Road incidents

tigerboi said:

where do you get the idea that bike riders are allowed to take up one lane

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tigerboi said:

as i pointed out previously bike riders are dangerous especially on a saturday morning

like i said happened...bike riders out on saturday mornings thinking they are allowed to take up a lane...bang

got no problem sharing the road as a professional driver however cars & trucks have priority...

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MrBurns said:

If you ride a bike on a public road these days you're an idiot, it's dangerous enough in a car.

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dutchie said:

Spot on Mr Burns.

Bicycle and motorbike riders are an accident waiting to happen.

Cheers

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gav said:

I had to slam on the breaks at St Kilda Road today, friggen cyclist ran a VERY red light and I almost took him out. A lot of them think they can do what they want, its not like a traffic camera will get their number plate

What's worse is I personally know how quickly life can change for a cyclist. My Dad was a cyclist, just riding on country roads. After being hit my a hoon, he had to sell the farm, has a 30cm steel rod in his back for the rest of his life (and nearly died on operating table), spends majority of the day in bed or doing rehab and on painkillers, huge stress on marriage, fighting the TAC, while the guy who hit him lost his licence for a pathetic 3 months. Australia Day 2009 will mark the 2yr anniversary of the tragedy. Most ppl say he's lucky to be alive, but he doesn't see it that way...

I know there are good and bad cyclists, good and bad drivers... But to any cyclist who reads this, remember - its YOUR life that will be changed forever if something goes wrong

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GreatPig said:

For most Australian road rules, bicycle and cars are treated the same.

The only rules relating to this specifically for bicycle (and motorcycle) riders are that they must not ride more than two abreast, unless overtaking, and when riding two abreast, must not be more than 1.5 metres apart (rule 151 - this link is to the NSW road rules, but the same Australian road rule is identical).

Two riders riding 1.5 metres apart would essentially take up a whole lane.

GP

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Fatal collision driver 'crashed car last year'
05:30 AEST Mon Mar 22 2010

The unlicensed driver who killed a family of three in Canberra at the weekend had been in a coma only 10 months ago after crashing another stolen car.
Justin Williams was killed on Saturday night when the speeding car he was driving slammed into the vehicle containing Scott Oppelaar, 33, his partner Samantha Ford, 33 and their three-month-old son Brody.
….

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/1030206/fatal-collision-driver-crashed-car-last-year

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Happy said:

I just cannot agree with Police being blamed for tragic death of 3 innocent persons following the pursuit that reportedly was even called off.

This blame should be solely on driver that did not stop on Police request.

Why don’t silly people go further and blame car manufacturer or petrol station or RTA for building road where this tragedy happened?

In this twisted logic they are all to blame!


If they did what I propose to keep unlicensed criminals in locker this would not happen either!


Why are the police hellbent on catching someone in a stolen $1000 car?
My house got knocked off years ago about 10k worth of stereo gear and it was a battle for them to even turn up let alone speeding around looking for the crooks.
They showed up 6 hours later!
Not a fan of police chasing petty crooks at high speeed

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todster said:

Happy said:

Why are the police hellbent on catching someone in a stolen $1000 car?
My house got knocked off years ago about 10k worth of stereo gear and it was a battle for them to even turn up let alone speeding around looking for the crooks.
They showed up 6 hours later!
Not a fan of police chasing petty crooks at high speeed

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Exactly my thoughts. In this case, the cost to society of trying to recover a beat up Mazda 626 has been the cost of four lives, including three innocent parties.

Police and the recklessness of youth is a time bomb. So from a risk:reward perspective these police pursuits simply do not make sense. The danger of a fatality increases from the statistical norm to a virtual certainty all for the sake of a rusty old scrap bucket. Mindless really!

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Happy said:

....This blame should be solely on driver that did not stop on Police request.....

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Ms Webbe’s mother Debbie yesterday said she was angry at authorities.

"I'm devastated — I want the police to pay for what has happened," she was quoted as saying.

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Bushman said:

todster said:

Exactly my thoughts. In this case, the cost to society of trying to recover a beat up Mazda 626 has been the cost of four lives, including three innocent parties.

Police and the recklessness of youth is a time bomb. So from a risk:reward perspective these police pursuits simply do not make sense. The danger of a fatality increases from the statistical norm to a virtual certainty all for the sake of a rusty old scrap bucket. Mindless really!

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I understand and agree to a certain extent with the rationale there Bushman, and it's easy to make that call in hindsight, but this guy was apparently fairly motoring along when the police first noticed him.

It could be argued that he was going to end up wipeing someone out anyway, whether the police chased or not, since he'd knocked himself into a coma from an earlier crash.

In any case it's a tough call for the police to know the driver of a speeding stolen car at night. I'd say 99% of drivers pull up when the police sound the siron or persue.

Realistically, do we expect them to let the 99% of speedsters go for the sake of the 1% that are crazy and are never going to stop and cause an accident like this and how can they predict the 1% that are crazy, other than first sounding the siron and persuing for a little while?

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Whiskers said:

Bushman said:

In any case it's a tough call for the police to know the driver of a speeding stolen car at night. I'd say 99% of drivers pull up when the police sound the siron or persue.

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Definitely not blaming the police. They have a very tough job to do and need to make split second judgements that can have strong consequences. In this instance, the officers involved were simply following their protocols. Thus it is more a case for the legislators.

My argument would be that this case had some visible combustible elements in it (youth, stolen car etc) where it could reasonably be assumed that engaging in a police pursuit would lead to further recklessness on the part of this young guy that would put the public at an unreasonable level of risk. While he was speeding beforehand, he was not running red lights. Add the stress of the police pursuit and all of a sudden he is gunning red lights; hence the fatality.

The trade-off between maintaining law and order and preserving public safety needs to be looked at. I would say that if pulling out of 100 police chases would save even one life (especially that of the kids) then it is worth it. We should not value property/law and order above saving innocent lives.

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