So what can we make of the Jane Bishop case?
Many of us may have reacted with incredulity at Judge Gittos’ decision. But we were reassured that no one was really responsible.
The overall message that the NZ public has taken away is that things like this ‘just happen’.
But if the aftermath of Jane Bishop’s death has given us a snapshot of the standards of ‘reasonable care’ for vehicle drivers – then our standards have been found seriously wanting, along with our traffic infrastructure.
With its customary insightful monitoring of infrastructure, Cycle Action Auckland did a great service in presciently identifying the accident spot as a potential death trap. And we’ve still to find out why its warnings were unheeded, until it was too late.
But unfortunately, post judgement, CAA has has been far too keen to avoid a new round of road culture wars, in backing the judge’s decision to the hilt, and totally assigning the cause to bad infrastructure.
If I understand this right, the point of such legal process is for justice to be be A) restorative – if at all possible, (and here it’s plainly not), and B) to prevent or minimize recurrence.
On this last point both Judge Gittos and CAA have failed every one of us who gets on a bike.
However personally distraught he has been, (and there is little doubt of his personal agony) Glenn Becker didn’t do everything a driver can and does do in more enlightened societies, to avoid this tragic outcome.
I doubt that any of us bear Becker any personal ill will, and there’s clearly no point in punitive sentencing. It seems that by current New Zealand standards, he exercised “reasonable care”.
Then clearly it’s time our standards of ‘reasonable care’ were raised.
Cycling deaths aren’t an inevitability. Paris’ surging metropolis has just enjoyed a year with zero cycling deaths. Nada. Zip. None.
And in in the Netherlands, drivers are taught to open doors with the opposite hand, forcing them to look behind for people on bikes, as they open the door. And it’s not just for drivers – Danish kids are urged repeatedly by parents to look out for bicycles when they open a door.
I honestly dont know if a more nuanced judgement could have been made sending a message that while Glen Becker acted consistently with current standards of care, that he still could have taken more care – particularly given the conditions. Just as any road user would take extra care while in motion, in the case of icy roads or poor visibility. Just as door-opening drivers in Northern Europe do every day.
But I do believe an informed judgment would have, at least in the Judge’s comments, drawn attention to better driver/passenger habits which would have avoided this outcome. And that communications savvy cycling advocacy would have seized the opportunity to frame the bigger picture – to encourage drivers to higher standards of care, as well as pressing institutions to give real urgency to cycle-friendly infrastructure.
So what are we left with?
There is as yet no smoking gun found as to why CAA’s warnings were unheeded. And with the exception of today’s wonderful (if atypically) enlightened and forward looking Herald editorial, there has been no refocused spotlight on the overall lack of cycling infrastructure. And most of all, the public is none the wiser that there are greater standards of care that can and should be taken.
You know.. shit just happens, right?
Jane Bishop deserves better.
I could not agree more. That driver must be living a nightmare and I feel for him. However had he looked and looked again before opening that door we might not have lost a good person. Somehow we simply must learn to think and act to protect ourselves and those around us. “shit happens” does not cut the mustard.
I’m struggling with the idea that the Judge thought the reason Jane Bishop fell under the truck was because she pulled on the brakes and that apparently this was in no way caused by a door opening in front of her. If somebody had jumped out from between two parked cars with a Frankenstein mask on and a cyclist braked and swerved would that be enough of a cause and effect to hold Frankenstein responsible?
The other part of the Judges comments I’m bothered about is that Glen Becker was parked on a curved piece of road, arguably much easier to look back down than a straight piece of road, and see what is coming towards you. Apparently the crash could have still happened if Becker had constantly watched the road behind him as he emerged from his car. What! Is this because she just happened to feel like pulling on her brakes and skidding to an uncontrolled stop.
Bottom line is consequences teach and guide us. The only person who suffered consequences was Jane Bishop. It seems like their will be no consequence for our roading authority or the driver and wider driving community to learn from.
I feel like the judicial system has failed.
“The other part of the Judges comments I’m bothered about is that Glen Becker was parked on a curved piece of road, arguably much easier to look back down than a straight piece of road, and see what is coming towards you. ”
Hi Julian – what you may be missing (and as I understand it, what prompted the comment) was that the bend is so tight that slow-moving traffic backed up around the corner also prevents sightlines around the bend, particularly if the truck was in the way. Have a look at Google Earth, and imagine a “solid” line of cars snaking around the corner. From my admittedly very casual check, sight distance could be easily 20m or less. A cyclist at 25km/h could do that distance in 3 seconds.
Probably that was why the judge felt that the driver could easily have gotten out of the car during the time it took from a “all clear” check behind him, and the time Jane Bishop was around the corner, yet unable to brake in time – after all, that takes a few meters too, even for a cyclist.
Also, I can understand that sometimes, loss of control can come from very minor things. While Jane apparently DID hit the door and the driver, I myself have a particularly bad cycle crash once when a pedestrian stepped out in front of me, and I lost control while braking, yet I never even came CLOSE to hitting the guy. Broke both my hands, even though I was only going 20 km/h. Was the pedestrian at fault? Actually no, it was because the Council (of Perth, not of Auckland) had failed to trim a hedge along a beach side-path, and neither of us had been able to see each other until the last moment.
As I note in my post on this matter, sometimes bad infrastructure is indeed the key issue. Otherwise, we might have had a few bruised shins and arms, and a cyclist with a ruined day, not a ruined life. We need to get our infrastructure to a degree of quality where the margin of error allowed is greater.
Thanks Max. At 25km/h your right a rider would cover 20 meters in a little less than 3 seconds. But the stopping distance at this speed is also a little less than 3 meters ( http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/brakes2.html ) Even if it took a cyclist from 20m back 1 second to register the open door and 1 second to activate the break they’d stop about 3 meters short of the door.
I’m not convinced many transport cyclists hit 25kmh… from memory the Dutch cycle superhighway traffic phases are set at a riding speed of 18 km/h. If as you say the traffic was nose to tail even 18km/h would be fast. I believe I also read that Janes bike had a distinctive basket… not something associated with high speed riding styles.
I’m left wondering about the quality of the look and its timing in relation to opening the car door.
Julian, I was about to answer your argument with a couple of other “but what if” and “but do we know that…” type discussions, but I realised that the fact is – I do not know what exactly happened. The longer that discussion gets, the more we will tend to just speculate.
I guess the judge decided that at the end of the day, there simply wasn’t proof that the driver was neglient. Combined with the fact that we do not have an “automatic shared fault” law for cyclist crashes, it may be a simple case of “in dubio pro reo”.
Hi Max your right the physics arguments are fraught.
So the judge was prepared to assign benefit of doubt as to wether Glenn Becker was negligent BUT was not prepared to assign benefit of doubt as to the most likely reason for Jane Bishop using her bikes in an uncontrolled manner was the sudden opening of a car door infront of her.
Inconsistent, and desperately poor grasp of logic on behalf of the judge.
I attended the court hearing, so can fill in some of the gaps. It appears that Jane was travelling around that horrific corner at about 20kmh. It was rare for her to ride on the road, as her friends Sara and Laura both report she always rode on the shared footpath with them. On the evening concerned – gorgeous, sunny, late spring evening- she chose to ride home before Laura and Sara left Citymed where they worked together. The shared path on this bend was full of pedestrians and slow cyclists. The traffic on the was nose to tail. The evidence of both the prosecution and defence traffic engineers suggests that none of the parties in this tragedy would have had much visibility at all – due to the tight bend, narrowing carriageway and the density and scale of the traffic – remember the tip truck in the scene.
Glenn Becker checked twice before he opened his door. He then partly opened it to ease his feet onto the pavement.
With respect to Tim and the other commentators who are upset by my media stance for Cycle Action, – the issue, in my view, is not whether Glenn should have looked a third time and how much he is to blame. He innocently used in a legal and lethal on-road parked space, which should not have been there. Cyclists, like Jane, who wished to get home in reasonable time, faster than the stop- start traffic, chose to ride amongst it. She should have been able to use the off-road path, as she clearly preferred to do, but it was not available for cyclists.
We can blame individuals, and fracture the cycling community. I would rather focus on the making Auckland safe and great for cycling by working collaboratively, and holding Auckland Council and Auckland Transport to account, so money is available and a rapid response is formed to fix all known pinchpoints. And we all know there are heaps more.
Cycle Action will win this campaign, albeit more slowly than I would like. I don’t defend the time it is taking to make changes – I’m seriously pissed off about it. I invite everyone to either do your own campaigning, or support ours. Blaming individuals is unlikely to bring the changes we all agree we need. .
Thanks for the informed post Barb. It helps to fill in some gaps that were pure conjecture prior to the court case.
as I mentioned in another thread, I post on a forum where there’s been some pretty vitriolic anti/pro cycling action, Barb’s TV3 soundbites “there are no winners here” met with unanimous agreement
a step in the right direction and respect to Barbara
Thanks for your post Barbara. Cleared up a lot of stuff not reported.
Of course its a tragedy that the luckless woman was killed.
You guys are not going to like what I say next I suspect, but here goes anyway.
When riding around that bend I ALWAYS go on the footpath. That footpath narrows to less than a metre so if there are any pedestrians withon coo-ee of it I GET OFF my bike and walk.
That corner has always scared the hell outa me. So I take pro-active steps to preserve body and soul.
I must disagree with the statement: “Glenn Becker didn’t do everything a driver can and does do in more enlightened societies, to avoid this tragic outcome.”
I believe Glenn Becker did everything right. He had checked for cyclists, had gotten out of his vehicle and was STANDING close alongside his vehicle. The door was slightly ajar as he was preparing to close it, when the cyclist arrived.
The reason for this tragedy was the appalling road layout that the Council was unwilling/uninterested in correcting when notified.
There seems to be a feeling that this case is closed and we’ve missed the bus, now that the court has made its judgment. However you are forgetting that, now that Police proceedings have finished (I’m assuming there won’t be an appeal), the Coroner can now continue his national inquest of cycling deaths with a hearing in Auckland. The Akld hearing will focus on the deaths locally of Ms Bishop and Antony Chapman (who died in Apr 2011), but the Coroner is open to submissions on cycling safety in general (e.g. I am preparing evidence based on all NZ cycle fatalities in the past six years). Unlike a court case, which is focused on whether to convict someone, the inquest is focused on how to prevent similar tragedies in the future, which gives the Coroner a wide brief. No details yet of when this hearing will be held (there are also still hearings in Wgtn and the Sth Island to come).
@Julie. That’s a good strategy to keep yourself safe but it does indicate that cycling is not a very attractive option. but it’s a good option in the meanwhile if it keeps you riding. I do the same these days. But, really, we need to be a bit more aspirational. Transport Authorities would not expect a car driver to do a similar manouvre when driving. Funny that.
Glen – thats great – thanks for the info. Perhaps the Coroner will be able to put a bomb under the Transport people.
Mark
The reported screeching of brakes and falling into the path of a truck suggests a lesson to us all in cycle crash skills.
If its not your fault, a game change is requried to stay alive. Change from cycling to rugby: hit the ****er hard. Get your priorities right to stay alive:
* aim for your softest landing possible (another body),
* use their vehicle for your stability and deceleration,
* right-off your bicycle to absorb as much energy as possible and
* only then land on your feet or hands – never use your helmet – you are likely to break your neck.
In the case of car doors opening in your path, we all know braking and swerving is not a good idea: Aim your front wheel between the sill of the car and emerging motorist. Lean against the car for greater ballance. You need to put yourself on the inside of the car door and preferably between the car and driver, exposing the driver to any passing traffic.
If it really is that close, as it was in my experience in London, the car door flung wide open and was clipped by the following bus, ripping the door off its hinges and we both fell to the ground: me on top (of course). Unfortunately the car chasis was so bent it was a write off. but i got a spanking brand new hand built bike for all my bruises on his insurance.
p.s. Looking into a rear view mirror is not the way to check for bicycles, (thats what wing mirrors are for) dispite what the judicary are reported to support.
@ London Cyclist
While it is fair to say motorists must check for cyclists coming from behind, it is also fair to say that it is illegal to undertake on the road. This is applicable to all road users and is what Ms Bishop was doing (passing the truck on the inside) and in conjunction with the other factors already noted, led to the accident. If she had sat behind the truck there would have been plenty of room for her to pass the parked car but she would have been moving slowly. It all comes back to insufficient cycling infrastructure.
Also, the cycling road code has a note about cyclists keeping at least 1m when passing parked cars.
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/roadcode/cyclist-code/about-cycling/cyclist-responsibilities.html
@ Glen K
Great news. Hopefully this will speed up the process for decent cycling infrastructure for NZ rather than the ability to pay lip service to those with pedals.
“While it is fair to say motorists must check for cyclists coming from behind, it is also fair to say that it is illegal to undertake on the road.”
@Bryce – could you point me to the part of the road code that forbids undertaking or in general, passing on the left?
I understand Jane Bishop’s behaviour was legal, based on a number of factors, though I admit I have not found a specific POSITIVE official statement saying it is permitted. However:
a) Drivers can overtake on the left even on a motorway, which is illegal in much of the world
b) The NZ road code for cyclists specifically allows you to bypass queued traffic at signals (without specifying a side), see
Using intersections with traffic signals (near the bottom)
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/roadcode/cyclist-code/about-cycling/cycling-through-intersections.html
c) I read an ask Phoebe column where she indicates it is legal to filter to the front.
d) 99% of all advanced stop boxes have no feeder cycle lanes, and would thus be pretty much useless in most situations, if you weren’t allowed to filter to the front. This is particularly true as at almost all signals with such ASBs, you have multiple lanes, so to get to a kerbside ASB, you have to undertake on SOMEBODY’s left side, even if you were willing to move forward “in the middle” between a kerbside lane and a right turn lane.
However, it would be great if someone could clarify this better.
I see now in another section that the code requires (or at least exhorts) cyclists to pass moving vehicles to the right. At the same time it requires cyclists to stay as far to the left as possible, unless they have to claim the lane.
If one took that to the extreme, in mixed stop-start traffic, the cyclist would continually have to weave left-right left-right, to get forward. Or simply go as slow as all the motorists, and lose one of the key advantages of cycling. To not be the congestion, and not to suffer (as much from) the congestion.
I think this may just be one of those grey areas that make life (and law) difficult.
I briefly attended the hearing for around two hours, and I can see why the Judge made the decision that he did.
In my view, Glenn Becker was a fall guy. He was placed in the position he found himself where his actions resulted in the death of an innocent person. The person who should have been in the dock was the former Chair of the Transport Committee at Auckland City Council, who *knew* about that pinch point, and importantly, choose not to do anything about it.
It was entirely dishonest and disengenous of him to say in the paper that there were several pinchpoints along Tamaki Drive and really he couldn’t do anything. There was only ONE pinchpoint (the one where Bishop died), and he quite easily could have done something; his words are hollowed by Auckland Transport’s astonishingly swift action in removing parking spaces at that point.
The Police should have done a thorough job and charged this man with failing to make the pinchpoint safe, where failing to do so caused Bishop’s death.
Hi Max. You see what I am getting at. The road laws in NZ, which the council can’t do much about, are very ambiguous as far as cycling is concerned and I think this plays a significant role in the lack of importance that NZTA / Transit / Councils give to cycling in general. I cycle a bit around town but mostly take my chances with the trees out west, trees being mostly immovable and all.
Another example is following distances. When a group of cyclists is bunched they are technically breaking the law – right? And, if a cyclist has an accident in that bunch, then surely someone should be prosecuted? Now I am not actually suggesting this for a second but you can see where the problems arise with motorists not actually knowing how to behave around cyclists.
Oh and not all cyclists are the holy grail of behavioural examples for kids. Case in point, Tamaki Drive. Pedestrian crossing. 3 cars are stopped but as we are about to step out, pram in front, a ‘sports cyclist’ passes all 3 cars on the inside and runs right through the pedestrian crossing. True story. I was the pedestrian. If I had not seen him moving out of the corner of my eye he would have collected the pram with my 6 month old son in. At the speed he was doing he could have killed him. When I yelled out I got the single finger salute and of course no way to identify him to the police.
Max. You may know the answer to this. How many kerbside parking spaces on the harbourside are there over the length of Tamaki Drive? If council were to remove these and build a protected cycleway, are there options for building additional parking on the other side of the road at an acceptable cost? Of course there are areas where the cycleway could be incorporated into parks (Mission Bay / St Heliers) which would reduce the cost.
Ultimately, I would like to see the Ngapipi Rd entrance to Tamaki Drive closed to traffic and a new link built accross the causeway (kind of where the old Eastern link was going to go). This would allow the current piece of road, from the port to Ngapipi Rd, to be reduced to single lanes and allow room for a cycleway and any possible future tram development.
Hi Bryce – no, I don’t have the exact number (probably in the mid hundreds or maybe a thousand all told?), but parking removal, as expected in Auckland, is the big block to many schemes that could improve safety relatively quickly.
Rather than relocating car parks (building added car parks) in the tight confines of Tamaki Drive, extending the seawall (with new seawalls or boardwalks) would appear to be more suitable. In fact, Auckland Council is proposing just that, particularly north of Kelly Tarlton to Mission Bay (one of the tightest sections, and where Jane Bishop died).
This proposal was publicly discussed in a report Auckland Transport made to the Orakei Local Board, and it is publicly available somewhere in their minutes online, but I couldn’t find it quickly – if someone wants to hunt around on the Council website…
NZTA advice on lane position, passing, and keeping left: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/roadcode/cyclist-code/about-cycling/cyclist-responsibilities.html#pass-safely
“Road rules state that road users should keep as ‘near as practicable’ to the left side of the roadway. This means that you should keep left, but not to the extent that it compromises your safety.”
It’s legal to undertake stationery traffic, but not moving traffic, unless you are in a separate lane.
Thanks Max. Will have a search to find it. Sounds like a good idea.
Good on you Tim.
I freely admit that I was one of those who sent a “vitriolic” email to CAA because of their stance.
And my stance was that I would never again be associated with them.
My concern is that a precedent has been set here, come the next dooring, the defense will argue that the driver, & note that we only have the driver’s statement here, took due care.
Bullshit!, if the traffic situation was so bad that he felt the need to slide out of his car, why the hell did he not exit via the passenger side ?
At this stage, I no longer care, Tim was right & Jane Bishop deserved better, I’m simply going to ride my bikes & ignore this or any website that purports to represent cyclist’s rights.
Please enjoy all your committee meetings & teas.
You expect drivers to get out of the passenger side of the car? It is exactly this kind of statement that will keep the ‘anti-cycle’ lobby going and acheive nothing other than pissing of a good number of drivers, who actually are probably courtious to cyclists.
“Please enjoy all your committee meetings & teas.”
Actually we will. When you put in between 10-20 volunteer hours a week, besides doing a full time job, one likes to sit down for a tea with good friends every now and then. We haven’t had one for a long while, we’ve been to busy since December.
The worst thing I can do as an advocate is blame myself for other people’s mistakes and omissions, or start hating because the revolution is overdue.
Advocates who can’t find a balance between passion and pragmatism burn out, or get so cynical and angry that they find it ever harder to change minds.
That is why I won’t get too worried about people who accuse me or my group of being insufficiently aggressive. I get no pay for this work, yet I still put in all this passion and time three years later. That alone is enough of an indication for me that I am not just “punching the clock”.
That – and the improvements we have already won. Copenhagen wasn’t built in a day.
Thanks to everyone who has commented.
@Bevan: If indeed Glenn Becker had “checked for cyclists, had gotten out of his vehicle and was STANDING close alongside his vehicle.” then this explains a lot – not just about the incident itself, but in highlighting the overall lack of clarity about the circumstances communicated to the public.
My concern, and motivation in writing this post, which I’ve tried to stress: has been about the overall public perception. The bigger picture. Jane Bishop is dead, and nothing will bring her back. But we all know that doorings are an all too frequent occurrence, with serious and all too often deadly consequences, which without serious attitudinal change, will continue to maim and kill needlessly in our country.
Apart from Bevan’s update here, the message that I’ve taken away from reporting and commentary on Jane’s case has been that a young woman ended up under a truck because some guy opened a car door, on a tricky piece of road, but that it wasn’t the driver’s fault. From which I might (particularly if i didn’t cycle) infer that this stuff just happens; and that there’s nothing more that drivers should do, because the roads are sometimes designed badly.
The substantial public investment in getting to grips with the detail on this case might do some good in terms of Auckland Transport’s responsiveness to complaints about pinch points. We have yet to see.
But when it comes to improving driver attitudes, perception is everything. And the perception around the case has, despite massive coverage, been relatively cloudy. Media attention has focused on the human drama of Becker’s grief. There has been little, if anything, by way of description (that I’ve seen) of what actually happened – let along how all drivers might avoid other door-related tragedies they would regret for the rest of their lives.
@Barb C: I could have, like Max, contacted you to find out more detail. But, given what I’m still going to call a failure by so many players in the portrayal of this tragedy, an open discussion like this is exactly what our community should be having, if we’re ever to get our heads around the issues of public perception that stand in the way of faster progress to a more cycling-friendly and more people-friendly city. This is a good place to be asking the questions becuase this is social media doing what it does well. So thanks for stopping by. Seriously.
@ London Cyclist: Gee, by the time its coming down to cycle crash skills, heck I just want to trade in my bike for.. what.. a Hummer? Actually if I’m honest, I do have some ambivalence in this area: Yes I have learnt to claim the lane with considerable confidence. But building a successful cycling society isn’t done by learning to be a vehicle. It’s about letting people get a sense of how attractive, aspirational and carefree cycling can be.
While there’s a lot more that people like me should be doing (and for what it’s worth are doing – as fast as we can) than ranting online, if a lowly blog helps us get to the bottom of why cycling is still so marginal, so many drivers attitudes intransigent, and how we can lift our game, I think that’s a good thing.
I agree with Tim on the comments re London Cyclist – if we try to avoid accident (damage) by teaching our cyclists how to “crash well”, we may as well give up now.
Also, this ignores how crashes happen. You rarely have time in ANY accident for more coherent thought than “OH SH**!”.
Not saying that good reflexes and maybe some experience in how to handle a bad situation can’t help, but it’s still the wrong way to go in terms of prevention.
Yes I have learnt to claim the lane with considerable confidence.
Yes, ride 1.5 M out from parked cars. Don’t move to the left if there is another parked car up in front. Move to the middle of the lane where there are chicanes in place to prevent cars passing whilst travelling through these pinch points.
You rarely have time in ANY accident for more coherent thought than “OH SH**!”.
Correct!
get our heads around the issues of public perception
In my experience, public perception IS improving.
Around my way (near Cornwall park) I see lots of courtesy towards cyclists.
Just a matter of plugging away at it. I posted directly on the FB page my way of engendering support from motorists. And invited others to participate with their thoughts.
And in breaking news.. the Australian Green Party are introducing a bill for heavier penalties for dooring offences
@Bryce,
Yes I do.
I’m a driver as well, ( as are most people on this site), & I have exited via the passenger door many, many times.
@tim that’s a change from hearing ‘nothing can be done to protect cyclists from being doored’. So “shit doesn’t just have to happen”?
“@tim that’s a change from hearing ‘nothing can be done to protect cyclists from being doored”
Who claimed that?
We should be careful about conflating the judge’s decision that in this specific case there was no (or not enough) proof that the driver’s behaviour was to blame with a supposed attitude that nothing can be done about dooring risks as such.
Neither the driver, nor the judge, nor the Council, nor any advocates have claimed that. Some comments regarding the specific case have seemed to say something in that line, for the specific case. Context.
I am in fact in favour of harsher rules in this scenario – even up to “if a cyclist hits your open door, it’s automatically your fault unless you can show different”. But we can’t introduce such rules (which imply a greater standard of care needed by the motorist) retroactively.
@Hurben
There is a, cough, ‘cycleway’ on the left hand side of the cars on Tamaki Drive so, apart from the truck, there is still a good posibility of a cyclist taking out a pedestrian if they swerve around an open door.
I am of the absolute belief that improved infrastructure will make the biggest difference to cycling injuries / deaths out of all the other ideas I have read.
Harsher rules will make a difference but, in the grand scheme, people make mistakes every day and even if they are held to account after the fact it does not change the outcome for the individuals involved. In the same way that driving while holding a cell phone, pie, drink or what have you, cycling or walking while having your hearing impaired (ipod with buds in both ears) leads to a reduced attention on what is going on around you. When I am driving or cycling I am constantly watching the drivers of cars, whether they are parked or exiting streets etc, to make sure they have seen me. This includes looking at mirrors – ie if they look in their mirror and you see their eyes, they have usually seen you. One of my biggest bugbears is how, mostly sports cyclists, refuse to slow down when a car is exiting a parallel car park. If I am drivng or cycling and a car starts to exit a park I slow down and give the car time to exit. Most drivers also do the same however, I see cyclists time and time again simply refuse to slow down and just ride around the moving car.
@Bryce,
Yes there is a ‘cycleway’ on the left side of Tamaki drive, for a lot of it there are buffer zones of trees etc so the odds of you taking out a pedestrian while avoiding a door are few.
Having said that, I don’t use it because mostly when I’m cycling along Tamaki Drive I’m in my ‘Sports cyclist’ persona, (as opposed to my MTB/Commuter/Just get on the bike & ride personas), because it’s always full of pedestrians, roller bladers, dog walkers etc who seem to regard ‘on your right’ as a personal insult, not to mention that it’s rough & bumpy from the tree roots etc.
As opposed to the North Western cycleway which is awesome, people are great & I’ve never had a problem, (apart from almost being t-boned by a car at the Western Springs pedestrian crossing 3 weeks ago.
A lot of my riding is along Dominion road, I hear a bus behind me, it’s ‘on the pavement let the bus pass, off the pavement back into the lane’, repeat many times, shouldn’t have to but you use what you have.
Yes, a lot of sports cyclists are absolute arseholes, as are some of your fixster/hipsters who will ignore ped crossings, red lights etc. Almost had one draped across my bonnet as a trophy 2 weeks ago.
Probably wouldn’t have looked good stuffed.
Take care out there.
@Hurben
I would still love to meet the person who thought buses and cyclists should share the same space and get their point of view
Bryce.
I would still love to meet the person who thought buses and cyclists should share the same space and get their point of view
‘The last time I saw Paris’, my husband and I partook in a guided cycle tour of that great city. Absolutly wonderful, sharing the bus lanes. Busses were very considerate companions in the shared space.
there is a ‘cycleway’ on the left side of Tamaki drive
Yes, and its hopeless, although I do use it.
Lamposts, tree roots, driveways for prams, pedestrians, passenger door dooring etc.
I always point out the wonderful cycleway along the Manhattan Beach foreshore in Los Angeles. Have you been there – worth a look if you are in LA. Dedicated bike lane, dedicated pedestrian lane on a different level. Houses behind. I can see the same thing in place (I wish) on our Tamaki Drive foreshore. (Not the Houses density tho”) Wish i could post a picture here.
I see no reason why our city fathers should not remove all the parking on the seaward side of Tamaki Drive, put in a raised barrier or fence, and turn it into a cycleway, which goes in both directions with signposted access points to the beaches. Tamaki drive is used by increasing numbers of cyclists of all varieties. Such a wonderful area to ride. Parking lots could be provided on the other side of the road (the backshore), and those cycle lanes removed.
@Julie
Maybe we should send some NZ bus drivers to Paris for a bit of ‘retraining’?
Also, it has been suggested to the Orakei Board and Auckland Council that Tamaki Drive be widened but I would imagine that once resource management etc has been obtained it could be numerous years down the track which still leaves commuter cyclists at high risk for a long time to come.
As you have suggested, a quick fix shoud be able to be achieved by removing the kerbside parking on the narrow parts (Mecahnics Bay – Ngapipi Rd for instance) and creating a protected cycleway. Of the remainder (Mission Bay / St Heliers etc) there is adequate park land available to continue without removing the parking. Also there needs to be some major work undertaken to remove obstructions such as maybe building the lamp posts into the seawall as opposed to on the footpath.
@ Max
Do you know if NZTA has it’s own version of this:
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/strategy-and-research/publications-and-consultations/cycling-by-design
Very thorough!
I guess the NZ version of this is:
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/cycle-network-and-route-planning/
and also:
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/nz-supplement-austroads-gtep-part-14-bicycles/
and because we also borrow from the Ozzies, then also this too:
https://www.onlinepublications.austroads.com.au/items/AP-G88-11
Thanks Glen. I had read the cycle network and planning doc before but hadn’t seen the Aussie one.
No where near as comprehensive or clear as the Scottish example.
“@Julie – Maybe we should send some NZ bus drivers to Paris for a bit of ‘retraining’?”
Actually, CAA and NZTA are training bus drivers in Auckland! About half a dozen workshops are booked (and a few already happened earlier as a trial), where a dozen or so of bus drivers are educated around safe behaviour around cyclists.
And yes, it includes getting the bus drivers on bikes, to show them how it’s like from “down below”. Responses are that it works like a charm, and many drivers are starting to even consider doing some cycling again themselves, after the workshops.
Only downside – while NZ Bus has agreed to participate in a good number of workshops, they still get so many new drivers constantly (bit of a high-turn-over job) that there will always be a big chunk of drivers who haven’t gone through the workshop. We would love to make it a normal part of their training, but not yet there…
“it could be numerous years down the track which still leaves commuter cyclists at high risk for a long time to come.”
Various smaller and mid-sized infrastructure fixes are in the works at Auckland Transport for Tamaki Drive. Intended implementation is actually rather quick (at least the intended programme), though the larger works (seawall widening) aren’t included in that set of schemes.
Hopefully, official consultation on the mid-sized works should start soon, so I can start talking to you all about them, rather than having to keep my mouth shut. Though technically, many of the concepts have already been publicised, as the Tamaki Drive Action Plan is in the public realm, via having been presented in public to the Orakei Local Board.
@Bryce and @Glen K
While the “Cycling Aspects” document (which is turning into the industry standard here, together with the “Pedestrian planning and design guide”, which also has significant cycle-related stuff – http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/pedestrian-planning-guide/) is produced by an organisation called “Austroads”, it is actually not just “borrowing from the Ozzies”.
Austroads is a multi-member organisation, of which NZTA is a key member – so NZ experts and policy makers have input into the documents, we don’t just adopt them because we are too small / can’t be bothered to do our own.
Generally, I hold the Austroads guides in high regard. One of the best things they did was ensure that cycling guidance is in all their guidelines, not just a guide engineers pick up when specifically told to design cycle stuff.
@Max
Actually it’s CAN who are running the bus-cyclist “road user workshops” for NZTA, as part of their Safer Cycling project with BikeNZ; see http://can.org.nz/article/nzta-safer-cycling-programme for a bit more detail. No doubt however we are getting some great assistance from some of the local CAA cyclists to help with the actual riding part.
Well aware of the Austroads – NZ link, although I’d have to say that the NZ involvement on the cycling side has been relatively minimal. Agreed that it is good to see cycling aspects referred to everywhere that they might be relevant in amongst the 70+ (!) new Austroads guides, although that doesn’t make things easy when you are specifically training people on cycle planning/design (hence the separate “Cycling Aspects” summary guide). Unfortunately many of the new Austroads guides have a “design by committee” feel about them too, and on some topics appear less useful than the guides they replaced.
@Glen K – my apologies. I am not directly involved in the bus-cyclist workshops, so got that wrong. I do understand though that people like Barb and Julian have long been involved there, including before the general wider roll-out.
Julian, I’m sorry but I think you may have some thing wrong with your calculations.
25Km/h is approx 7m/s to be able to stop a bike from 25 Km/h in a distance of 3m (not allowing for reaction/observation time) would mean you have to be able to brake at 1.6g deceleration, this would seem a little high for a bicycle. (think about a force 1.6 times your weight trying to pull you over the handlebars)
so based on your thoughts you would have traveled 14m by the time you begin braking. Even if you are nice and say that you can brake at 0.5g (most people think 0.5g in a car is stopping really hard) that means it would take 10m to stop from application of brakes, next time you are on your bike take a stopwatch and try stopping as hard as you can from a good speed.. see how long it takes from squeezing the brakes to full stop. In your scenario it would take around 0.4 of a second to come to a complete halt from 25km/hr.
“Thanks Max. At 25km/h your right a rider would cover 20 meters in a little less than 3 seconds. But the stopping distance at this speed is also a little less than 3 meters ( http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/brakes2.html ) Even if it took a cyclist from 20m back 1 second to register the open door and 1 second to activate the break they’d stop about 3 meters short of the door.”
Just a note – I almost misused the link due to the fact that it uses MILES / hour!