Road users on two wheels

The safety of vulnerable road users on two wheels is becoming a hot topic in the media.

Blame is directed at different groups of road users and tempers are rising on our congested roads. And the problem is going to get worse with more cars on the roads of our rapidly growing cities and more people discovering the bicycle as a convenient and fast mode of transport. Building more roads for cars or adding extra lanes to clogged free ways is only a short term fix at best. It will not cure decades of lack of investment in upgrading public transport and off and on-road bicycle paths. These alternative modes of transportation will no doubt rise in importance when in the near future petrol prices rise as a result of decreasing oil reserves and also us having to constrain our carbon emissions to avoid the world boiling over.

On January 3, 2010 the Full Montes Bicycle Club, of which I am a member, participated in Amy's ride Victoria 2010.

Amy Gillette was a member of the national road racing cycling team that died in a training accident on the roads of Germany in July 2005. Amy was killed by a motorist that ploughed into the squad. The accident also left a number of severely injured bike riders.

The message from those of us who are participating in the ride is for motorists to remember to provide enough space on the road for cyclists. Recent research from Federal Department of Transport revealed that in 2005-06 4,370 cyclists were seriously injured on our roads. The proportion of these accidents that involved cars was large - about 1,500 accidents. The accuracy of these figures has been challenged in a recent radio program on Radio National which found that the official reported figures are only the tip of the iceberg.

Many of the accidents where cars and bikes are involved are due to motorists not providing enough space on the road for cyclists.

Some high profile cyclists who are riding professionally on roads all over the world like Cadel Evans, the reigning World Road Racing Champion, are on the record saying that “the worst places for road cyclists are in the land downunder and in America because of the attitude of motorists against cyclists”.

I believe that the design of our roads is partly to blame for these accidents, with our roads generally not being designed for the commuter bicyclists. Another factor is the “cult of the motor car” that is spread in the media. This message is further amplified by State Governments that until recently were spruiking Australian made large cars driving on roads designed with the safety of the motor car in mind while neglecting to provide safe and convenient road infrastructure for bike riders.

There is some sobering statistical and reliable anecdotal evidence to support this supposition.

First, the NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust just recently released a report that challenged the official reporting of bike accidents. The number of reported bike accidents was only 2 per cent of the actual number of accidents it was found. The accidents reported tended to be the more severe accidents some with fatal outcomes; however, 98 per cent of accidents went unreported. The serious consequence of this is that there are none of the urgently needed education campaigns for motorists and the further upgrading of bike ways remains undone.

Another interesting statistic was that 40 to 49-year-old white collar workers were over represented in the true bike accident statistic which has the largest economical impact on society.

Finally, the ACT figures revealed that bike crashes actually account for 10-20 per cent of all road trauma injuries in terms of hospital bed days. As a comparison the car drivers involved in crashes were responsible for less than 10 per cent of hospital bed days.

The picture painted by the blood of injured cyclists is verified in a statement by Dr James Taylor, head of Sandringham Hospital Emergency, close to one of the famous rides along Beach Road. In his statement Dr Taylor said “cycling injuries has all the hallmarks of an epidemic” and he continued “this epidemic of trauma injuries chiefly affects adults of a productive age”.

The promotion of the car culture in Victoria is revving up at this time of the year with the Formula 1 Grand Prix coming to town taking over one of Melbourne’s finest parks with gently swerving roads ideal for cycling at other times of the year. The supercars racing on the track pollute the atmosphere with noise and CO2 emissions. To top it off the super cars arrive on special giant cargo planes that also pollute the air on their way across the globe.

The marketing of the F1 race this year suffered a set back when Toyota announced they would pull out of the F1 circus for the 2010 season.

Toyota is commencing the production of hybrid cars locally, with electrical and petrol engines acting in tandem to lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. However, the small efficient diesel engines that are powering the Toyotas European competitors are still more fuel efficient and release less CO2 into the atmosphere. While the Toyota Camry reportedly releases 150gm of CO2 per kilometre, the Volvo V50 Drive will release 122gm of CO2 per kilometre when it appears on the roads in Australia towards the end of 2010.

There are some positive media stories being released in advance of the 2010 F1 race in Melbourne. Among other eye catching headlines it was recently revealed that the Schu, Michael Schumaker, the Ferrari driver that retired from the sport a couple of years ago, has announced he is back for the Melbourne F1 GP.

But the question remains, if the Schu is heading our way for the F1 racing who is footing the increasing hospital bills that the car culture is contributing to here in Australia?

Police are talking about the explosion of cyclists spilling over from our under dimensioned, badly maintained, and disconnected bike paths onto our roads. Health and traffic experts agree that there are obvious positives for public health and the health of our urban environment.

Cycling friendly Victoria has a $38 billion transport blueprint for the next decade. Some of the big ticket items are the lane duplications of the Monash and the Western Ring Road which will reportedly cost $2 billion each.

While cars and roads thus receive plenty of taxpayers’ money, less than one-third of a per cent is earmarked for the upgrade of bicycle paths. This mainly goes to the creation of “Copenhagen lanes”. The Traffic Director of Copenhagen City, Nils Torslov recently toured Australia and said that “Copenhagen lanes” are not being favoured in Copenhagen any more. Instead the favoured new infrastructure is the “green cycle routes” where a whole lane of car traffic is given over to bicyclists. The City of Yarra have designated several streets which lead from student accommodation in the north to destinations in the city in the south and to the University of Melbourne.

The goal for all thinking people is to convert car commuters to bicycle commuting. But to do so we have to make it safer to ride bicycles on our roads.

The Amy Gillett foundation is working to make our roads safer for its most vulnerable users. The forgotten fact is that most bike riders also drive a car and do taxi runs with the kids, go shopping after work etc. Perhaps an alternative campaign for next year could be a message displayed on the back of your car that you support the Amy Ride and care about bike riders because you are one of them.