I recently came across a Cyclist in Canberra who uploads videos yet alone hurling abuse but she has a horn! An actual horn! Not a ‘ ding ding bell ‘! Anyway in one of the videos she claims a Bus is in the wrong by being in the bike lane saying that the driver should of gave way… but there are signs all over the bus telling traffic to give way to them. See for yourself here, it starts at 2.08 :
That last bus that supposedly got in her way, well there was an off-road cycle path to the left in the video - that’s where I would have been rather than on the road.
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Agreed! Why wouldn’t you use that left path.
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Most cyclists are reasonable and stick to the paths, but some (which tend to be the lycra clad ones) are the foolhardy type who want to reaffirm their right to be on the road no matter what, and some of them have a victim complex which means that they ride aggressively to try and get themselves into situations which easily could have been de-escalated had they used a bit of caution.
For example, there are some cyclists who say that they won’t ride on shared paths because they don’t like the pedestrians on the path slowing them down, yet they don’t see the glaring hypocrisy of them blocking an entire lane of traffic on a main arterial road.
And for that bus example, my god there are so many videos on YouTube of cyclists getting testy when a bus pulls out, yet they are absolutely oblivious to the sign on the back of the bus which says ALL traffic must give way when a bus is pulling out of a kerb. This bloke, for example, says that he ‘dared to pass a bus’ while it was waiting to pull out (the actual footage he’s neglected to put up, but it’s in the description) - his LEGAL obligation was to give way to the bus.
That’s right, this dickhead held up a bus carrying maybe 30 people on it just so he could save a second or two.
If I were in charge, I’d ban cycling on many major arterial roads throughout the city which run parallel to cycleways, shared paths and other parallel routes which run on local streets.
That’s not to say I don’t support cycling and cycleways - I think they are important and more of them should be built. But the cyclists must be forced to use them where they are provided.
Did you know that it’s actually perfectly legal for someone to ride a pushbike through the General Holmes Drive Tunnel and on the main lanes of the Anzac Bridge in Sydney? These roads are basically freeways, yet pushbikes are still allowed on them for some inexplicable reason, and you’ll often find that people will ride on them because they find delight in holding up traffic.
And the recent push to introduce legislation whereby the driver of a car is held at fault unless they can produce evidence to the contrary is the biggest load of rubbish. They say that in 70% of cyclist-car accidents, the driver of the car is at fault, so they say we should adopt the European model whereby motorists are automatically presumed to be at fault in a collision with a cyclist or pedestrian.
However, that reasoning for introducing such legislation to cover cyclists and pedestrians is ridiculous. It clearly was not implemented in the European countries just because statistics showed that one side was more likely to be at fault than the other.
It’s generally accepted that pedestrians are at fault in collisions 70-90% of the time, and there are always FAR more deaths of pedestrians than cyclists. So why do pedestrians still have advantageous treatment under this European system?
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This is a result of some idiots in the federal government years ago (presumably Department of Transport, but who knows maybe Health) who wanted to encourage more cycling and so federal money was provided to local governments for every kilometre of roadway that a cycle lane was added, even when it duplicated existing cycleways.
Local govts didn’t get the money for maintaining the existing cycleway, just for painting a lane on the road, so in Canberra they stopped maintaining cycleways, and moved bicycles closer to cars!
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on that subject…
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Even though the 04xx series gives us 100 million possible numbers, I can see why they have been exhausted, as including data sims and USB 4G dongles, I’ve probably used 4 or 5 different numbers.
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I’ve had two numbers my entire life. One from 2009 to 2011, and then another from 2011 hereon. Although I did have a number in PNG for my shitty phone, so technically three. Four if you include my German number.
They should have began using the 05xx range for data only services years ago
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Yes, for some reason (I think) data services were all allocated 049x. I don’t think there’s any voice services in this range. I had a USB dongle with the number in the 0499 range, and a data sim in the 0493 range.
When I got my first mobile in 2001 with Telstra, I declined a 0418 number because I thought it might be recycled. I ended up taking a 0408 number, which I still use now.
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I’ve only ever had one personal mobile number, the same one since 1996. I’d had a couple of work mobile numbers but those would have got recycled to other employees after I left.
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I think you can apply the Seinfeld thing whereby people can judge others by their area codes.
Having an 040x, 041x or 042x number indicates the person has probably kept their number for at least fifteen years - indicates experience, stability etc.
If a middle aged person has an 047x, 048x or 049x number, it probably means they have gone through many numbers in the past decade because they let their prepaid mobile run out of credit and couldn’t be bothered porting the number over. Indicates potential sloppiness and instability.
I got my first mobile in 2006, with an 043x number. Eventually (talking 40 or 50 years), I’d expect 04 numbers to become rare, prized things in a similar vein to the 212 area code in Manhattan.
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I agree! LOL!
And that middle aged person with a late series number has had bad relationships, they’ve changed their number at least once because their ex keeps bombarding them with vicious texts etc.
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Mine must’ve been recycled. 0400xXxX, so a very old number.
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I’ve got a 042 number I’ve had since 2008, and the data sim I got in April this year is a 041 number. My previous phone number was 043 that I had from about 1997 to 2008. 
Edit: my 043 number must have been from 1999, I did have a couple of other numbers before then.
As someone who grew up in Wollongong in the 90s, you had me confused for a second there! All of our advertising material quoted phone numbers which started with 042.
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Not to mention the alarm systems, EFTPOS machines, elevators and countless other industrial and commercial equipment that are equipped with SIMs.
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I’ve got my old 0400 xxx xxx number from about 15 years ago and my work number when I changed jobs about 6 months ago is an 0490 xxx xxx number and was one of the first on MyNetFone’s 4G mobile plans which they launched a couple of months ago.
I think the opposite: The 04 numbers can be recycled to data-only so calls & SMSs can be easily ignored, while 05 numbers should go to phones only.
The 0467 SIM in my Telstra Wi-Fi mobile data device I got a few months ago immediately received SMSs intended for whoever previously had the number.
(I don’t recall if I received SMSs on my older Telstra USB one which has an 0499 number which I had for several years.)
It’s an inexact ‘science’; no doubt some percentage just wanted to be rid of an irritating ex.
041 here; and it’s been ported several times & been on the Optus, Vodafail & Telstra networks.
The number prefix also indicates which carrier it was originally issued from as they have separate blocks, so for example 040 isn’t necessarily older than 043.
When the old numbering plan switched to the current one in the mid 1990s, mobiles with 014, 016, 018 and 019 numbers were switched to 0404, 0406, 0408, 0409, 0414, 0416, 0418 and 0419 numbers (the last digit remaining the same, but with either a ‘040’ or ‘041’ randomly prefixed before it) according to Wikipedia. So they’re the ones you really need to look out for.
One of my uncles (a top solicitor) has an 0414 number, and I’m willing to bet that he’s had it since the days of analogue mobile phones in the 1980s.
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