Australia — The land which brought all of us Mad Max, does seem to have quite a bit of fury on its roads…
A shocking dashcam footage from a driver shared on Reddit shows an “insane close call”where the rider was “lucky to escape death”, at an intersection which cyclists have described as the “worst in Melbourne” where “lines don’t mean anything”.
In the video, the cyclist can be seen cycling slowly onto the bike lane, but then a lorry driver decides to cut him off and the rider is forced to move aside to give way. But even as the cyclist hugs the pavement, the driver apparently completely misjudges the corner, and proceeds to trample the rider’s bike and injure him as well, even mounting the pavement.
From DashCamOwnersAustralia... always assume the worst around trucks
byu/ruinawish inmelbournecycling
The footage was captioned: “This was at corner of Docklands Hwy and Lorimer St, Melbourne VIC on 26/11/2024. The trailer truck drove over bicycle and lucky the cyclist wasn’t injured. I horned the truck at the next intersection and he looked at me and drove off when the light turned green. I drove back to the scene and police took a statement and this video.”
Australian news Network 10 reported that “the 58-year-old cyclist was taken to hospital with minor injuries”.
> Aussie police sergeant warns cyclists to “stay off” busy roads and “don’t put yourself in harm’s way”, as Sky News asks “Are cyclists annoying us?” – a month after two riders seriously injured in deliberate hit-and-runs
The post, initially made on r/melbournecyclists and then cross-posted to r/melbourne (by a brave soul, might I add), has garnered loads of reactions from people. If you’ve got any idea of how popular cycling discourse is shaped in Australia, I assume you’d probably know the inclination of the comments on the latter subreddit, but most cyclists were empathetic towards the rider in the video, some even dispirited with the drivers.
“Hope he loses his license and gets charged. I am sick of these f***heads on the road. That poor guy would have been so frightened. I was almost killed by a truck and immediately went out and bought a dashcam. It shouldn’t be a death defying fiasco to get around this city. Good on you for trying and for caring.”
“Dashed white line, truck driver must give way to vehicles already in the lane, plus must give way to a bike in a bike lane. The bike is already there, so fail to give way not to mention leaving the scene of an accident.”
“F*** poor bugger, minding his own business and then that happens. Hoping for a speedy recovery and no lasting damage.”
“That’s a hit and run. That driver needs to be charged as such. That could’ve easily ended that cyclists or pedestrians life. It could’ve ended my life.”
> “The truck driver actually tried to kill me”: Lachlan Morton forced to “bail off the side of the road” as lorry driver “kept going directly at me” and “didn’t move his truck one inch” during monster ‘Lap of Australia’ effort
Another person shared an account of similar incident that happened to them, writing: “This happened to me but I got cut off by the cab of the truck and I fell and wend under. Landed on my back and saw the trucks rear wheel coming and I rolled out from underneath just in time. The bike got taken down the street with the truck. Only then did he stop when he felt the bike go under. So lucky.”
Meanwhile, this intersection has already come under scrutiny from the Victorian Transport Association, who in 2017 called on authorities to rethink the plan to create an on-road bicycle path on Lorimer Street in Port Melbourne.
VTA CEO Peter Anderson said: “While we fully support infrastructure that encourages commuters onto bikes and away from cars, the last place we should be putting a shared path is on the only gazetted freight route servicing the south side of the Port of Melbourne.
“It’s an irresponsible recipe for disaster to encourage cycling on a road so intensively used by heavy vehicles, and is the precise opposite of what we recommended in early consultations.
“For planners to have included an on-road cycling path on Lorimer Street in the draft framework defies logic.”
> “What kind of disturbed, inhumane individuals do that?”: Double hit-and-run suspects were “laughing” after mowing down Melbourne cyclist
This news comes just a couple weeks after Sky News Australia’s notorious segment about cyclists, in which a panel of ill-informed presenters called for “all bikes to be banned from all roads forever” — after a “crazy near miss” on Main South Road in Adelaide, involving two car drivers, a lorry driver, and a cyclist on a recumbent tricycle.
Co-host Caroline Marcus, exhibiting his accurate knowledge and research about recumbent bikes, said: “What the hell was that person thinking riding… it looks like a kid’s toy, these trikes.”
Meanwhile, Kel Richards claimed: “Not some, ban all bikes from all roads, forever – simple solution. It’s the only intelligent solution… You can never have bicycles mixing with steel traffic, it can never be safe. But they think they’re so morally good, because they’re saving the planet remember, and they’re safe because they’re in Lycra.”
Not to be a dark cloud of pessimism on a Tuesday morning, but with media spouting non-sense like this, it doesn’t fill me with much hope for cycling in Australia…
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Plans have been unveiled for a new £4,500,000 cycle lane that will cross the City of London.
The route will stretch from Aldgate Square in the east to Blackfriars in the west – roughly the furthest points apart from where the London Wall once stood.
https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/03/map-shows-route-4-500-000-planned-new-cyc...
Driver disqualified for knocking cyclist off bike by 'passing too closely'...
https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news/thames-valley/news/2024/november...
So, passing too close would now seem to mean, well, actually hitting a cyclist and breaking their arm.
I'm not sure the verb 'pass' is accurate in that case. I could be wrong but I think the correct verb could possibly be 'hit'.
And the more I think about it, well, I think I may just be correct. But who knows, I've read 1984 (or Nineteen Eighty-Four) so I may be entirely wrong...
Yes! Nineteen Eighty-Four is where the police learn to construct their publicity releases and other statements: our thoughts and prayers are with...we have taken action...etc
"Inconsiderate" not dangerous then! Well it was a cyclist and we all know killing a cycist is considered "careless" so may be "inconsiderate" for injuring one is about right.
I built up an old classic type general purpose bike so I could leave it outside the shops and nobody would steal it - so what happened? lots of people told me what a fantastic bike it is, and when I was on the train at Twickenham somebody tried to steal it!
Richard Ballantine had a bicycle hearse back in 2013 (cue 'where does the time go?' comments). As I recall it was just a trailer with some decoration.
A tandem hearse sounds like either it would be massive, or severely underpowered, or both?
Not a tandem hearse but (for anyone else wondering about such a service) a Google shows you can get what is a heavy-duty cargo trike for hearse hire.
Or even one of these trailers (as reviewed in the sister site eBikeTips)? Cargo capacity of 200kg should have you covered for almost everyone? Other less fancy but still heavy duty ones are available e.g. Surly do one if you can get it.
I was thinking of a Surly Bill hooked up to any standard tandem.
Even the Archers are getting on the speeding cyclists theme...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0025kl2
Apparently, cyclists (well, e-bikers) are not exempt from speed limits in Borsetshire. Dan Archer and Walter Gabriel were not heard or mentioned in this episode
To be fair, characters in a drama are by definition unreliable information sources.
... but probably more reliable than a lot of actual characters!
Nor was Pru Forrest.
Hey - No Archers spoilers please!
That's really scary - I'm not sure what else the cyclist could have done, and they were very lucky.
The truck driver approached from behind and overtook them, so nobody can claim 'undertaking'. If they claim they didn't see the cyclist then they ought to have their licence taken away (do Australians have driving licences?).
And if the worse had happened, you just know that the focus of the Australian media would have been simply on whether he was wearing a helmet.
I would love to know whether the Australian police actually followed this up, and what happened next.
And, the first couple of Insta comments…
Absolutely not a victim blaming – the blame lies 100% with the driver of the truck – but I've been stuck in that position too many times in London, stopping and hoping that the back end of the truck won't get me; now as soon as I recognise that the idiot either hasn't seen me or has seen me but just doesn't care I'm straight onto the pavement. On one occasion when the kerb was too high to bunnyhop and it was too late (fast moving truck) to unclip I just threw myself sideways onto the pavement; got a few grazes and bruises but better than ending up like someone I used to know who got caught in that very position with their leg pulled into the wheel and being effectively degloved from knee to ankle, necessitating many, many years of painful surgeries and a permanent disability. Of course it's easy to be wise from behind a keyboard and again, it's absolutely not the cyclist's fault that they got hit, that's just my way of dealing with it these days.