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Roger Rabbits with |
It was one of those ‘what if’ moments. A sickening one.
A cyclist with an excessive belief in their own immortality sailed blithely through a busy Motueka intersection – against the lights, against the flow of traffic. Against the odds.
It was caught on dashcam. Google it. It’ll leave you cold and clammy. There would have been that split second, frozen in time, when the cyclist would have been confronted by their own impending doom – because it could have turned out so differently, so badly. Shattered bones and flesh through the grinder. Or an ID tag on a big toe in a cold place.
The dashcam recording reminded me of an Invercargill train driver some years ago telling this reporter about a fatal level crossing crash. His third, if I recall correctly.
His enduring nightmare was the victim staring up at him from the driver’s seat of her shopping basket, eyes white with fear, moments before 800 tonnes of container freight train ploughed into her. impact. Then quiet. One moment of carelessness, one moment of negligence. Then death.
The ‘what ifs’
The Motueka driver might have had a similar reaction – heart pounding, sick in the pit of your stomach. Because of the ‘what ifs’.
What if he, the driver, had been going faster? What if it hadn’t happened in broad daylight and he hadn’t spotted the errant cyclist? What if the road had been wet and greasy?
The cyclist would have been T-boned. Hit midships. Their clinical observation patient chart at the end of the patient’s bed would have made interesting reading.
The full menu of road rash, soft tissue damage, broken arms, legs and wrists, dislocated and shattered shoulders, life changing and life-threatening head injuries. And possibly death. All because of a moment’s inattention or recklessness.
A friend found the Motueka footage quite disturbing – like watching death unfold, she said. It didn’t happen but we were on the brink. She wondered how the cyclist felt watching themselves flirting with their own mortality. A life lesson, she hopes.
“Do cyclists have a death wish or do they believe the road rules don’t apply to them?” She maintains cyclists are quick to hold motorists accountable but don’t examine their own behaviours.
No, we don’t. I know because l have my own story of rash cycle behaviour. Rash, and stupid and impulsive. Certainly unnecessary.
Airborne ground beef
Early on a bike ride one Sunday morning – first outing on a new bike – I struck out across a main throughfare in the path of an oncoming car. I didn’t have to. It was a dumb, dangerous manoeuvre that probably saved me only seconds.
I thought I saw one of those lips on the kerb for bikes, mobility scooters, prams and the like and went for it. But I didn’t see it. It wasn’t there and I ploughed square on into the kerb at 30-35 clicks. It sent me spiralling, like an airborne, 90kg pack of 40% fat ground beef, before landing in a bleeding heap on the side of the road.
Why did I do that? A bad decision made for all the wrong reasons. Kind of like the Motueka cyclist, I presume. A few minutes later a motorist stopped and asked if I ‘was okay?’ Of course I’m alright – some people choose to lie in bed on a Sunday morning whereas I prefer to bleed out in the gutter holding a badly bent bike. I was feeling a bit embarrassed, a bit shamefaced.
How can you be so sore without breaking a bone? For two weeks I hobbled around like the old man I am. How undignified. Plus, I was feeling a bit shamefaced about it.
It was karma too. Because only a week earlier I’d been bragging to my bike mechanic that I didn’t need protective cycling gear because I’d never fallen off, never taken a tumble from a bike. He scoffed: “You will, mark my words, you will!”
Comeuppance
I wasn’t expecting my comeuppance so quickly. But then I read I am in good company. Cycling’s bad for you. That’s how I read the stats. The latest ACC stats compiled for 2023 show 28,059 new claims related to road cycling were lodged, at a cost to the nation, you and me, of $76 million. Cycling, despite the exercise and the pleasure, is by far the most risky summer leisure activity.
And it’s more than twice the cost of the next injury-prone activity, swimming, believe it or not – with 7551 claims at a cost of $31m. That’s without factoring in mountain bikers, who made 4152 claims at a cost of $21m.
There’s a controlled T-intersection on Chapel St for accessing and exiting the Bay Central Shopping Centre. It’s where the red runners, the daredevil commuter cyclists, do their worst work.
If you’re leaving the centre and creep out into the intersection on a green, cyclists are just as likely to careen out of the lines of waiting traffic into your path. Red lights don’t apply to them.
I tooted in fright when this happened the other day. The cyclist just slowed, turned and flicked me a bird. Charming. Don’t worry, I will pay your hospital bills and the ongoing therapy for the brain injury if the worst happens.