Ayers Rock 2014

Ayers Rock Revisited

In '98 I visited friends in Sydney and decided to see Ayer's Rock.  The people in Sydney said "Don't listen to what anybody tells you, make sure you climb the rock." They said this business about ownership was a con because 'if you look at the areas they're claiming ownership of they're all the areas that a valuable from a tourism point of view - even Botany Bay where Capt. Cook landed'", which would be significant to white people but not to Aborigines. The Sydneysiders thought it was all about money.  So I flew to Ayer's rock, stopped one night, climbed it, and flew back to Sydney.  I was surprised by what the white Australians had done to the rock  --  used hole-cutting equipment to make post-holes in the rock and concreted in steel poles and ran a chain up to make it easier for everybody to climb.  They had also painted white lines on it to mark the route  --  and there was a rubbish bin at the top.

In 2014, my wife wanted to see Ayer's Rock and I thought perhaps I'd show her what the white Australians had done to it.  This is nothing to do with "conquering" Ayer's Rock by climbing it and more about looking at it closely and thinking.

Since I climbed it in '98 Ayer's Rock was handed back to the aborigines  --  who promptly leased it to the federal government for $75K per year  --  that's my tax money being spent there!  There are lots of signs saying "Please respect out culture, please don't climb the rock". Interestingly you can still climb it if you want to.  I suspect there was a dealbreaker clause in the lease to say it had to be climbable(?) because the business owners recognise a hard truth - it's nothing more than a rock, thousands of miles from anywhere and nobody will go if you can't climb it.  The new owners, however, are notorious for having zero business acumen.

It probably not politically-correct to talk about things as black and white these days, but I suspect white men built up a business between the 1950's and the 1980's based on climbing it, and the enterprise has shifted across to aboriginal owners who are well-intentioned, but nevertheless slowly running it down with the don't climb message. People go there thinking they can still climb if they want to.

It's $25 each to get into the park, but you don't get to find out if the climb is open or closed until you get to either the visitor's centre or the car park. Lots of people visited, but lots of people were disappointed too.  The climb was closed due to "high winds at the summit" when we went  --  for all 4 days in a row.  I have since learned that they also close it if there is a 20% or higher chance of rain, and for ceremonies.  I didn't see publications of dates of ceremonies.  A local painter told me that in her experience it is only available to climb one week a month (i.e. it is closed 75% of the time).  It was closed for all 4 days we were there due to wind. Note also that the _entire_ site is closed, not just the summit walk, so if you hop the fence to get a closer look at the rock where the carpark is, and you are seen doing it, you will likely be tapped for $5K even though it isn't windy in the car park.

Cycling around the rock I had to comment on one thing: obviously the black streaks on the surface are made by rainwater running straight downwards; how do they get from that to "x hit y with a club"?  Clearly the streak is due to water and in no way connected to an event (unless the event happened in the dreamtime and they believe the physical shape of the rock today is a direct consequence of the event...? bit of a stretch but I'm not an anthropologist.

So that was $4K on flights and accommodation and I'm never going back.  Ayers rock is not the sort of place you visit twice, is it?  If they covet their rock so much they can have it  --  and I hope it makes them very happy.

Before going, try to find if any ceremonies are on, if you can see if it's open on-line you may be able to find a good time of year to go.  Make sure you climb it.

Motorcycle Safety

We have a problem with car-centric thinking.  Perhaps it's really a problem with people NOT thinking.

The symptom of the problem is that motorcycles are more dangerous to ride than they need to be.  You read that right.  I'm saying motorcycles could be a lot safer than they are because a lot of "safety initiatives" are actually about car safety.

I'll give an example so you can see what I mean...

• Speed cameras face the front of the vehicle (but every ADR-compliant vehicle has a rear number plate).  The camera systems with forward only facing cameras were developed, installed, tested and commissioned by car drivers.  EITHER at no time did anybody think about motorcycles OR motorcycles were considered to be a small percentage of vehicles that were not worth bothering with when considering the number of extra requirements and tests in comparison to the extra number of tickets issued.  Whatever the reason, there aren't many mobile camera systems on the market that capture rear plates. I believe the vast majority of fixed cameras identify vehicles by their front plates and mobile safety cameras monitor traffic traveling in both directions. The "safety initiative" here is a call for front number plates on motorcycles, to enable them to be caught by speed cameras.  Front number plates were removed from motorcycles in 1972 due to road safety issues  –  they were found to act like a blade when a motorcycle hits a pedestrian.

BUT this is only one symptom of the problem (we are living in a car-centric world).  The interesting thing is that speed cameras are not the only piece of regulatory framework for motorcycles to have fallen through:

• Inductive-loop traffic detectors do not reliably detect motorcycles.  These generally occupy 50% of the width of the lane and are placed centrally in the lane.  Motorcycles are supposed to ride in either the left-hand or right-hand wheel track of the car in front, so we can pass outside the loop easily, depending on whether or not we want to trigger it.  Some road-going sports bikes are almost entirely alloy, carbon fibre, and plastic  —  they wouldn't trigger the inductive loop if they rolled right over the top.  Sometimes I am unable to trigger the automatic barrier going into a car park, or I may be able to run a red light without being photographed (I have never tried this, but I certainly move to the lane extremity on amber!).  This means red light cameras can be avoided by motorcycles too.  At least with speed cameras the Road Safety Camera operators can see the motorcycle with no rear plate; this situation is worse because the system is so dependent upon technology, which has a built-in faulty assumption that the vehicle in question is a car because it is likely you don't know how many motorcycles run red lights.   You may even believe it is not a problem!
• Crash barriers are not designed to be hit by motorcycles. AS/NZS 3845 dictates crash barriers will be tested with cars and trucks only, not motorcycles;  the vehicle category doesn't  even exist in the standard.  It is known that the reasoning above applied with crash barriers (motorcycles were a small percentage of road vehicles and not worth bothering with when the standards were first drawn up)  hence crash barriers are dangerous to motorcycles because they were never even designed to be hit by motorcycles. In 2012 the standards were revised. I personally called for motorcycles to be included at that time. AND...I am still waiting for the standards to be published so I can see whether I have had any effect.
• Car crash testing: generally speaking, there are eight different types of car crash test performed world-wide.  None of them involve collisions with motorcycles.  In Australia, ANCAP (Australian New Car Assessment Program) runs four different types of crash test: front impact, side impact, pedestrian and pole.
• Roadside furniture: specifically wooden posts (don't know if they have a proper name) that are always placed between the road and footpath on a corner at EXACTLY the point a motorcycle would leave the road.

 Of course the net effect of all of this is that motorcycles will be a less safe form of transport than they might be if they were considered when these systems were set up.

My point is, rather than calling for a ad-hoc fix to the specific problem of lack of frontal identification on motorcycles, you would get better results  —  and make the world a better place  —  by fixing the root cause: consider motorcycles when systems are designed in the first place.

 If you have any involvement with VicRoads, ANCAP, Parliament or the police in your area, please engage with all sectors of the PTW community when looking at road safety!