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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (30 March) . . Page.. 1121 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

noticed any calamities arising from that. I doubt that the police would want to enforce this law as I am sure that they would have better things to do than stand round a pedestrian crossing waiting for cyclists to pass by.

The Minister, in defence of the indefensible, attempted to argue that there were safety reasons for this rule. The statistic that has been thrown around is that a cyclist moving onto the road from a path is twice as likely to collide with a car at a pedestrian crossing as a cyclist on a road. The fact is that we have been given no information on where these statistics came from. I have been told that they come from a study in California, hardly a place similar to Canberra. This statistic is really a red herring. It is quite logical to say that it is more dangerous for a cyclist to cut across the line of traffic than to travel with it. However, if the Government is really serious about this danger, it should have required cyclists to dismount before crossing any section of road. But no, the road rules require cyclists to dismount only at pedestrian crossings. It is quite okay under the rules for a cyclist to move a mere 20 metres away from the crossing and ride across the road. In some ways it is more dangerous for a cyclist to ride across the road away from a crossing than at a crossing. At least at a crossing a motorist should be expecting someone to cross the road at this point and be more prepared to stop.

It should also be noted this rule applies not just to zebra crossings but also to signalised pedestrian crossings. In this situation, if the traffic light is red for motorists, they should be stopping anyway, regardless of whether a cyclist or pedestrian is crossing the road. A cyclist who rides across a signalised crossing against the lights breaks the law under either the old or new laws and that is not something that should be encouraged in any situation. (Extension of time granted) It is quite clear that this rule is not primarily about making it safer for cyclists, but to reduce conflict between cyclists and pedestrians where they cross the restricted area of a pedestrian crossing. If the Minister is serious about collecting relevant statistics, he should be looking at the number of times that cyclists collide with pedestrians on pedestrian crossings or the number of car accidents involving cyclists riding across the road at pedestrian crossings relative to car accidents involving pedestrians walking across the road at such crossings. I doubt that such studies have been done, but just on the anecdotal evidence from around Canberra, which is where we should be looking at, there is not a significant problem.

If the Government is so concerned about safety, it is being quite inconsistent with this rule as skateboarders or persons on scooters are still allowed to ride their skateboards or scooters across a pedestrian crossing rather than dismount. Even children on tricycles can ride across crossings. Rollerbladers can also ride across pedestrian crossings. Requiring cyclists to get off their bikes is very inconvenient for cyclists and also for the motorists who have to wait for the cyclist to walk across the road when formerly they would have ridden across more quickly.

The Minister has just announced that the Australian Road Rules will be changed to allow a cyclist to ride across selected marked crossings controlled by traffic lights. I am glad that the national maintenance group has realised that the existing rule is silly and needs to be amended, but I believe that in the process they have just made the rules more complicated for cyclists. Firstly, the amended rule applies only to crossings

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