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Cyclist not passing on the left - image cc licensed by Sam Saunders on Flickr.jpgAussie cyclist fined $152 for passing a stationary car
A cyclist in Melbourne, Australia, has been fined $152 for passing a vehicle that he says was stationary and waiting for pedestrians to cross the road in the city's central business district.
The cyclist was 65-year old Laurie Duncan, a long-time member of Australia's cycling inclusion organisation the Bicycle Network. He told newspaper The Age that his pass of the vehicle was safe, and while the car had its indicator on, informing other road users that it was turning left, it wasn't moving because pedestrians were crossing the road.
"I was unaware I was doing anything wrong," Mr Duncan said in a police statment. "I didn't think it was dangerous."
Dangerous or not, Australia's road laws are clear when it comes to the majority of cycling infractions - often to the bewilderment of cyclists in the country.
Australia is renowned for its often criticised bike laws which appear to dissuade many people from cycling. Here on road.cc we've covered stories of bizarre fines for violations of helmet laws, bike light laws, and even no brake laws, but this is a first for passing a stationary vehicle.
>Read more: Cyclist in New South Wales fined for no bell, no helmet, and no brake (on a fixie)
By the book, Mr Duncan was in the wrong. Australia's Road Safety Road Rules 2009, specifically regulation 141(2) show that he broke the law; the regulation reads "the rider of a bicycle must not ride past, or overtake, to the left of a vehicle that is turning left and is giving a left change of direction signal."
To contest the fine Mr Duncan hired a lawyer, and took the case to Melbourne Magistrates Court in September, but lost.
Mr Duncan says he sees many cyclists doing what he did and argued that if the law was rigorously enforced it would "cause chaos."
"Hundreds of cyclists do exactly what I did every day of the week, in the [central business district] alone, and the police do nothing about it because they know that if they enforced this interpretation of the law it would cause chaos," he said.
"I get, 100 per cent, that if you pass on the left and there aren't pedestrians there you're an idiot because you'll get knocked over.
"But when a car is stationary and can't turn because either there's a red light or there's pedestrians there, it happens thousands of times a day that cyclists stream past cars.
"If they enforce this law, what's going to happen now is that cyclists will have to get off their bike and just wait there. It will be just ridiculous."
While Mr Duncan may be incredulous as to how his behaviour has resulted in a fine, the Australian bike organisation, Bicycle Network, which he is a member of has said that the Victoria Roads Comission (VicRoads) is researching behaviour at intersections with the view of changing the laws with regards to Mr Duncan's situation.
Senior policy advisor for Bicycle Network, Garry Brennan, said: "VicRoads has commissioned a study to Monash University, which has set up cameras at intersections to observe behaviour and analyse what is actually happening."
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38 comments
Most of these commenters are wrong and the guy should have had a better lawyer. The law clearly states that the car must be indicating left AND turning left. BOTH conditions must be meet not just 1. If the car is stationary then it is stopped not turning and only 1 condition is met so it's NOT illegal to overtake on the left. Of course you have to be careful that the car doesn't start to move suddenly but in my 30+ years of commuter cycling in Sydney & other traffic, that doesn't catch a cyclist very often. I've overtaken many a police car with no comment from them.
The real issue that everyone is missing here is the harrassment of cyclists in Australia by ignorant police egged on by aggressive "shock jock" media people intent on selling more cars by demonising cyclists. Quite frankly many of the police & some of the public don't care about cyclists' safety and would rather see us dead anyway. They just want to annoy us because we beat them through city traffic & don't have to "pay rego".
Everybody else is doing it...
Well you got caught and that excuse won't hold up in court.
Sure it sucks but if everyone is doing 90mph and you get caught doing 90mph, then it's your fault for breaking the law.
Funny, I've never managed to turn my car either left or right unless it was actually moving
He is passing to the left of a vehicle that is indicating left while it is waiting for pedestrians?
That sounds dumb on all counts. First of all, what about the pedestrians? If you were in a car would you overtake a vehicle that is waiting for pedestrians? I don't think so. Why would you do that on a bike? And it seems a pretty sensible rule: don't overtake on the left, a vehicle that is indicating its intention to turn left.
He sounds like an obtuse sort of fellow.
Pick your fights.
here is the junction care of Google (hopefully) - stop line just visible - so vehicle moves forward on green light and starts to turn - ped's are crossing to left so gives way - cyclist rides through gap between car and ped's - sitting behind the car is the safe (and 100% legal option) personally I'd always vote for safe irrespective of legal (to the right not an option with tram track)
Swanston Flinders left turn.JPG
The rule:
"the rider of a bicycle must not ride past, or overtake, to the left of a vehicle that is turning left and is giving a left change of direction signal."
It was stationary. Not turning. Both conditions had to be true for an infraction to have occurred. Only one was true. No infraction.
well it was tested in a court and the magistrate found otherwise.
That might be what the Aussie rules say, but its nonsense. By that definition it is OK to overtake to the left of a vehicle which is turning left and not indicating.
Well, that is the problem with kneejerk, poorly drafted laws. Always unintended consequences.
And why it's not for a magistrate to make case law. If the law as drafted needs interpretation - ie a good guess at what the legislators actually intended - then it should be done by qualified judges, not some layperson magistrate.
That law is not fit for purpose. If the 'and' is supposed to be interpreted as an 'or', then, conversely to your example, it also makes it possible to stop all undertaking at any time by simply turning on your indicator. Hopefully also not the legislators intention!
Nonsense. A left-turning vehicle is turning left whether it's moving or not. If he's sitting with his indicator on he _is_ turning left. The indicator on or off makes no difference to whether he's turning left or not, and that is what the "and" is for, to make it an offense only when the driver has indicated his intentions. It seems perfectly sensible to me.
I disagree. In fact, having thought about it more, I now have slightly changed my mind and (possibly) disagree with this cyclist being fined at all.
The key question is - is it a finable offence for a driver to indicate and _not_ turn (or to turn without indicating)?
If you want to make it a finable offence for a cyclist to pass an indicating vehicle on the insider, you HAVE to also make it an offence for a motorist to indicate if they aren't actually turning.
Otherwise you've just declared a motorist can arbitrarily ban anyone from passing them on the insider, wheter they are turning or not. For the law to be justified against cyclists, indicating and turning must be legally obliged to go together.
Certainly I often encounter drivers signalling a turn, and then not actually turning till about three side-roads further on. Or turning, and _then_ indicating for halfway down the road they just turned into.
The penalty for a cyclist ignoring an indicator should really just be that if they _are_ then hit by the turning vehicle, they can be said to have contributory neglicance and can't blame the driver. I don't see there's a reason to fine them for those cases where they correctly judged that the driver wasn't actually turning at all.
You would be OK in Manchester UK, as very few motorist indicate left or only indicate as they make the manoeuvre. A lot of motorist turning right at traffic lights only indicate when the lights change to green.
Oh, get them! There's posh! Here in Bristol the motorists seem to believe that bicycles grant some amazing ability to either read minds or see the future...
Highway code (uk) says you should not overtake at a junction.
Therefore the uk must also be a shitty place to live as they have laws to try and protect peoples safety.
The guy was in the wrong. Grow up, pay fine, move on.
Australia: A shit place to live.
live in Melbourne and find it hard to relate to this cyclist's argument
the law is pretty straight forward -
You must not overtake a vehicle:
on the left if it is turning left and indicating left
(http://www.victorialawfoundation.org.au/riding-road not the UK highway code)
To understand what the cyclist did you need to be aware that in Victoria drivers (and cyclists) if turning on a green light may have to give way to pedestrians crossing who also have a green light.
So the vehicle is moving forward from the stop line, indicating left but then stopping to allow the ped's to cross, cyclist passes through gap between the vehicle waiting for the pedestrians to clear and the pedestrians crossing - is this safe? I'd argue definitely not - the vehicle is moving and starting to turn even if it does actually become stationary - just because thousands of cyclists do it is similar to the argument that speeding is fine because everbody does it.
Another way to look at would be if a vehicle was waiting to turn right but remained stationary because pedestrians were crossing the road the driver is wanting to enter - again in Victoria drivers are supposed to give way to pedestrians in this situation - would it be OK for a car to overtake the vehicle waiting to turn right?
if the law was rigorously enforced it would "cause chaos."
No it would just delay your journey - a bit like what all the other road rules do
My position is the problem isn't the law but narrow congested roads in an area with high pedestrian density - the political solution that probably will never happen is reducing vehicle access to the area and giving over full width lanes to cyclists - campaigning for this is probably more rational than challenging a reasonable law.
Strange responses on here, then we get cyclists complaining about cars turning left on them, and its all the motorists fault!
No in this case the cyclist at fault. Car was indicating, cyclist saw it, went for ghe gap anyway.
Complaint is when they don't indicate, such as a lorry driver sits at the red light, then only turns indicator on as he pulls away and crushes s woman in the bus lane, (not even s cycle lane). Aquitted by the jury of course. Cyclists responsibility to get out of the way, even when they font tell you where they're going.
Exactly - nobody's defending the cyclist in this particular incident, Griff. But I agree about 'strange responses'. Add 'usual, predictable, binary, blanket responses' to that too, if you like.
So wd're agreed. The cyclist is at fault, and we can't have it both ways. We can't ignore a left indicator when it suits us and then complain about motorists cutting us off.
What do you mean by 'cutting us off'?
We can complain just a tad about being left-hooked or worse by drivers suffering from SMIDSY, yes.
Especially when they're not indicating or coming from behind, yes.
Or even when we're filtering up the inside. Whether you like it or not, the Highway Code justifies it. The Highway Code also makes a point or two about smidsy and squashing more vulnerable road users.
Part of my journey to work involves a painted cycle lane along a single lane road which provides access to service yards for office buildings, to a multi storey (for a casino, believe it or not) and eventually to a large underground car park.
The number of cars that don't think that a painted cycle lane is a real lane to their left, and assume that the cyclist should give way to them rather than they wait until the lane to their left is clear... I dread to think what they're like on motorways.
There be big shit that can do them damage on motorways.
But I'd have a word with your council about that cycle lane - seems maybe the Paint isn't Magic enough?
Not even sure I understand what cycle lanes are any more! I regularly pass Edinburgh Uni (Kings Bldgs) which has a cycle lane on the road. There are cars parked along a 200 yard stretch, all day, every day, taking the cycle lane out of use.
Not sure we do agree, I have never justified his actions, he clearly has no defence and would have been better off paying whatever initial fine there was than challenging it in court.
but I don't feel that just because this cyclist passes left indicating vehicles on the left, that it is ok for other vehicles to left hook me or any other cyclist with or without indicating.
What on earth do you mean by 'we'?
BS. Monash University research shows that in about 85% of incidents it's the motorists at fault not the cyclists. They also found that the cyclists were the ones who usually managed to avoid the motorists to prevent the incident the motorist caused from becoming a crash.
The Aussie highway code or UK? Can you tell me which part says never pass even a stationary car on the inside? Are you sure it's law? Did you really intend to visit this site?
Simples... Never pass a car on the inside even stationary, if we want to be taken seriousley then follow the highway code. This law is there for everyones safety .
Own the road, overtake on the right, move to the center in narrow lanes, dont jump on and off pavements.
The Highway Code is clear that passing a vehicle on the inside, also known as filtering, is acceptable.
Rule 88, Rule 160, & Rule 211.
But not sure what the UK Highway Code has to do with an incident in Oz.
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