By JESSE GRAHAM
CYCLING is an exhilarating form of exercise. Riding down hills, through back streets and even through Healesville’s buzzing main street, it’s great to experience towns in the valley and the hills on two wheels.
But when it comes to discussing laws around cycling, much of the conversation gets bogged down in bickering.
Every time the activity is mentioned or a new initiative is discussed, a dissenting voice isn’t too far away, protesting or recalling an anecdote about a time when cyclists did them wrong.
And that’s fine, because people are perfectly entitled to see differently about issues and the way society is shaped.
But conversations like these don’t just miss the point; they travel away from it at the speed it takes to type an aggressive Facebook comment.
A bill was tabled by Eastern Metropolitan MLC, Samantha Dunn, last week, calling for a one-metre distance between cyclists and vehicles overtaking, with a greater distance in areas with higher speed limits.
Cycling groups immediately supported the bill, while groups such as the RACV, very rightly, questioned the bill’s necessity – the current law encourages a “sufficient“ distance to be kept, anyway.
But the key here is quantifying something that, currently, is completely subjective.
I’ve encountered drivers whose idea of “sufficient“ distance is simply leaving enough centimetres to not clip a cyclist with a side-mirror. Cyclists very often are seen as an inconvenience to be dealt with on the roads. This is where attitudes need to change before meaningful steps can be made to improve conditions.
In areas such as the Dandenong Ranges, groups of cyclists can often make it difficult for drivers to get through the hills, without slowing and waiting for a safe area to pass, which understandably frustrates some drivers.
But this inconvenience of waiting for a safe area to pass is far outweighed by the importance of keeping all road users safe. Rash overtaking and not leaving appropriate distance puts riders at risk of being injured or killed, just so someone can shave minutes off their trip.
People who ride bikes, through taxation and council rates, pay for the roads just like motorists, and are just as entitled to use the roads, but are more vulnerable than any other road user.
It follows that measures to protect these users, such as a more stringent definition of a safe passing distance, should be at the very least thoughtfully considered and discussed.
After all, for motorists, minimum safe passing distances are a matter of convenience, and their opinions and feelings matter in that regard.
But for cyclists, the issue is literally life or death.
