NCA response to their inadequate safety barrier, a sign to be ignored

Link said :

It was a much more action-packed story when I thought they meant the cyclist went over the rail and into the lake.

Perhaps the could just swap the guard rails between the lake side and the road side to save money and provide entertainment for tourists.

niftydog said :

“Canberra Times September 21, 2012”
He was heading south on the footpath. The other cyclist was heading north and veered to the right to get off the footpath and on to the road.

Regardless of the railing debate, it sounds like North deliberately veered into the path of oncoming traffic (the other rider) and collected South head on in the process. Do people honestly ride along a path without looking forward!? If the traffic was at a stand-still, North probably wouldn’t have even needed a head check (although that wouldn’t be an excuse for why they didn’t see South anyway)

Can North be charged with dangerous or negligent riding by any chance?

It was a much more action-packed story when I thought they meant the cyclist went over the rail and into the lake.

“Canberra Times September 21, 2012”
He was heading south on the footpath. The other cyclist was heading north and veered to the right to get off the footpath and on to the road.
…
“A witness said it was quite spectacular. I was hit and went up in the air and over the railing and landed on my back on my backpack between the cars.”

Wait a second…

Going by these first-hand accounts, the accident most likely happened somewhere in this vicinity. The barrier would not have even been a factor if the accident had happened just a few seconds earlier. The NCA Ass-Covering Committee is clearly hard at work here.

My question to the Committee Chair is this; If you flip “up in the air” and, I assume, high enough to flip ass-first over your handlebars, then would the taller barrier really have prevented him from landing on the road? Or prevented him from sustaining some other injury BECAUSE of the taller barrier?

Why don’t the NCA head off potential future litigation and just build a 3m high steel-reinforced brick wall on both sides of both paths from Albert Street to King Edward Terrace, fully lined with soft padding then equip it with first aid kits every 2m?

DrKoresh said :

$3 MILLION? For a mother-lumping railing on Commonwealth bridge, do I have this right?

How does it cost 3 million dollars? HOW?

And banning cyclists from riding across it until they can find this stupid amount of money, that’s ridiculous, can’t they bung up some chicken-wire or something until then?

To re-iterate, HOW THE LUMP DOES IT COST THREE MILLION DOLLARS TO ALTER A LUMPING RAILING?! WHAT THE LUMP!?

Yeah i’d reckon about $250G for the metal and $2.75M to install it,bargain. Should take about a year to install reducing Commonwealth Ave down to two lanes.Nothing unusual there!

All I can say, It just takes one person…….

To elaborate – what kind of an idiot can fall over a barrier, oh wait, just read the report. It was a collision between two cyclists. Who’d have thought that cyclists have accidents too. Were they going the same direction? One would hope so. Well, once they get their super cycleways, this will be an ever increasing problem. Then they’ll need to have CTP insurance in case they hit someone and injure them [do they have this at the moment?] as well as a means of identification. Mmmmm, sounds like what has been suggested here more than a few times.

I am also outraged that the expense is so much to rectify. It only took 6 weeks to come up with this figure? After the incident, I cannot see the system working so fast to come to a solution. How many other black spots have taken years of studies and committees to come up with a plan, prior to getting quotes and funding? This stinks of pandering to minority groups in my opinion.
Still, I can smile at the irony in this, from now on they will have to walk over the bridge or risk death and/or road rage attacks on the tar. But who will police it??????

If it’s a lawful road sign, why shouldn’t they?

Does this mean I can go out tomorrow, ride a bike and flip over the barrier and injure myself, sue the government and be winning at life!!!

The race is on, can I get out there before the sign goes up?

And are police seriously going to enforce the demount signage appearing out of nowhere?

The Police most likely won’t enforce this – it’s more to cover the government’s arse in case a similar accident happens again.

Judgemental or what? Some poor person has an accident, and people here condemn them as “idiot” and “stupid”. Tell you what, I’ll be judgemental too – “no, youse are, stupid heads!”