23 September 2006

Hi to all our cyclists,

This is a report back on a number of issues that should not happen.


The first two were reported to me, one anonymously due to fear of retribution. I don’t believe that that should be a concern. We as cyclists we should support each other in attempting clean up our act.

The first incident was a truck passing to close to a number of cyclists riding in the Lido area which is definitely unacceptable. The bunch carried on and low and behold came upon the offending vehicle which had been stopped by the police in a possible routine check. One of the cyclists in the bunch then took it upon himself to jump up into the cab and abuse and possibly attack the driver. The cyclist may have felt better but he definitely did not endear himself or his fellow cyclists to the attending police who, in fact, did appeal to him to control himself with some legal threat thrown in as well. The correct action in this instance would to have at the time of offense to memorize the truck’s identification or the like and report him to the company that he worked for. I have done this on a number of occasions and had positive feed back from the companies. In the instance that there are no markings, if you can amongst you memorize the registration number and thereafter lay a complaint or charge with the authorities. In all cases please report the precise event back to this office.

The second event was where a group of cyclists stopped at an intersection, also in the south, and so did a motorist. Then for whatever reason, the cyclists and the motorist started to move simultaneously. The report given to me anonymously is as follows; a cyclist within the group, I quote, named “Tony” and riding for “Panda” lost his cool and abused the motorist, a lady with children in the car. As this is an anonymous report and the evidence cannot be verified it remains purely a report. What I, as the safety officer will say, is, if this had been an official report with the witness willing to be part of the hearing. The offending cyclist would have been brought before a disciplinary committee and he and his club would have had severe action taken against them. I sincerely hope that the offending cyclist feels proud of his degrading action and succeeding to denigrate the cycling community. This type of behavior will not be tolerated by Central Gauteng Cycling.

The final incident that really should not happen occurred proceeding along Cedar in the 4Ways area and specifically at the Uranium and Cedar Intersection. What I believe to be the Cyclelab 4th group came through the intersection while the light was green for them. As the group was too large and to strung out the robot changed before they were all through. About twenty riders were then presented with a dilemma, do they cross or do they stop, they stopped, thank you, they were however not all at the crossing. Two cars that were stopped at the intersection then proceeded through and on their way, at that point about 8 riders then went through against the red light with two cars approaching and with right of way, by this time the balance of the group had arrived at the crossing and so did the cars. The cyclists seemed to stop then decided that, for whatever reason, they should proceed, they did and thank God the cars stopped, and they as cyclist do, have the right to do as they please, proceed totally against the law on their merry way making the motorist stop, when they in fact had the right of way. I was astounded, the motorists looked on in amazement and the cyclist did not even flinch at the occurrence. This is totally unacceptable.

Guys regarding the three incidents I cannot voice my opinion strongly enough, this only does our sport the world of harm and buys us no favours with anyone, the law or our fellow road users. Just to emphasize the importance of improving our image. Club 100 and Cyclelab have kicked off an initiative to test demarcating two routes with “Beware of Cyclists” road signage at their expense and it seems that we may finally be getting the permission from the relevant authorities to go ahead and if successful it will be the beginning of a provincial roll out. This will do, I believe, a great deal to improve the awareness of cycling and with the official signage it will possibly give us a little more legality on the roads. Our fellow road users may look at us with a little more tolerance. There is one proviso to the above and that is that I have undertaken that our members will become more complying to road regulations as well. We are in discussion presently with Metro authorities, to on occasion, patrol certain routes and if any cyclist are found to be contravening road regulations that they be fined as a normal road user, as we are and reported back to CGC. CGC have approached attorneys within our ranks to assist in instances of legalalities within our sport and members. However it is not a legal aid situation and each case when necessary will be discussed and decided on individually on its merit. I do not have their permission to publisise their names and I do not think that they should be contacted by all and sundry. So whatever issues are brought to the committee’s attention will be evaluated and decided on. The intention is to protect our sport against abuse. Presently we have two volunteers but if we could build up a panel so that we do not impose on any one person, that would be great. Anyone that would like to offer their services, please feel free to contact me. CGC are also going to initiate a driver of the month award and it will be publicized on Supersport and other media. To this end we invite you, our members, to forward recommendations. An instance was where a truck came up behind us on a narrow road slowing to our pace and waited until there was to traffic and then proceeded to overtake us completely on the right had side, even though we were riding single file and about half a meter off the edge. It also does not hurt to acknowledge courtesy shown to you, a thank you wave. Guys utopia still is a long way off but if we all have to do our bit, slowly, slowly catch the monkey.

Please obey the traffic laws as you would when driving your cars.

Safe Cycling


Giovanni



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