Fair to say in the last 72 hours there’s been an avalanche of comment and debate resulting from the shocking bike/car incidents in Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide in recent days – not to mention Monday’s taxi dooring in Melbourne.
Social media trolls aside, if anything good is to come of these incidents, here’s the thing. It’s great to like a blog post. It’s great to comment constructively on FB. It’s great to retweet a link or share it with your family, friends and colleagues.
But it’s much much better to do something before we all just pick up from where we left off before hitting the sack on Saturday night. Or we’ll be having exactly the same debate again and again and again, as more people lie in hospital beds – or graves.
Be you a road cyclist, commuter, motorist, jogger, pedestrian, cabbie, courier, bus driver, truckie, taxi passenger, delivery driver, politician, business owner, dog walker, skateboarder or even that legendary penny farthing guy up on the Northern Beaches of Sydney – it simply doesn’t matter. We can all do something. We must all do something.
Have you sent a letter or email to your State politician, Transport Minister or Premier demanding some form of action or, at the very least, a statement? Contacted your local newspaper or radio station? Signed the Amy Gillett One Metre Matters petition or made a donation? Joined your local bicycle advocacy group? Asked your cycling club how you can help them spread the message of cycling safety to the wider community? Talked to your non-riding workmates about why we often ride two abreast, then listened to their perspective? Considered doing a bike skills or road awareness course? Kept your hands off your mobile phone whilst behind the wheel (or handle bars for that matter)? Checked your ride route to make sure it’s the safest one for where you’re going? Talked to your kids about road safety, or even better shown them? Looked before flinging open your car door? Checked that your lights are working properly now that the mornings and evenings are getting darker (cars and bikes)? Stopped at that red light you sometimes run if you’re in a hurry (cars and bikes)?
There must be hundreds if not thousands of things we can do. Little things. And, yes, big things. But collectively they’re all important things. And if we ever want things to change, we need to do them. Then keep doing them.
So, what will you do today to make the roads that little bit safer? And what will you do tomorrow? And the next day……?
Carbon Addiction 
Yemate, checked my lights are working, found a mostly off road route to Mascott, talked plenty to those that will and wont listen about cycling at work and even found a few more riders at my new Mascott job 🙂
I have emailed Barbara Perry, our local member. Asking for some action regarding public awareness. I will advise if she responds to Peter
Good man
Peter – speaking as a high km daily commuter a lot more cyclists have to make themselves more visible to drivers.
It’s time to put the ego away with the sponsored charcoal jersey with white stripe down the back (I kid you not!) and don hi-viz colors when mixing on the road. We have to be seen.
No argument from me, given Winter is on the way I’d also add make sure they have decent lights…and use them.
Thats what all cyclist should have. A guy i work with heard a rumor that the driver of the accident the other week was texting. No amounts of laws/metre matters rules would change the fact he was doing something illegal, putting new laws in probably wont make any difference, because he was breaking the law to begin with. But if riders had high visibility vests on and perhaps a bright daytime running LED, it might have caught his eye to pay attention to the road.