Are Cyclists Fair Game in Australia?
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Are cyclists fair game in Australia? THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 19, 2014 12:00AM Greg Bearup Writer, TWAM <ON THE morning of March 16 Professor Michelle Haber, the head of the Children’s Cancer Institute, was at her home in Coogee, in Sydney’s east, wading through unanswered work emails while her husband was out on his regular Sunday ride. Paul, 55, a professor of medicine at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, took up cycling six years ago for the Tour de Cure, raising money for his wife’s institute. “And for the obvious health benefits for himself,” Michelle adds. “He lost 10kg, his cholesterol went down, he had more energy and it was great stress reliever. He loved it.” On this particular morning Michelle had not long dropped off their 16-year- old daughter at the hairdressers – Paul’s brother was getting married that afternoon and the teenager was getting dolled-up – when the phone rang. “It was Paul, he’d had an accident. He said, ‘I’m not dead. I’ve hurt my back and I’m about to have a scan’.” Michelle rushed to St Vincent’s Hospital and soon after Paul’s father Richard, a physician, and his brother Mark, an orthopedic surgeon and the groom, ran into the emergency ward, both dressed in their wedding tuxedos. They checked on Paul and then went straight to the scans, as doctors do. “They could both see there was this big fragment of bone in the spinal canal that was in a terrible position,” Michelle recalls. “I thought, ‘This isn’t good but I have to keep it together’.” His father burst into tears. They spoke to the neurosurgical registrar and Mark put it bluntly: “Look, I am an orthopedic surgeon. I am getting married in an hour. Just tell me, is there a good surgeon on today – and if this was your brother, would you have him operate on him?’ He said, ‘This guy is the best.’ ” They wheeled Paul Haber off to emergency surgery while Michelle sat in the waiting room, terrified her husband may never walk again. Just before 6am that morning, Paul Haber had met up with his mates from the Eastern Suburbs Cycling Club. A group of fast riders set off for a 90km ride, to Waterfall and back. The medium bunch set off at a more leisurely pace for a 70km scenic ride to Watsons Bay, at the mouth of the harbour, then down the coast to La Perouse and around Botany Bay to Dolls Point. It was a beautiful riding day with no wind and a smattering of cloud to take the sting from the sun. They picked up and dropped off a couple of riders along the way and when they made their way north through the tunnel on Southern Cross Drive, just 15 minutes away from finishing with a morning coffee, there were seven of them. Along with Haber were a retired pharmacist, Tony Anderson, 67, and his partner of 16 years, Gillian McDonald, 59, a retired company manager. Since retiring, Gillian had helped organise the Tour de Femme, a women’s cycling event that raises money for endometriosis research. Hans Dean, a 48-year-old quantity surveyor, was riding with his son Bryce, 16. They were training for the 850km Sydney to Surfers ride for the charity Youth Off the Streets; it was to be a father-son bonding experience. Also riding was Bharat Mistry, 39, a banker, and Gus Desousa, 46, a construction industry executive; both men had toddlers at home who they planned to spend the day with. They were a conservative bunch, sticklers for the road rules. Gillian, the sole female rider, set the pace and the men followed. All seven of them had powerful, pulsating red lights on the rear of their bikes as they cruised along at about 35km/h. They were lit up like a Christmas tree as they made their way two-abreast along the left-hand lane of the three-lane road. It was 8.30 Sunday morning, the traffic was light, it was a long, straight stretch of road and motorists weren’t being held up. “We were chatting about how wonderful it was to be out riding on such a stunning day,” says Gus Desousa. Then a black Nissan X-Trail seemed to come from nowhere. There was no honking, no screech of tyres. Bang! The car slammed into Tony Anderson, at the back of the pack, at around 80km/h; he was smashed into the windscreen (broken back in two places; fractured skull, sternum, clavicle and ribs; severe cuts). Bang! Bharat Mistry, who was in front of Anderson, was next – he went skittling along the road, rasping the skin from one side of his body (severe lacerations to the body and face). Bang! Hans Dean was hit next (broken back). Bang! Paul Haber (broken back in two places). The riders nearest the kerb were luckier: they were ploughed into the breakdown lane like the wake from a boat. Gillian McDonald suffered a severe cut to her arm and nerve damage in her hand. Bryce Dean had a fractured elbow. “There was no warning,” says Gus Desousa, “all I remember is, ‘F..k, something’s hit me,’ and I was in this whirlpool of trying to protect myself.” The car finally came to a halt, some distance from the pack of riders strewn along the road, and as it did, Tony Anderson rolled off the bonnet and onto the road. The traffic slowed to a halt, and then came the deep, horrible moans of people in severe pain. The red bike lights continued their incessant blinking. “It was like a war scene,” says Paul Haber. “There was blood everywhere.” He remembers walking in a daze before realising he’d seriously damaged his back, and so he lay down flat on the road to await help. A doctor in a passing car got out to help. Teenager Bryce Dean was pacing about in a panic, trying to find his dad. “One guy [Bharat Mistry] was just lying there unconscious,” Gus Desousa says. “He’d had half his skin shaved off.” Desousa, who was the least injured, tells me that after making sure everyone was being attended to he went looking for the driver. “All I wanted to know was who hit us and why. I found the car and the driver. The bloke was in denial. He just kept saying, ‘What are you guys doing on the road?’ Then he walked up and down saying to everyone who was injured, ‘What were you doing on the road?’ After a while I just said, ‘Go away mate. I don’t want to talk you’.” The retribution was as vicious as it was swift – towards the injured cyclists, that is. That afternoon, as soon as news of the crash was broadcast, Facebook was abuzz. “Sucked in,” wrote Dixon on a motoring Facebook page. “I see these cyclists riding every Saturday and Sunday and was wondering when they’d get hit.” Luke, of Newcastle, boasted: “I swerve to hit cyclists.” Nick reckoned it was a great shot: “Got seven in one hit.” Normie stated he will “never give way to a bicycle rider, I really don’t care what the law state, you have no rights in my book, and if you are in my way I will definitely give you a helping hand… stay the f..k off our road you leotard wearing faggots.” There were hundreds of posts of this nature and the same sentiments were being expressed on the NSW Police Facebook page as well as in the comments section of major news organisations. The attitude from these motorists, be it a minority, was clear. As one wrote: “Yeah no one gives a f..k about cyclists if they are on the road mow the c..ts down.” They were echoing the tone set by the broadcaster Derryn Hinch, who described cyclists as “cockroaches on wheels”. Who wouldn’t want to squish them? And squish them they do. In 2013 there was an alarming spike in deaths across Australia with 50 cyclists killed in accidents (not all involving cars) – a 40 per cent increase on the 10-year average of 35 deaths. In NSW, the figure doubled in one year from seven to 14. Many hundreds more were seriously injured. Experts are generally at a loss to explain this increase – some put it down to more motorists texting or updating Facebook while driving, or simply to an increase in the number of cyclists. And while some motorists believe it is renegade cyclists who are generally at fault in their own downfall – disobeying the road rules, running red lights and riding where they shouldn’t – this appears, generally, not to be the case. The Centre for Automotive Safety Research at the University of Adelaide examined the circumstances of every cyclist who’d come into contact with a car and been admitted to Royal Adelaide Hospital over a three-year period, from the start of 2008 to the end of 2010. Using police data, they found that in 79 per cent of cases the driver was at fault, with cyclists being responsible in 21 per cent of the accidents. The study found young drivers under the age of 25, particularly young female drivers, were responsible for the most accidents (texting, perhaps?). The most common accident was a motorist turning right into the path of an oncoming cyclist. The consequences for the cyclists are often dire – 16 per cent in the Adelaide study required hospitalisation for longer than a week.