Lycra brigade? People should be allowed to wear whatever they want without criticism. Credit:Pat Scala One of the biggest is the HBF Freeway Bike Hike for Asthma which kicks off Bikeweek for the annual celebration of recreational and commuter cycling in WA. It is amazing what a few thousand people can do to Perth. Perth is a city of more than two million people – it lost the tag of a sleepy country town many years ago. The mantle of crippling business used to be left to union strikes, now it is the Lycra brigade on their mission to make Perth theirs and not caring at all how their actions affect the rest of us. Closing parts of Perth freeways for these charity rides seems to happen with such regularity that just would not happen in other large cities around Australia or around the world.

The time the freeways, including the tunnel, are shut each year seems to get longer and longer. Some of these major arterial roads are closed from 4am to midday, and recently, there have also been closures of roads leading onto the freeway as far out of the CBD as Joondalup. A few hours of freeway closures people can live with, especially early on a Sunday morning. But a blanket 8-hour ban for cars to be off the roads that we all pay for is a bit much. Why not schedule these rides to begin at 4am or 5am but then have our freeways re-open by 9am so that the rest of us who need to get to work, run a business and generally be able to travel around our city can do so? Why not hold these charity bike rides around the quieter inner-city roads of West Perth that are almost deserted on a Sunday? Permits can be easily obtained from the City of Perth. Why not? Because that would be too much common sense and of course would remove the supposed right of cyclists to be able to ride on their freeways they contribute nothing towards except a chip on their shoulders that they should be treated equally with motorists.

Or instead, for all the hassle it seems to create, if everyone entering gave a $10 donation, if there are 8,000 cyclists doing their thing, Asthma WA would be $80,000 richer and most of Perth would be a lot happier. The saying, "be careful what you wish for" could not be more relevant. All we seem to talk about in Perth at the moment is congestion. But you ain't seen nothing yet! If the bicycling fraternity get one of their wishes for blanket 40km/h speed limits in residential areas, just wait for the congestion and the inevitable road rage incidents to go through the roof. Driving at 40km/h during school zones at allotted times can be annoying at the best of times but we accept it because the safety of young children is paramount and because the restrictions are for a limited time during the day. But you cannot convince me that the average Perth driver would be happy dawdling along at 40km/h at all hours of the day.

We have all seen the recent publicity about the new 'bicycle boulevards' where cyclists have priority over cars and which supposedly would "encourage more people to cycle by creating slower speed environments that connect to the wider cycling network and give riders a greater share of the street." The animation of coloured bitumen, leafy trees, and cyclists two-abreast with a car pleasantly puttering along just behind them looks quiet, calm and friendly, but in reality it's a load of twaddle. Let's see how the residents of Shakespeare Street in City of Vincent, Leake Street in City of Bayswater and Surrey Road in the City of Belmont feel a few weeks into this latest experiment when their lives transform in their streets that have newly been reclaimed by cyclists. Because, of course, no one who actually lives in those streets will ever be in a hurry to get kids to school, get to work or wherever they want to go, now will they? They will be prisoners to pedal power literally in their own front yards. Oh, and don't mention the obvious, that the real estate value of their homes may well go down not up when people wanting to buy a property in these streets suddenly realise that they cannot just get in their car and drive out into a street normally.

The quick few minutes trip down to the local shop instead becomes an interminable trip behind one cyclist who now owns the road and the motorist has to jump to his tune as you just know there will be a ridiculous fine if you don't. Good luck defending yourself in court if you do happen to overtake a cyclist on 'their' boulevard. So, again we have this group of people who are in the minority, but who love to tell everyone they are the majority, who do not pay licence fees, who do not pay registration fees, who do not pay insurance fees yet want to dictate to the rest of us how our entire road network should work. There are good drivers and there are bad drivers. There are good cyclists and bad cyclists. No one is perfect but the cycling fraternity's latest idea that makes drivers automatically guilty for all crashes with bikes, unless they can prove their innocence, illustrates the dangerous notion of a minority group suddenly getting the upper hand and changing the status quo forever. We do not currently reverse the onus of proof and make drivers automatically guilty if they hit a pedestrian. We know that there are many instances where it is a pedestrian's fault for not looking or stepping into oncoming traffic. But we don't prejudge. We assess each case on its merits before apportioning guilt.

So let's put the cyclists' new-found love for reversing the onus of proof to the test. Would cyclists suddenly accept if they themselves hit a pedestrian that they would be automatically accountable for these crashes? Now that the shoe is on the other foot they would simply not cop it – and you just know how loudly they would protest against that sort of idea. Earlier this year, the state government exercised some common sense when it rejected the Bicycle Transport Alliance's push to introduce a minimum one metre buffer for motor vehicles when overtaking cyclists on all roads. Imagine how that would work on tiny inner-city streets or some of the cul-de-sacs even in new housing estates. One metre from a cyclist would put you on the other side of the roadway straight into oncoming traffic, with potentially catastrophic consequences. I do not hate cyclists. What I hate is the attitude that seems to overtake so many of them once they hop in that saddle. It is as if the world owes them a living and the rest of us are made to feel guilty if we do not share the same enthusiasm for two wheels as opposed to four wheels. WA has an extensive and comprehensive network of hundreds of kilometres of bike paths with more than $72 million due to be spent on even more bike path infrastructure in the next few years.

Yet despite this, cyclists are not happy. You often pass empty dual-use paths that sit like white elephants because cyclists want to claim some sort of right to ride on the road. Yet they still want more of these rarely-used paths created. A suggested 20km/h limit along the newly created shared path on West Coast Highway, Scarborough cannot be enforced and a recent survey found three in five cyclists are exceeding that 20km/h limit regularly. In fact, there are no legally enforceable speed limits on shared paths anywhere in the state. Very few cyclists use the good old bicycle bell anymore which used to warn people the rider was approaching and to watch out. Now, it is a whirr of carbon fibre and a quick weave within a whisker around walkers, joggers, children and the elderly. Ever met a cyclist who admits to riding recklessly? Funny that.

Despite cycling groups calling for cyclists to use common sense and not to go whizzing past a pedestrian on a shared path, it is always everyone else's fault. Of course there is no excuse for road rage towards cyclists by drivers and we all need to make sure we curb any such aggression. But my goodness, if the state's peak cycling body WestCycle's key challenge is to create an environment where people are not afraid to ride, perhaps one of their other key challenges should be to perhaps realise that Perth has been a car city for a long time and will continue to be so. That means, that while a recent RAC survey found 43 per cent of cyclists feared sharing the road, perhaps the time has come to realise that there is a time and a place for everything. Perhaps when cyclists contribute to the upkeep of the roads that we all pay our taxes to drive on, then they will deserve a seat at the decision making table.

Karalee Katsambanis has had more than 20 years experience as an award-winning news journalist on television, radio and newspapers. She is a mother of three. Her husband is a Liberal MP in WA. Listen to her on 6PR's PerthTonight with Chris Ilsley between 9-10pm on Mondays.