Clokenator wrote:I'll take off from an intersection while the light's still red, particularly when I'm turning right and have cars directly behind me that might be going straight ahead. I do that just because it's safer.
IMO the problem is there is no education at all of riders or car drivers. I see bike riders run lights all the time (they killed a bloke down the road from my place), not use bike lanes, pull into other lanes with no indication, it goes on and on, yet the onus is put on the motorist to look out for them, pretty bloody hard when they behave erratically (motorists are also having to watch other cars).
All other things being equal, I'd rather be on a bike path so I don't need to deal with idiot traffic. But bike paths can be very indirect, they can be badly paved, have nice bumps thanks to tree roots, and all sorts of other fun things. When I was commuting, I rode 20km each way, it was about 1/3 bike path, 2/3 road.
I don't know why you think it's so hard for a motorist to pay attention to all the other road traffic, why having to watch out for other cars makes it so hard to notice bikes. Cyclists, motorcyclists, they both need to notice all the motorists and all the cyclists around them too, and they manage. All our public transport here is buses, not once as a cyclist has a bus driver caused me grief by not noticing me, or by noticing me and not bothering to give way. I've had one close call with a bus, and that was entirely my fault while riding to school when I was 15. I've had my licence for 15 years, I'm yet to have a single problem caused by a bike rider doing something unexpected. I've had a shitload of near misses and actual crashes while cycling, caused by drivers who don't see me, or don't care that they see me, or can't figure out that if I'm doing 40-50 km/h, accelerating around me and then turning left is far stupider than sitting behind me for 100m and then turning left.
No daylight savings in SE Queensland. Four thirty every morning over Christmas I get woken up by the birds and sun.
