Cyclists in Queensland, Australia are being offered counselling and support following road traffic collisions or near misses, with help available around the clock.
The telephone-based service has been introduced by campaign group Bicycle Queensland and will be offered to all its 18,000 members and aims to help riders cope with the stress that such incidents can cause.
It is being provided by critical incident assistance providers, OAS and will comprise a consultation of up to 60 minutes plus referral to specialists where relevant, reports myGC.
Bicycle Queensland’s chief executive, Anna Savage, said: “The mental health and wellbeing of riders is often overlooked following road incidents.
“Riders commonly experience psychological distress and anxiety after an accident or near miss.
“This service will provide cyclists with the opportunity to process any distress and psychological trauma by connecting with experts who understand the immediate and ongoing impacts of a traumatic experience.
“Our aim is to ensure cyclists have the support they need to get back on their bikes with confidence, as soon as they feel ready,” she added.
9 thoughts on “24/7 counselling hotline launched for cyclists in Australia involved in collisions or near misses”
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Yorkshire wallet wrote:
Sounds like a Clarksonesque, petrol wasting, tax lover talking.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
I hope you are never in the situation of being traumatised and/or having to completely change the way you go about your life, how you travel because some cunt tried to kill you or you were in fear of your life due to the unlawful act of another.
People like you make me sick, I guess you think those poor bastards who were shot for having ‘shell shock’ in conflicts gone by should have manned the fuck up too right.
Knobber
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Having had to listen to psychoquackery before, the end result was worry/do something about the things you can can change, don’t worry about the rest. There you go. Saved you the time of going to see one.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
What a load of uninformed toss. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, shut the fuck and save yourself looking like a complete fuckwit.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
Sounds like you were offered CBT, the equivalent of penecillin for mental health; a broad stroke tool useful in a wide range of minor cases, absolutely pointless in vast number more. No matter the ailment it’s prescribed for it’s entirely useless if you don’t engage with it though, like being given tablets and complaining they don’t work when you haven taken them.
I’ve had a couple of situations occur on the bike that left me deeply unsettled and questioning my being on the road, and I’ve had worse, actual collisions that resulted in physical harm that I’ve just shrugged off. You can’t know what’s going on inside someone’s head, and to belittle peoples’ genuine concerns with such a flippant remark is disgraceful
Rule #5 was meant for people whingeing about riding in the cold, moaning about their leaden legs in the last 20k of a big day out, or giving up the first time they’re dropped on a club ride. It is not to be levelled at people fearing for their life on the road.
What an asinine and fatuous
What an asinine and fatuous response to a serious issue.
I was knocked off on January
I was knocked off on January 3rd, the usual roundabout driver who couldn’t be bothered to look, and although my physical injuries healed in a couple of weeks, it took me another three to get back on the bike, and only then with a group. Would that have been quicker with counselling? Who knows. Probably would have been a lot quicker if the police had done their job and not believed the physically impossible version of events given by the driver.
I’ve been riding for over fifty years, and I’ve had more than one run in with drivers, but it’s never taken me this long to get back on the bike.
burtthebike wrote:
It can grind away at you, it starts to make you think more particularly straight after, you start doing things you wouldn’t have dreamt of doing, wearing helmets is one of those for many.
You modify what you do and again it makes no difference, you change your behaviour again and again and still it doesn’t have any impact and for some they just give up, that why there has been no significant rise in cycling in a decade, despite sporting successes, despite so called ‘infrastructure’ being put in place,
This is a band aid to a much bigger problem, it probably does help and hopefully helps to put into focus certain aspects of getting back into the saddle but if those with authority and responsibility for keeping people safe can’t be arsed or simply ignore the root cause then matters are not going to change for the better Australia has one of the worst cycling environments and they addressed it one way on the back of fag packet workings out and it’s been proven that it failed. They still won’t address the real issue and continue to persecute people on bikes and show them no mercy when it comes to being mown down by motorists.