Wow. An awful lot of anger at cyclists in general in this thread.
First, the disclosure: I'm a keen cyclist. Have been for years. Trying to commute into work on my bike on a regular basis (2-3 days/week, moving up to 5 days/week as my fitness improves); also a fully licensed driver with my own car.
To this incident specifically: both the cyclist, and the taxi's passengers, share some of the blame, IMO. I look at where she was positioned, and how she was riding; she had stuff all room, and it looked to me like she was travelling a little bit on the fast side for the room she had. Against that, the passengers could have done more to check to make sure the area was clear; to be fair, they may not have been thinking about the possibility of cyclists. Also, from that clip on the Age's website, there didn't seem to be any indication from the taxi to show that it was dropping off passengers, which does increase the probability of a cyclist coming through.
Certainly, I don't think I would have been riding where she was. I prefer to have a bit more room to manoeuvre in case of incidents.
On to a few comments that jumped out at me…
"How convenient the cyclist just happened to have a recording device going at the time!!" A lot of cyclists - and motorbike riders, for that matter - have cameras recording their ride. Not because they expect anything to go wrong, but because, from experience, they know that the odds of police actually prosecuting without video evidence in the event of a mishap on the part of the car driver, are somewhere between "Buckley's" and "none". Most of the time, it's not necessary. But when it is necessary, boy, is it necessary. And hey, guess what - it seems that when this data is analysed, it suggests that the majority of crashes, near-crashes, and evasive action being necessary were caused by car drivers, mainly because they weren't looking for/expecting cyclists to be present.
"rule unto themselves… red lights don't apply to them apparently". Actually, there was a study done on this. The rate of red light running was just under 7% - and a very large number of those were cyclists turning left (still illegal, and I would not do it, but much safer than blithely sailing on through an intersection.)
"My only bitch about cyclists is they ride 2 abreast and overtake parked cars without even a cursory glace(sic) to see what is behind them." Two points in this one. First: riding two abreast is legal for cyclists. (Three or four abreast is not; you can, however, have a single file of cyclists overtaking other cyclists that are two abreast, for three cyclists side by side for a brief period of time.) Most cyclists, and certainly the ones I ride with, are sensible about this: if it's only one lane in each direction, for example, we'll drop down to single file. We're looking to get to our destination safely, and recognise that car drivers want to do the same; we aren't looking to deliberately slow cars down. But riding two abreast means that we're much more visible to car drivers; as intimated above, visibility means we're noticed, means we're much less likely to be collected and injured.
As for overtaking parked cars … yes, they should be checking, and I'd have serious concerns about the sanity of any cyclist that doesn't. No two ways about it. At the same time, gee, cyclists coming up to parked cars … might they perhaps want to move out? Might I, as a car driver, want to be prepared for it, just in case?
Finally, the bonus comment, on the subject of bike lanes. I can give you five good reasons why I'm frequently not in the bike lanes. One: debris. I invite you to have a look at a bike lane sometime - a good example is on the Maroondah Highway, near Eastlink. Filled with gravel, and who knows what else. If it's just gravel, that's a braking and turning hazard (because the traction will be reduced by the gravel, depending on how thick it is.) But as a cyclist, I don't know that it's just gravel; it might be glass, metal shards, or plastic shards, that run a very real risk of puncturing my tyre, and if I'm travelling at 30kph plus, that's a major hazard - in that situation, I'd be lucky to stay on my bike. So if I see debris, I'm moving out into the next lane over (making sure it's safe to do so, of course).
Two: potholes, drains, and similar. Again, hazards to the cyclist that aren't as immediately obvious to the car driver (who doesn't have to worry about them in the same way).
Three: the blasted things disappear right when we need them most. Coming up to a roundabout? Hey, where'd that bike lane go? Coming up to an intersection? Hang on, that bike lane just became a left turn lane for cars. And so on.
Four: the door zone. The number of car drivers that open their doors without looking for cyclists never ceases to amaze me. So if I see parked cars, you can bet your life that I'm going to be keeping at least a metre clear of them, so that even if a door is flung open unexpectedly, it won't collect me. I really don't want to win the door prize, thank you very much.
Five: consistency and predictability. I can move into the bike lane when it's safe to do so, and move back out when it isn't. Or I can stay in the one line and maintain a straight, consistent, and predictable path. Which do you think is more likely to be safe?
What it comes down to, from my perspective, is that both car drivers (especially) and cyclists need to learn to be more patient and respectful, rather than adopting an "us versus them" mentality. Both groups are trying to get to our destination with a minimum of hassle. Ironically, my own experience on my commute is that cars hold me up just as much as, if not more than, I hold them up: if I don't feel I can filter through safely when cars are stopped at lights, my commute's a lot slower than it would otherwise be without cars present. A couple of minutes either way really doesn't make that much difference in terms of getting there, but it can make a huge difference to a human life.
More than happy to have a polite, rational discussion on the subject; but don't be surprised if I opt to ignore people who just want to flame me.
Travel safely, folks, and try to relax a bit - it really does make life a lot more pleasant than if you're wound up all the time.
