Very disturbing article in the SMH today

[Steve Axford]

I will add one more thing, which is the basis of my trustworthiness. A few years back, I used to ride my pushbike to work and back. The trip home was a distance of 42km, so I was not dawdling. One day while tearing along a bike path along side the Merri Creek in Coburg, what did I see coming my way. Father and son taking up the head, 4 females coming up the rear covered head to foot. As I approached the son stepped aside to let me through. The father grabbed him and placed him back beside him. Now I had a split second choice, run the kid over, which would had dislodged me from the bike and well have been beaten to death before I was conscious, or leave the track and be impaled by a tree. I choose the second. I did come a cropper in the bush, but un impaled. When I got to my feet and looked at where I had come from, there was Father, son and the 4 females, walking off as if nothing had happened. I could have been badly injured or worse, did they care, NO. In fact I think they wanted me hurt. This act told me, the Father was telling his son "he is not one of us, so he does not matter". Now you are going to say, but that was just one. OK, so next time, do I trust them to step aside for me. NO. It will not happen.

My sympathies. You probably did not read the rules for such paths before using them, and perhaps you still haven't. A cyclist is always required to give way to pedestrians on shared paths and the fact that you were going too fast to stop would indicate a degree of reckless driving on your part. On checking the bicycle rules, it would seem that you are actually not allowed to ride on these shared paths as an adult unless you are supervising children. I hadn't realised that one either, but then I never travelled at a speed that would put walkers in risk of their lives.

[thegrump]

[hide][top]I am pretty sure those rules apply to onroad / footpath bike shared lanes. The path I was on was an off road bike path. I have been involved with many campaigns over many years with Bicycle Victoria.

Bicycle paths

You do not have to use an off road bicycle path, separated footpaths or shared paths if there is one.

[hide][top]Riding on a footpath or shared path

You can ride on a footpath if you:

• are a child under the age of 12
• are an adult supervising a child under the age of 12
• have been given and are following the conditions on a medical certificate that says you have a disability that makes it difficult for you to ride on the road. You must be able to show the certificate to a police officer or authorised person when asked.

[ameerat42]

Reminder: Folks, remember to keep discussions on topic and not confrontational.

[Steve Axford]

The rules are a little unclear, but it seems likely that you should not endanger life by riding at a speed that does not allow you to stop should there be a need - eg running into a pedestrian. I was always surprised that there hadn't been a death during the rush hour on one of Melbourne's bike paths. The Merry Creek path isn't wide enough to ride at high speed on. I could imagine any number of people getting upset by high speed cyclists on that path. To use your incident as an excuse to condemn an entire section of humanity seems a little steep. Did you apologise to them?

- - - Updated - - -

Reminder: Folks, remember to keep discussions on topic and not confrontational.

I missed that. You may delete my post if you wish, though I do think it is on topic and I don't think it is confrontational.

[ameerat42]

Nah! Leave it. That's why I made it "reminder".

[Brian500au]

I will add one more thing, which is the basis of my trustworthiness. A few years back, I used to ride my pushbike to work and back. The trip home was a distance of 42km, so I was not dawdling. One day while tearing along a bike path along side the Merri Creek in Coburg, what did I see coming my way. Father and son taking up the head, 4 females coming up the rear covered head to foot. As I approached the son stepped aside to let me through. The father grabbed him and placed him back beside him. Now I had a split second choice, run the kid over, which would had dislodged me from the bike and well have been beaten to death before I was conscious, or leave the track and be impaled by a tree. I choose the second. I did come a cropper in the bush, but un impaled. When I got to my feet and looked at where I had come from, there was Father, son and the 4 females, walking off as if nothing had happened. I could have been badly injured or worse, did they care, NO. In fact I think they wanted me hurt. This act told me, the Father was telling his son "he is not one of us, so he does not matter". Now you are going to say, but that was just one. OK, so next time, do I trust them to step aside for me. NO. It will not happen.

It is interesting how you have come to the conclusion the family could decide you were not "one of them" by seeing a person riding a bike on the Merri Creek bike path. I have never had that skill where I could look at a person riding a bike and determine their ethnicity, religion or cultural background.

As for the way people dress - I have often wondered why western people wear a "tie". I see no practical purpose other than to distinguish a position of power in a western society. We have even coined a phrase for them as white collar or blue collar workers. I can only assume peer pressure is the reason we must wear one to work in an office, because I certainly don't wear one when i mow the lawns on the weekend. I find them very uncomfortable, too short to wipe my arse and inappropriate to use it to wipe my nose. It always gets in the way when I am eating my lunch, and I can find nowhere in our corporate policy as to why all my colleagues are also wearing a tie around their neck today.

I wonder if other societies suffer the same peer pressure to wear some "head to foot" garb? After all it is not illegal to disburse with burka in Afghanistan since the Taliban lost control over the country.

[Mark L]

If you sing our National Anthem when riding a bike, will everyone get out of the way??

[thegrump]

I'm sure with my voice, they would

[Cricket]

Don't get me started on the "burqa" It is just a way for men of those culturse to oppress their women.

If any race decides to live in a country where women have equal rights then that custom should be abided by and respect for women should be practiced by men of any race who decide to live here in Australia.


As for our Australian anthem and Australian flag, they should be respected by everyone. It is not the song nor the material from which they are made that holds the significance but what they stand for. Many of our country men and women have fought and lost their lives protecting for what they stand for.

[thegrump]

Cricket: Amen ( as I wrote that I realized, what a stupid word ). Amended to I agree.

[ameerat42]

Cricket: Amen ( as I wrote that I realized, what a stupid word ). Amended to I agree.

TG. Go tell it on the mountain, ie. to the Hebrews, and so be it.

(Then start running fast back down the mountain)

[landyvlad]

If any race decides to live in a country where women have equal rights then that custom should be abided by and respect for women should be practiced by men of any race who decide to live here in Australia.

Islam is not a race.

Therefore, despite the whines of the lefties, criticising Islam is not racist.

[ameerat42]

Islam is not a race.

Therefore, despite the whines of the lefties, criticising Islam is not racist.

But it is a religion, and so criticising it - or any other - is still bigotry.

In fact, criticising anything unproductively is that.

[Cage]

But it is a religion, and so criticising it - or any other - is still bigotry.

In fact, criticising anything unproductively is that.

Yes, Islam is a religion, along with Catholicism, Protestantism, (similar/same to Catholicism, till the Poms decided to stop the flow of riches to Rome), Hinduism, Buddhism, Scientology, plus countless other various local beliefs.

Am, most of them espouse the same basic philosophy for living in harmony with your fellows. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill etc, however with some groups it only seems to apply to their own band of followers.

My own particular view of religion is that it was instigated by a few far-seeing people who realised that mankind needed a set of basic principles for it's continued existence. To help the uneducated masses better understand the philosophy, they came up with some unseen superior beings to replace their Sun Gods, Moon Gods, Harvests Gods et al, namely Allah, Buddha, Mohamed, God, or whatever name they chose for their particular area.

If anyone chooses to blindly follow those ancient contrived deitys, well that is their choice, but please don't insult my intelligence by
expecting me kowtow to, be influenced, or intimidated, by your particular version of the God Squad.

And no, I'm not an Atheist. I've experienced too many unexplained occurrences to go down that road. Fortunately, for me, my mind is open to the fact that I don't have all the answers, and probably never will.

[Mark L]

Don't get me started on the "burqa" It is just a way for men of those culturse to oppress their women.

If any race decides to live in a country where women have equal rights then that custom should be abided by and respect for women should be practiced by men of any race who decide to live here in Australia.

If only all man in Australia would respect women’s equal rights and abilities. Domestic violence, rape, un-equal pay, not enough women in high places ....... But that's a whole other thread.
Or I could be totally missing the mark and racism and sexism don't exist in the land gert by sea (woops, another threat).

[Brian500au]

Don't get me started on the "burqa" It is just a way for men of those culturse to oppress their women.

Normally I would leave this alone but I see you have a few likes for this comment so I feel compelled to comment also.

Admittedly there are some countries in the world that have archaic laws for women (women are not allowed to drive in Saudia Arabia), but wear of head dress for women is rarely a way for men to oppress their woman. I work in a very multi cultural society (Singapore). 50% of the people I work with are Muslim. I know this by their chosen name (Muhammad), by the food they eat (or don't eat), the the way they act during some periods of the year (Ramadan) or by the way they dress (head scarf). My immediate manager is a Muslim woman who wears a head scarf. She in no way appears to me to be a submissive woman in any shape or form.

The fact is most Muslim women chose to wear head dress as a personal choice - many do not wear a head dress all time (only on certain occasions). By spreading rumors those that do wear head dress only do so under duress is just adding misconceptions already out there to fuel the bigots and racists already rampant in our society.

If any race decides to live in a country where women have equal rights then that custom should be abided by and respect for women should be practiced by men of any race who decide to live here in Australia.

You are honestly living in a cocoon and in doing so you are adding to the problems we face here in Australia. The following statistics are Australian men against Australian women. Unless by some miracle there has been a dramatic change in those Australian men in the last ten years I would suggest the same statistics are still relevant today. The day we fix our own problems in our own back yard is the day we will be qualified to advise the rest of the planet how to go about setting their policies.

[hide][top]DOMESTIC VIOLENCE STATISTICS

The vast majority of dangerous, abusive and violent behavior that occurs in the privacy of people's homes is committed by men against women. The most recent information on violence in Australia comes from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Personal Safety Survey (national survey of 16,400 adults in Australian aged 18 years and over) conducted in 2005. The first issue of this survey was conducted in 1996. The 2005 survey found:

• Just under half a million Australian women reported that they had experienced physical or sexual violence or sexual assault in the past 12 months.

• More than a million women had experienced physical or sexual assault by their male current or ex-partner since the age of 15 (some women may be counted twice if they experienced both physical and sexual assault).

• 37.8% of women who experienced physical assault in the 12 months before the survey said the perpetrator was a current or previous male partner and 34.4% said the perpetrator was a male family member or friend. Most incidences of physical assault against women in the 12 months prior to 2005 were committed in a home (64.1%).

• 33.3% of women had experienced physical violence since the age of 15.

• 19.1% of women had experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.

• 12.4% of women had been sexually abused before the age of 15, compared with 4.5% of men, between 1996 and 2005. There was an increase in the reporting of sexual assault to police from 14.9% to 18.9% between 1996 and 2005 and there was an increase in the reporting of physical violence to police from 18.5% to 36%.

• 64% of women who experienced physical assault and 81.1% of women who experienced sexual assault still did not report it to police. The proportion of women aged between 18 and 34 who reported experiencing physical violence has decreased but the proportion of women who reported experiencing physical violence after 45 increased over the same period. The percentage of women who reported that their children had witnessed partner-related violence either from a current or ex-partner was lower than in 1996.

• The majority of violence against men is committed by other men. Of men who reported that they had experienced physical violence in the 12 months before the survey, 73.7% said that the perpetrator was a male.

Source: Department of Families, Housing and Community Affairs Fact Sheet 2 Women's Safety.

[Cage]

Perhaps we should all climb back up into the trees for a couple of hundred thousand years, and contemplate the mess we have created, particularly in the last couple of hundred years.

Advances in medical science has extended our life expectancy, however on the other hand we have fine tuned the methods to exterminate each other.

[Cricket]

Brian I do not agree with you so we will just have to agree to disagree. If you had read my post I refer to the burqa, which is head to foot covering only allowing a slit for the eyes. Why do you think their men insist on women wearing this garment in public? I am not referring to a simple head scarf covering the head. Research head coverings, as one will find that even Christians over time have worn head coverings in church and for religious reasons.

I also refer you back to my post where I state that ""any race" who decides to live in a country where women have equal rights then that custom should be abided by and respect for women should be practiced by men of any race who decide to live here in Australia" and to me that statement also includes Australians.

I believe I made no mention of religion what so ever in my post.

Your statistics on domestic violence however is not complete as it does not state whether these men are Australian born, Australian citizens, or Australian residents but I do agree they do list "men"


And futhermore I stand by my last paragraph in my original post 100%

[ameerat42]

Perhaps we should all climb back up into the trees for a couple of hundred thousand years, and contemplate the mess we have created, particularly in the last couple of hundred years.

Advances in medical science has extended our life expectancy, however on the other hand we have fine tuned the methods to exterminate each other.

Better than going on a 1-way trip to Mars and wrecking that place too!

[MattNQ]

Better than going on a 1-way trip to Mars and wrecking that place too!

I still find it funny that we are wasting billions of dollars with the pointless SETI program and various space probes and planetary missions to find signs of intelligent life elsewhere when we seem have trouble finding intelligent life here on earth.