Ron's Rant

The plague of colourful scooters that has made a sudden appearance in our suburbs is dwindling with less and less foreshore riding as the 'new toy' uniqueness wears off. What hasn’t been noticed by many is the occasional scooter that has found its watery grave in our bay and waterways. I don't have an opinion either way on the virtues of scooters other than that there need to be rules as to their proper usage. The glaring thing that does stick out in my mind is the fact that our public servants, the ones that are charged with implementing these activities, give no thought as to educating the general public as to their safe and proper use. 

The right to drive a motorised vehicle such as a car requires many hours of supervised instruction, learning of road rules, culminating with a driving test to ensure that new drivers on our roads are fully aware of the rules to keep themselves and other safe. 

Unfortunately, this is not the case for other users of our roads such as bike riders and now motorised bicycles and scooters. It seems ludicrous that these riders can just hit our roads with no instruction, training or knowledge of the road rules. Top that off with the crazy and thoughtless ingress of council funded bike lanes in our suburbs that are squeezing out already congested car lanes and putting both bike/scooter riders at risk. Our Public Servants have given no thought to the safety aspects of putting slow moving cyclists, bikes/scooters, that have little knowledge or rules, on the same roads as cars both moving and parked. The onus of safety is being unfairly put on the licensed drivers rather than the unlicensed riders. 

Painting a couple of white lines on the road and then declaring that this is now a sacrosanct push bike pathway has been a stupid and dangerous act perpetrated by all our public services in the name of stemming the tide of global warming. Surely the safety of our citizens should be paramount and not be warped by idealistic political stupidity that puts people at risk. Our roads were designed for motorised vehicles such as cars and trucks and motorcycles. They are all registered and insured and driven by educated, licensed drivers and riders. To mix the educated and slow moving uneducated (or at least untested) on the same roads beggars belief. They need to be kept apart.

Our unthinking Public Servants should be ashamed and taken to task for their stupidity in letting our roads system deteriorate to what they have become, placing citizens in harm’s way. This fast-moving world is changing, and electric vehicles will soon be taking over our roadways. Roads that were designed to move, not block traffic. Councils and State government need to stop scooting around the subject and create a decent plan for allowing our community to commute safely, whether that be by car, bike, scooter or foot.