclists, the p-platers, the inconsideration, it seems to me at least that it is very difficult to pin a measurable, quantifiable assessment of sydney drivers, we can of course look at lane changing, driving courtesy and so on, but all these are subjective measurements.
I thought for a while and one thing struck me ..................... Zebra or Pedestrian crossings.
If one sits for an hour or two and watches the sheer disregard for pedestrians that a significant amount of drivers display at these legally safe crossing places, then one can only come to the conclusion that Sydney drivers top the list for the most selfish ars** in the world.
and not a word about bikes, because they don't matter, the drivers are selfish irrespective of whom they effect and that is that.
re-testing every three years by the RTA is my pitch, and I'd be happy to be re-tested myself.
I thought for a while and one thing struck me ..................... Zebra or Pedestrian crossings.
If one sits for an hour or two and watches the sheer disregard for pedestrians that a significant amount of drivers display at these legally safe crossing places, then one can only come to the conclusion that Sydney drivers top the list for the most selfish ars** in the world.
and not a word about bikes, because they don't matter, the drivers are selfish irrespective of whom they effect and that is that.
re-testing every three years by the RTA is my pitch, and I'd be happy to be re-tested myself.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Paul on -
Personally, all drivers should be taught to drive only by qualified and registered driving instructors. No more of getting shown how to drive by parents/friends/the guy down the road. Everyone should be taught to a consistent standard, and the driving test should be competency based, with a full licence not issues until you have gained a 100% pass mark in all competencies. I would change the licence grading to reflect the professional training. While on L's you are not permitted to have passengers at all. You can't drive the car at any other time other than with the instructor. Once you do your test, you graduate directly to a full licence and gain all the privileges that it comes with.
Now, in regards to the Pedestrian Crossing issue above....take a look at George St in the CBD on any given day. If police wanted to, they would make a couple of hundred thousand dollars in revenue a day if they did nothing except issue tickets for jay walking. If the little red man is flashing and you start to cross the road, you are jay walking. Usually the flashing red man coincides with a left turn arrow going from red to green, and it no doubt annoys drivers when are stuck there because pedestrians keep flocking over the road against the lights. The main problem is that Sydney is full of intersections where pedestrians have to apply to cross the road, and when they do change you only get about 30 seconds before the cars are given priority again. This is one of the reasons it takes me 20min+ to walk from Circular Quay to Town Hall. In that time I am almost half way home on my bike!
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Permalink Reply by Michael O' on -
I mentioned in another thread that this weekend, while briefly cycling two abreast with a mate in my fairly quiet suburban street (as I was having a look at a mechanical problem he was having) I got hooted at by a bloke driving an "L TRENT" driving school vehicle.
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Permalink Reply by Paul on
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Unfortunately the current system is not exactly brilliant, as you have discovered. It depends on the individual instructor. As far as I know, there is no actual syllabus for learning how to drive, and because of this there are wild inconsistencies with how and what people are taught. Certainly, having an instructor with poor attitudes and knowledge about cyclists is not going to help matters.
I envisage something more along the lines of what it takes to get a Private Pilots Licence. A set syllabus, minimum hours required to go through that syllabus, followed up with a competency based test, with all components requiring a 100% pass before a licence is issued.
When I learned how to drive, I had nothing but a driving instructor the entire time. I had no choice as I had no family (they were all overseas). My instructor was brilliant, but I think I just got lucky.
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Permalink Reply by MadameBike on -
Pilots' licenses are prohibitively expensive for most people - as are driving licenses which are fully taught by professionals. This is very topical in my family and I would say the first few lessons should be by a professional, until traffic confidence and basic skills have been taught but practising with a parent should be OK. I do not think the principle instructor should be a 21year old sibling, but a parent or other who has had a minimum of 20 years continual driving experience.
I think some time in a simulator, handling emergency situations would be good and some time on a skid pan, etc learning to cope with recovery in emergencies.
I think a lot of bad driving habits are personality-based.
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Permalink Reply by Paul on
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Pilot's licences are only prohibitively expensive because the student has to pay for the hire of the plane and the fuel in addition to the instructor. A car is certainly not going to cost $250 an hour to have a lesson in, nor would it involve any cross country trips to Dubbo and back (which I did for my second solo navigation exercise - that was a very expensive lesson!)
Perhaps they can have the equivalent of the GFPT (General Flying Progress Test) for driving, so once you have established that you are able to control the car and behave yourself in traffic, you can go solo (but not take any passengers) to build up your experience prior to taking the full test.
I think when I learnt to fly, my instructor was about $60 per lesson. When I learned to drive, the instructor was $35 per hour. I did the two about 5 years apart, so the $35 would probably be more like $45 in 1998 dollars. Not a huge difference really.
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Permalink Reply by John H on -
When my youngest daughter got her licence, it took her several attempts. I was the poor bunny who took her each time. I was amazed at the difference in interpretation of the road rules by the driving examiners. On one instance, she was failed becuase she stopped at an intersection to make a right hand turn & was stopped from doing so by the traffic control signals. The examiner told her she should have entered the intersection, waited in the middle & then turned after the light turned red. When I asked if that was illegal, he stated it wasn't. I had to disagree with him & he stated "I was a driving instructor for 10 years before I got this job & I always taught my students to do that."I refrained from telling him that I was a cop & would have given him a ticket for the same thing. I simply wrote a long complaint on the customer feedback forms at the RTA & never even had it acknowledged. What hope is there with all these different interpretation. His attitude was she held up traffic. Mine was, she averted a possible collision.
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Permalink Reply by Dan on -
A lot of drivers do that, I have noticed. it's especially annoying when they do it when going up King St, as it blocks the cycle way. But it often happens.
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Permalink Reply by Carlin on -
I received my license first time. However, the examiner informed me that I drove too slowly at 50k's in a 60k zone along a residential street, and would have held up traffic had there been any behind me.
NOW that same street is a 40k zone after a motorist crashed into a daycare center.
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Permalink Reply by ♫ Kylie on -
Whenever someone's honking at me because they think I'm driving too slow, I feel like saying to them "It's a speed limit, mate, not a speed target".
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Permalink Reply by Martin Geliot on -
Are you writing about rule 61 John:
"If the traffic lights or arrows change to yellow or red while the
driver is stopped and the driver has entered the intersection, the
driver must leave the intersection as soon as the driver can do
so safely. "
In other words the convention of entering an intersection on a green, but getting out on the red if necessary.
Or was this examiner expecting a candidate to enter on red? Yikes!
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Permalink Reply by Paul on
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Well, if the right turn was controlled by a red arrow then it is not possible to legally enter the intersection until the red arrow is gone, either by turning off, or by changing to a green arrow.
However, if there was no arrow and he lights where green then you can move into the intersection in anticipation of turning. If the light sequence then changes, then by Rule 61 above you must complete your turn as soon as it is safe (which is usually when the lights for oncoming traffic turn red!)
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Permalink Reply by Martin Geliot on
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The reasons for substandard driving in Oz are many.
While the solutions might lie with education, licensing and compliance there are social and cultural factors that are wider than merely driving.
Taking responsibility is a big problem. Tradies, managers, pollies, cops, RTA yada yada. Not just drivers. You can do a crap job no worries.
Weather is another. Nice conditions mostly, so drivers get away with goodness knows what that would get them off the planet in a harsher environment.
And modern cars. Designed to protect the occupants, no problem putting the community at risk at all. Just like helmets, seatbelts, crumple zones and the other advances to protect someone doing the wrong thing at the expense of everyone else. Seemed smart at the time but not really an adequate response at all.
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