rage and split second decisions

Although I do not place myself in anything like the league of the Olympians involved in this morning's incident at Mascot, I have been following the story with considerable interest. This morning at about 6.30 a pack of around 60 cyclists were involved in a crash precipitated by a motorist who accelerated in front of the group and then slammed on his brakes. It's being described as road rage, the driver irritated because the cyclists (going a very respectable 40kms) held him up. 60 cyclists, many of them professional athletes, then crashed into the car and each other. While (Thank God) no one was seriously injured, there were lots of crashed bikes, cuts and grazes. It could have been so much worse.

The driver then drove off. Not before some witnesses identified the car.

My intense interest in this story stems from my own selfish interest, now that I place my safety, along with Nell's, in the hands of car drivers three mornings a week. I try to take back roads, particularly the bike highway of Wilson Street in Newtown, but I still worry that one person's momentary irritation at being delayed by 20 seconds behind a cyclist could result in some stupid incident like this.

Today, as it happens, I drove Nell to preschool. To avoid the traffic, and perhaps out of habit, I drove down Wilson Street. I was behind a couple of cyclists and felt that moment of agitation that I would be late because I was going slowly. It's a few seconds to wait behind a cyclist and makes absolutely no difference to my day, but I felt it. So I guess a driver who doesn't cycle would have not appreciation of how dangerous cars are to cyclists. They would have no idea how vulnerable cyclists feel on the roads - every bump, every car is potential danger. I just hope that increasing petrol prices might mean that a few more people dust of their bikes and start to see how the other half of road users live.

Comments

[bigyahu]

I'm in no great hurry for my 6 year old son to get confident riding his bike, that's for sure. Where we live now we can just about ride to his school without using the road at all, but one day he's going to want to go other places on it, and I'll be worried sick.

I ride 3-4 times a week on the lower north shore of Sydney, which has got to be one of the most bicycle-friendly communities in Sydney, but while I haven't experienced anyone deliberately endangering me in the last year, there have been a few times when someone's done something dangerous out of ignorance.

Maybe it should be against the law to not ride a bike on the road at least once a month? ;-)

[Annette]

I soooo... miss the cycle paths of Canberra. I seem to have invested in a multitude of bright orange and yellow to ensure that motorists are aware that there is a bike rider about to cross the road (AND HE IS A SMALL BOY!!!) and they need to be CAREFUL. I dread the age when we will need to ride on the road to school rather than just cross it. On the way back from school as I ride to work I am so conscious of how pissed off people get … still being out in this sunshine on the bike and chatting away with the boy is just lovely and not nearly as stressful as driving to school. I agree – lets hope more take up the adventure…maybe some of the roads will be turned into bikeways!