I want to ride my bicycle vs. I love my car

The battle of cyclists versus car drivers is currently raging on Your Views, after an incident involving a car and four bicycles on Auckland's Tamaki Drive prompted them to ask the question: What can be done to make cycling in NZ safer?

Michaelauknz (Mt Eden)
Look New Zealanders are always being hijacked by minority self interest groups and these guys are no exception -
Now they want to have cars even doing 40km 24/7 (some cyclist travel faster than that) and have the road widened so they can continue riding 4 abreast laughing and joking and acting in an often abusive dominating way towards motorists.
I have very good video footage of these guys riding 4 and 2 up in the middle of the actual road in busy times.
Put them back on the footpath, their time is over and from the attacks given here toward motorist by themselves no change will be coming from there attitudes, they got away for far to long being threatening and dysfunctional-
More accidents will happen.No lesson has been learnt here.
Sadly the only thing missing now is the place, date and time.of the next one.
NZ is currently 27th going to 35th in the OECD ranking of the top 25 developed countries and is suffering from the impact of the smart ones who have left.this proves my point.

I can just see Michaelauknz engaging in a vigilante-style surveillance operation, complete with binoculars and camouflage gear.

Halkelorno (Northpark)
What can be done? very little, considering its Auckland. Why ? Just think about a little.
20 or so years ago, Auckland was a relatively safe place to drive,however what successive governments have done is allowed almost unfetted immigration from a huge variety of Pacific Island countries, Asian and African and Indian countries where the majority of the people did not own or drive a car or have any road user experience. The then come to New Zealand and the previous stricter road rules and license tests were conveniently lowered to fit PC rules, no English tests needed and feel free to use an interpreter. What would you expect to happen on the roads. More drivers, totally unskilled, no road sense plus no real knowledge of how to drive a car. Remember when you had to Drive a Manual Car in order to gain your license ? Not any more, this would be too hard and very UN- PC. Now we have the visible evidence and unenviable Road Toll results.
Now we have all the nodding heads, the plaintive outcry's "Something should be done", all in vain because the real answer is too Un PC and we as a people have long lost the guts and fortitude to do anything to rectify the problem.
We will tinker!

There is always someone who names immigration as the key determinant in any problem you throw at them. You might not have seen a link between cyclists, road safety and immigration but ah-ha! Halkelorno has made it as clear as day.

Pepe Perez (Birkenhead)
Nothing will be resolved with the rather emotional motorist vs cyclist debate that is being played out in this forum.
There is a simple answer. Motorists must obey stop signals - which is so rare these days that I wonder why we have the regulation at all. (Which is another debate) Cyclists must stop for red traffic signals - which is so rare . etc etc. Then the existing westbound Special Vehicle Lane (Bus Lane);that is about to turn into a T2 Transit Lane, is extended back into Mission Bay and be made 6am to 10am Monday to Sunday. Should there be a similar Special Vehicle Lane eastbound for the morning and evening peaks for the same reasons. Not my call, but worth thinking about.
In the end, cyclists and motorists need to and can live together without conflict - but each has to show respect to the other; not easy to find in the society we live in today. Finally, we all need to respect and obey the laws governing operation of a vehicle on our nations roads to ensure we keep this sort of accident to a minimum.

Pepe Perez doesn't see the "emotional" discussion in this thread as resulting in any concrete resolution, and instead proposes everyone sticks to the road rules. Commonsense prevails? Cyclists and motorists travelling together in harmony. What a beautiful way to end the post.