Massive increases in fines for riding without a helmet or running a red light are just the latest in the city’s ignoble history of deciding cyclists are a problem

It’s almost five months since fines for various cycling infractions, including riding without a helmet, cycling dangerously or jumping a red light were massively increased in New South Wales. Some fines went up from $71 to $425 (£40 to £240). At the same time, a new law spelled out minimum passing distances drivers should give riders when they overtake bikes. From March 2017 cyclists will also be obliged to carry ID.

Are cyclists feeling much safer? It’s fair to say the impact has been mixed. In May it turned out that while police had by then energetically handed out 1,500 of the new fines to cyclists, mainly over helmet use, just four motorists had felt the force of the law for close overtakes. There were also reports of overzealous enforcement of the rules, including a dangerous cycling citation for someone trackstanding at a red light.

Alarming as this all is, what interests me more is the why: what justifications does NSW’s Liberal government give for the changes? What do they hope to achieve?

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I asked several times for a chat with Duncan Gay, the state’s roads minister, and the self-professed “biggest bike-lane sceptic in government”, who has also presided over the removal of one of Sydney’s few separated bike lanes.

My efforts were rebuffed, perhaps in part because when Gay does talk about cycling he he sometimes says some odd things.

During a 2014 TV interview Gay was asked if it worried him that NSW’s long-standing laws obliging cyclists to wear helmets could put riders off. Not a bit of it, he responded. If people who don’t like helmets don’t cycle at all that would definitely keep them safe, he said, adding with the grin of a man who believes he’s clinched an argument: “I’ve saved their life.”

Gay’s officials did arrange for me to have a chat with Bernard Carlon, head of road safety at Transport for NSW. He’s thus a civil servant rather than a politician but he very patiently sought to answer all my questions about the state government’s approach to cycling safety.

It was, nonetheless, one of the more curious conversations of my life. Listening back to the recording, it was as if Carlon and I were speaking different languages. Again and again he insisted the new regime was based on evidence, not prejudice, and it would make cycling more safe and this in turn would prompt cyclist numbers to rise.

Each time I posed the same question: if mandatory helmet use and a tough law enforcement regime are the key, why does it not happen in any country with lots of safe cycling, not least in the Netherlands or Denmark? And why are cycling levels in his state still so relatively low?

Carlon’s argument, a couple of examples of which are below, could be summarised as: we’re different, and we’re right.

Our road environment is significantly different. We’re on a pathway to changing the road environment, particularly for commuting on cycles. Our culture of cycling has been different, a different history to those locations that you’re talking about as well.

I think the context in other countries is significantly different. If their evidence doesn’t lead to these sorts of public policy changes then that’s terrific. Our evidence has led us to these public policy changes.

It all seemed very circular. When it came to evidence, Carlon cited a couple of things. The first was a statistic that, in more than 50% of cycle crashes in the state, the “key vehicle” was a bike. In road safety terms this usually means the vehicle which made the manoeuvre central to the incident. So it could mean, say, a cyclist who crashes into the back of a car. But it could equally be a rider making a perfectly legitimate turn and being struck by a driver speeding round a blind corner.

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Carlon told me the key vehicle statistic is “a very clear indication that in fact the behaviour on the road of bike riders actually is contributing to the crashes that are happening at a reasonably significant level”. I’d disagree. In fact I’d argue it says a lot more about the inherent prejudices of his department.

Carlon also explained that after linking cyclist injury numbers with hospital data it was discovered that, as well as more riders being hurt, 30% of them were single-vehicle crashes, for example a cyclist hitting a post or fence.

Again, what you take from this figure seems illustrative. Carlon’s inference seems to be that too many cyclists are riding in a risky and reckless manner, and must be somehow reined in through huge fines and compulsory ID checks. But, if you were Dutch or Danish, you might begin by looking at the nature of the road infrastructure into which all these cyclists keep somehow crashing.

Then again, if you were Dutch or Danish you wouldn’t have a media telling you every day that cyclists are feral sub-sect who need taming, which NSW sadly does, most famously the almost laughably anti-cyclist Daily Telegraph.

It’s not just me who worries about the Gay/Carlon approach. Clover Moore, the city’s bike lane-building mayor, told me that while she is pleased by the growth of cycling in Sydney she sees this as happening despite rather than because of the legislative regime imposed on her by the state government.

She laments that compulsory bike helmet laws make a London-style cycle share scheme unviable in Sydney. Yes, Melbourne and Brisbane have such systems but they are among the least-used in the world.

Moore says the anti-bike climate help make her city less competitive internationally: “It is true. The young, mobile workforce of today, who are working in tech startups and creative industries, want to cycle. They want to live in the city, use all our facilities, go to the bars. And we’ve got such a wonderful climate. They want to ride their bikes and enjoy a cool city.”

Others are more blunt. Omar Khalifa, formerly the chief executive of Bicycle NSW and now the leader of a new cyclists’ political party, marked the introduction of the new fines by writing a mock letter from a future state government apologising to cyclists.

The letter deliberately echoed a police apology to the organisers of the first Mardi Gras in Sydney, in 1978, which saw many participants arrested and beaten up. The parallel might sound extreme but Khalifa insists it is relevant. “They’re doing it again,” he said. “They’re not bashing people but they’re cracking down with harshness.”

Such a detailed interest in the city’s cycling policies might seem a bit crank-ish, and to an extent it is. But the subject fascinates me, in part because things could be so much better. Yes, Sydney has hills and a vast western sprawl but it also has a benign climate and plenty of inner suburbs within riding distance of the centre. And yet only a couple of per cent of all trips involve a bike.

Carlon believes the state government’s approach will fix this. “You are obliged to make the system safe,” he said. “More people will cycle. If you don’t break the rules and we have a safe system then more people will cycle.”

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I just don’t believe him. While it is the subject for an entirely different (and even longer) article, it seems clear that the state’s helmet laws, in place since 1991, are the beginning of all this, suppressing cyclist numbers and doing nothing provable for public safety. The new fines seem set to do the same.

Sydney has a fairly long and ignoble history of deciding cyclists are a problem. During my time as a courier I experienced several crackdowns on the trade, the most memorable and ludicrous of which saw an unhappy contingent of police officers sent out on bikes to pose as couriers, an undercover role not helped by their middle age and bulging waistlines.

I once saw a member of this squad chase a colleague of mine up a hill in the city centre, yelling for him to stop. The colleague, among the top 10 amateur road bike racers in the state, was so unfailingly polite he would surely have done so if only the policeman had got close enough to be audible.

The poor policeman deserved better from his superiors. And, when it comes to cycling, the people of Sydney and NSW deserve better from their government.