Why cyclists should NOT get the same fines as motorists | Car Culture 6 - Motonormativity 

It’s amazing to me that police spend so much time and resources enforcing nonsense speed limits against cyclists when they can’t even be bothered to enforce the 1 m passing zone when giving clear evidence handed to them on a silver platter.

This whole thing was what was especially ridiculous about the e-mobility laws. They made a big deal out of “we making the penalties the same as for cars” - because apparently holding your phone while riding a 20 kg scooter at 25 km/h is the same as using your phone, being distracted while driving of a 2000 kg hunk of metal going 60, 80, 100 or more kilometres per hour? Absolutely ridiculous!

The trouble with high cycling fines is that they become an incentive for police to target cyclists as a very easy revenue source. Blitzes on cyclists didn’t exist before the fines were raised. Or rather, that’s just one of the problems. Great video!

Mark Bailey (Queensland Transport Minister has been recorded on HIS Strava breaking this speed limit on the Kurilpa Bridge with Marco te Brömmelstroet. I'm certain neither would have done these speeds if they thought it created a safety issue but they most certainly did break this speed limit despite Mark's protestations that Strava isn't accurate. This isn't a "gotcha" in terms of Mark is a law breaker but just a way of highlighting that the "limit" in fact does not make sense. The main criticism of Mark is that despite his decade as the Transport Minister in this state and his own claim to be the "best ever Transport Minster for cycling in Queensland", he has not taken on ANY of the legislative recommendations in the "A new direction for cycling in Queensland" 2013 and improved any traffic laws or otherwise with respect to cycling. The only legislation of note that I recall in this time is the regressive legislation around e-mobility devices which penalise legitimate use and fail to really address the few issues with these devices. Mark also sticks doggedly to his beliefs that Mandatory Helmet Laws are necessary despite plenty of legitimate criticism and research into the matter BUT proudly proclaimed that Queenslanders should be able to have the choice to protect themselves when they removed masked mandates during the middle of a Covid surge. Mark, I don't dislike you as a person, just DO the things necessary to REALLY improve cycling in Queensland. You have plenty of good people in your Department who can tell you what they are. Go ask them and let them speak honestly. Try listening. And stop blocking people with valid criticisms like these on Social Media.

The thing about that extremely rare case when a cyclist-pedestrian crash does result in a death is that it is guaranteed to be front page news, probably nationwide. Pundits will be talking about it for weeks and social media trolls will be bringing it up years later. Demands for crack downs, new laws, harsher penalties. The car crash that kills a pedestrian? That will be local news if you're lucky and forgotten about a day later. Dismissed as a tragic but unavoidable fact of life.

I agree one hundred percent with the comments made on this video. I worked for TMR for 25 years and most of that time dealing with road rules amendments. I was involved with the implementation of the results of the bicycle rules review. The whole effort was influenced by bike hating officers who could only see the change as being 'making it all equal'. It never was equal... and was a complete travesty of justice for cyclists. I too call upon Mark Bailey to revisit those stupid 'equal' penalties and make it fair for cyclists.

We have the same issues in Toronto, to the point where police setup road blocks to specifically stop people on bikes, it's ridiculous that these types of speed limits are put on bike paths, meanwhile drivers can drive at whatever speed they want with zero consequences literally killing people and getting a slap on the wrist. Just plain stupid.

Great video Chris. The moment television news media is there to film "enforcement activities" there should be a law that makes those fines invalid due to the bias it creates.

This is why I don’t carry anything that can identify myself while cycling. If they can stop me they can spend the rest of the day trying to work out who I am.

Thank you for this 19 minutes of sanity. Cyclists and scooter riders are easy pickings for an indolent and myopic police force.

Oh we’re obsessed with 10 kph signs in Sydney too! I’m normally one of the slowest in shared zones and of course I’m going above 10 kph because I don’t want my bike to fall over. The people who design these limits must know how silly it is; I guess they just want to maintain the feeling that using active transport in a safe and reasonable way is somehow “wrong”. Don’t even get me started about excessive use of “cyclist dismount” signs in the middle of popular bicycle routes!

Thank you so much Chris Cox for saying what you have said. I've always have all the same thoughts about the stupid enforcement by QLD police and the stupid speed limit rules, but struggled to put them in words. You nailed it in the head. The rules need to change. QLD govt should be encouraging more people to use active transport. They're currently doing the opposite.

Maybe some more reseach on how European countires such as Denmark and the Netherlands handle shared paths could be of assistance. Politicians love problems with solutions you bring to them.

Imagine thinking speed limits are about safety and not revenue...

If a bridge is dangerous for cyclists travelling faster than 10km/h, it means they designed it wrong. In our country, in such cases, they don't put a limit, but a "cyclist dismount your bike" sign, which everyone ignores, including grandmothers going shopping. Police harassment doesn't help safety, proper road design is important!

Another great video. Cyclists are seen as the real menace where I live too. New, massive wide roads built in 30mph zones, yet the only measures put in to reduce speeds are bollards and kerbs on the disconnected cycle paths that accompany these roads. My local town had a public consultation on banning vehicles from the centre. The results overwhelmingly favoured the ban. However, some councillors have pushed back saying what about the 'menacing' cyclists? In other news, our PM has vowed to end the 'war on the motorist', whatever that means. Oh yes, elections are coming up soon.

Those fines as described can't be enforceable because a bicycle doesn't have a speedo. In addition, that's a stupidly low speed limit and it's odd that it exists. Besides, why would anyone, on a bicycle, stop for the police? They're pretty easy to avoid in these so called blitzes.

Might be an idea if the QPS spent less time apprehending active transport users and maybe a bit more time concentrating on 'actual' law breakers. You know, like youth crime currently plaguing our suburbs. Be a worthy notion too if The Dept of Energy and Public works employs people who actually know something about bicycles and active transport if they are going to be in charge of the supporting infrastructure.

Excellent video. I am happy to say that as far as I am aware there is no requirement for cyclists to adhere to speed limits in the UK. I also agree with you regarding punishing dangerous or reckless cycling, common sense should prevail over arbitrary rules.

I really don’t understand how kurilpa is 10kph but goodwill is 20kph. Goodwill at 5 in the arvo is waaaay more busy

Thank you for an amazing video! Keep it up mate

Absolutely fantastic video! Love your work 👌

QPS could spend 10mins a day doing an undercover ride down the bicentennial bikeway and pickup a handful of illegal e-bikes and scooters and actually do something to improve safety.

and motor vehicles stink, really, really stink. They should be fined heavily or banned (like indoor smoking was) just for doing that to us on a daily basis.

Down here in Victoria there's a short section with a 5 km/h limit on my commute which I laugh at every time. I always attempt to keep to it as it's good balancing practice! I don't think VicPolice care and I'm pretty sure there's a legal precedent regarding no speedos in our courts (there was an outrage story about it), but it's clear nobody who rides a bike sets these limits. I have a speedo on my bike, but it's not calibrated like a car's so who knows where that leaves me. Btw, $464 is more expensive than my entire bicycle bought brand new which would make it the driver equivalent of $20,000 to $30,000. Ridiculous!

Support this man in fighting big Carma, please.

Do the police also fine joggers, skaters and skate boarders for breaching the 10kmh limit? If not, the whole thing is discriminatory, so another reason it can't be enforced.

10km/hr makes no sense on that bridge unless it happened to be jammed full of people for some reason. The hazard would be that I'd disregard such absurd instruction, such as dismounting my bicycle to cross a road. And copping a $450 fine, absurd. That's simply hostile to active transport, point well made.

Good news! Today, I notice the speed limit was changed back to 20 km/hr! Now sure when it happend.

Someone needs to tell Victoria Police urgently! They semi-often get out at fine cyclists along Melbourne's Southbank. Wouldn't be such a problem if the busy riverside strip wasn't also the Capital City Trail...

Absolutely agree with everything except the notion that cyclists shouldn't have bells at 16:43. They shouldn't have to be necessary but the majority of the riders native to roads I encounter on shared paths who overtake me (on my mountain bike) and pedestrians aren't in the habit of yelling "passing!", and don't have a bell, so most don't give any warning when overtaking :/

I find it interesting that the fines for PMDs (i.e. e-scooters) are an order of magnitude lower than for cyclists in Queensland. So it's $154 for exceeding the speed limit by less than 14km/hr, and $232 for 14-20km/hr. Where for a bicycle that's $309-464. The truly bizarre bit is when you realise the bicycle speeding fines apply to both bicycles and e-bikes, but not e-scooters. I believe this is because there's a greater restriction in where you should be riding e-scooters (largely ignored and not enforced) but that situation is plainly ridiculous. Mind you - except for the dingbats who do 60km/hr+ on our bikeways on e-scooters (surprisingly common) the PMD riders are clearly not the enemy. So I hesitate to point this out because it'll just make their fines more expensive, not ours cheaper!

they keep running the new metro bus up and down saying its a trial and without taking any passengers and using alot of taxpayer money to deliver nothing... so given this fact do you think theres a chance they would have the common sense to fix your problem?

Common sense seems to have prevailed - the limit is now 20 crossing the shared bridge to George street.

10 km/h limit? LOL, I can jog faster than that with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other.

So glad I pay such high tax to fund the roads I don't use, and fund the police that are only out to fine us instead of doing anything about the youth crime epidemic. Good one Australia

How can you access the map of pedestrian crash data you showed for Brisbane? I think it would be helpful when writing to our MPs.

Here is one instance where I am glad to live in the US 🤣 WTF?? I'd fight it!!

To be fair Chris, the reporting rate for pedestrian - cyclist incidents will be far lower than that of pedestrian - car incidents. This would be cause of the worse outcomes for pedestrian comparatively (as was the point you made).

Interestingly, mate, the Federal road rules say that the speed limit for bicycles is 40km/h, and, as in all cases where State & Federal law contradict each other, Federal law always wins. Also, the law about E-bikes, (we use En19154, I think), says that they may not be assisted beyond 25km/h, not that this is the speed limit for E-bikes. Just thought you'd find this interesting, Chris. Great video, keep 'em coming, mate.

go softly, can we trial a 15 Kph speed limit..........

10:25 Chris, you’ve clearly got NO IDEA about a libertarian mindset: A libertarian would look at this whole thing and see unreasonable over governance that is impinging on people’s rights. If Campbell Newman is a libertarian then you’re a promoter of driving.