Highly-strung madmen from Pymble
You don’t need a telescope to see Pyrmont’s Ava Hubble (letters) is quite right to note that cyclists should show as much regard for pedestrians as they hope for from motorists. There is an hierarchy on our public thoroughfares ranging from the heftiest juggernauts – trucks lugging containers – to the most vulnerable – venerable grannies on walking frames.
Although horror stories of road rage are told wherever highly strung madmen from Pymble assemble, the overwhelming majority of road users are more likely to bend over backwards in paroxysms of politeness than jeopardise the safety of others. Every cyclist every day depends upon ‘the kindness of strangers’, albeit less salaciously than our Cate’s recent Blanche DuBois.
To many motorists riding a bicycle seems an act of death-seeking folly. That is because they tend to notice the lycra-clad kamikazes only after near misses. We do recall near-Death experiences more vividly than the hundreds of hohum safe passages of everyday traffic.
And so we mouth off at dinner parties after the third large glass of red about what must be done to keep everyone safe and separate no matter what the cost because how can you place a value on a human life? [Actually routinely done by insurance actuaries following mundane formulae totting up to less than you would have thought.]
Riding a bike is a transport of delight. Delight in getting somewhere under your own steam. One pay-off for picking a perilous position in the pecking order of the pavement is the prerogative of problem-solving on the fly. Is a light shining unseen in the empty midnight streets red or green?
The more I ride around our city the less doctrinaire I become. The three metre wide footpaths of Broadway, empty of pedestrians after business hours, may be a sensible pedalling alternative to the traffic snarled lanes of the road.
Drive considerately. Ride responsibly. Pedestrians, remember you live in a real world that may be benignly oblivious that it revolves around you. Enjoy your journey.
by Peter Whitehead
