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Cyclist flies over handlebars and “nearly breaks neck” after uninsured SUV driver pulls out in Auckland New Zealand (YouTube)Cyclist who flew over handlebars and “nearly broke neck” after uninsured SUV driver pulled out confronts motorist at home demanding $13,000 – but pensioner says “there’s no way I’m bloody paying that”
A cyclist who lost control of his bike and flipped over the handlebars, landing on his head and “nearly breaking” his neck, after an uninsured driver pulled out of a parking space – allegedly without indicating – directly into his group’s path, confronted the motorist at her home to demand almost $13,000 to repair the damage to his new custom bike.
However, when confronted by the cyclist and his cousin, the SUV driver, 68-year-old Mele Kauvalu, claimed that she “didn’t hit” the rider and that he had simply “bumped into” her car instead, and insisted that there was “no damn way I’m bloody paying” to repair the victim’s bike.
The cyclist, a road safety engineer from Wellington, New Zealand, was riding single file in a group of four cyclists in Auckland on New Year’s Day, just after 8am, when Kauvalu suddenly pulled out of her parking space on Boundary Road in Clover Park.
In footage captured by one member of the group of the incident, and which has since been posted on social media (along with a clip of the subsequent confrontation at Kauvalu’s home), the cyclist can be seen losing control of his bike as he slams on the brakes to avoid the motorist, before flying over the handlebars and colliding with the back of the SUV.
“I was forced to brake, and as my brakes locked up I flipped 180 degrees in the air and landed on my back, nearly breaking my neck in the process,” the cyclist – who wishes to remain anonymous – told the New Zealand Herald this week.
The crash left him with heavy bruises, cuts, and shock, forcing him to take a week off work – though the cyclist believes it could have been a lot worse.
“My helmet saved my life, it has a massive dent on it. It could’ve been a fatal accident,” he said.
In the immediate aftermath of the crash, Kauvalu told the newspaper that she got out of her car but soon left the scene without speaking to the cyclists, because she believed that they had all escaped injury and that she wasn’t involved or at fault, in any case.
The following day, the cyclist and his cousin visited the driver’s home to explain that they were seeking damages of over $12,000 to pay for repairs to his bike’s frame, wheels, and crankset.
In footage of the confrontation, the cyclist’s cousin tells Kauvalu: “You almost killed him.”
“No, I didn’t hit him, he bumped into my car,” the 68-year-old replied.
After showing the driver footage of the incident, the cousin continued: “You pulled out without indicating and you nearly caused him to break his neck. And there’s $12,000 damage to the bike.”
“12 thousand? How the hell?” the pensioner exclaimed. “There’s no damn way I’m bloody paying that.”
Since then, the cyclist has lodged a Disputes’ Tribunal claim for $12,805 (around £5,800) in repairs to the new custom-built bike, including $3,800 for the buckled carbon wheelset, $3,290 for damage to the carbon fork and frame, and $2,100 for the damaged carbon crankset.
His $599 Abus Gamechanger helmet and $699 Garmin Edge 530 GPS bike computer were also damaged in the crash, along with the rear derailleur, left shifter, and handlebar.
Asked by the Herald why the bike was uninsured, the cyclist said it had been built just before Christmas and that he’d “barely had a chance to ride it, let alone specify it on a contents policy”.
He continued: “Insurance is primarily useful when you are at fault for something. Its secondary purpose is for when your property is damaged. And in this case, the driver is 100 per cent at fault.”
He added that the Disputes’ Tribunal claim, which is set to be assessed in late March, was the “logical method to recover my loss”, but he also hoped the police would charge the motorist with careless or dangerous driving.
New Zealand Police has confirmed it is currently investigating the incident, including the claim that Kauvalu left the scene after the collision.
“Police have since received additional information to assist our inquiries”, a police spokesman said. “We are in the process of speaking with the registered owner of a nominated vehicle.”
Speaking to the New Zealand Herald, retired pharmaceutical factory worker Kauvalu said she “can’t believe I didn’t see anything coming” and that she had checked if the road was clear before pulling out of the space.
“I wasn’t in a hurry or anything, because we’d just visited our priest on the first day of the new year, [which we do] every year,” she said. “I just looked and [it] was clear for me.”
Asked if she’d indicated before exiting the space, the 68-year-old said she couldn’t remember, but admitted that the evidence in the video clip – which appears to show that she failed to indicate – was “probably right”.
“If I don’t indicate and it caused it, then I suppose I feel responsible,” she said.
The motorist added that on the day of the crash she believed that she hadn’t done anything wrong. After stopping and getting out of the SUV due to hearing screams, she then asked a passer-by on the other side of the road if she’d hit someone.
“She said, ‘No, no. He just stopped, pushed down on the brake and fell’,” the pensioner continued.
Kauvalu then left without speaking to the cyclist because she felt that he didn’t appear injured and was surrounded by his fellow cyclists, and in any ase didn’t believe she was at fault, noting: “I thought, I didn’t hit anything.”
“They sent me something. I have to go to a tribunal or whatever you call it,” she continued, referring to the damages claim, while noting that the police have since contacted her.
“They want me to pay the money. I don’t know where the hell I’m gonna get the money… they may have to take it off my pension every damn, bloody fortnight.”
Meanwhile, earlier this week, in Hastings, another city on New Zealand’s North Island, police confirmed that a 34-year-old women has been charged with dangerous driving, following the death of an 11-year-old girl, who was struck by the driver while riding her bike near her home, prompting the local community to unite to call for safer streets.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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25 comments
Clearly a case of "all the gear and no idea"
1. This guy lacks the skills or was asleep at the wheel
2. They were doing more than 35kph or refer to point 1, either way they weren't riding to the conditions of the road
3. From the point the car pulls out to when he lands on his head there is about 5 long seconds
4. why did he unclip?? Did he expect his mate behind him to do the same? Following the guy in front is the thing to do, clearly there was no traffic coming from the other way which is why rider1 takes a wide berth of the car.
The audacity of someone to make a mistake and expect someone else to pay for it is classic Kiwi male bravado.
As a Brit in NZ (Auckland) let me say I think it's nuts you can drive a car uninsured but it's considered a god-given right here, it befuddles foreigners especially as those with no insurance are usually the worst drivers. But that's not the point here, forgetting not to indicate is not a prison sentence, the woman could have not seen them hunched down, did they all have lights, what's more if they were doing 40+kph she might not have seen them when she got into the car.
If I had a bike worth $20k or more I'd definitely insure it before taking it onto the road, he is as guilty as her there, but again, not an insurance claim for her!
Whilst I agree that there was a lack of skill from the rider that contributed significantly to their mishap (as I said elsewhere on this thread, I believe it's actually a touch of wheels with the rider behind that is the primary cause of the tumble), what does having lights have to do with it in broad daylight with the sun shining? If she couldn't see a group of cyclists approaching in such conditions, she wouldn't see a group of cyclists approaching with lights either. Also, what sort of cockamamie excuse is "she might not have seen them when she got into the car" for heaven's sake? You're not supposed to pull out on the basis of what you saw when you entered your vehicle, you're supposed to do so after indicating, checking all your mirrors and looking over your shoulder - "sorry officer they weren't there when I got into the car" would get short shrift even from the UK police, one feels.
P.S. It's not five seconds from the driver pulling out to the rider hitting the deck, it's three at most, and more importantly the reaction that leads a second later to them crashing starts within less than a second of the driver pulling out.
I watched the footage on the NZH site. Oddly, I found myself craning my neck to try to see round the rider infront. Hmm. Anyway, the driver pulling out was a mistake. She probably either didn't look properly or misjudged the cyclists' speed, but we'll never know and it doesn't matter. The lead rider had time to avoid collision, and did so.
The driver's lawyer will likely make the following argument: The rider who actually crashed reacted late and they were further from the SUV at the point it moved than the rider who avoided collison and moving at the same speed as the rider who avoided collision. So the crash was actually caused by being too close to the vehicle in front (in this case another rider) thus obscuring their view of the road ahead which would be contributory negligence. i.e. "you would still have crashed even if my client's vehicle was just very badly parked rather than suddenly moving."
As an aside which hardly anyone will find interesting but I'll type it anway, I worked for a year in general insurance between school and university and was just getting into cycling with a club at the time. One rule was that "insured into third party rear" was always a fault claim - even if the vehicle infront has done an emergency stop for no obvious reason (logic: there might have been a very good reason for them to have done it). I asked my then boss what this meant for a pile-up on a club-run. His view was that it doesn't matter what's caused the rider infront to crash; if you go over the top of them it's your fault so leave a gap. Tell this to a MGIF driver trying to overtake a column of neatly spaced cyclists 100 metres long ....
I think you are right about being too close to the vehicle in front. However, the fact that the lead rider had to take evasive action to avoid a crash indicates that the driver had moved to endanger all the cyclists collectively. We have all been caught in group rides in a similar fashion.
If the car had hit the cyclist, car would be at fault. First cyclist managed to avoid the accident, the second panics and loses control. I would say the accident was avoidable and the second wasn't riding with due care. I get that you are riding in a group but you should still have line of sight of the road and one could argue that perhaps riding at speed in a city with cars parked at the side was not the best use of judgement. I don't think he has a case.
One thing we know for sure is that the car wasn't at fault, because it's just a machine. I think you mean the driver.
Secondly, unless the cyclists are breaking the speed limit, they have every right to ride with or without parked cars around. No one would dream of making that comment if the cyclist had instead been driving along at the same speed.
Also, not an "accident".
I heard Hamilton's crash in his new/old Ferrari referred to as the inappropriate term the other day.
Tricky one to prove driver liability I'd say because if you look closely at the video the direct cause of the crash is that the #3 rider actually overlaps their front wheel with the rear wheel of the #2 rider and that touch is what brings the #2 down - blurry screenshot shows it, quite obvious on watching the video. The driver's careless actions undoubtedly set off the train of events (rider #3 goes to follow rider #1's line around the car, rider #2 hesitates then moves into him) but it's the touch of wheels which actually brings the rider down.
I agree with this - the driver was the ultimate cause of the crash and therefore bears some responsbility. But the immediate cause of cyclist #2 falling was the cyclist behind them hitting their back wheel.
If I stop my car suddenly because someone pulls out in front of me and the driver behind hits me, it's the driver behind who hit me who'll be paying for the repairs.
How can the rider behind clipping rear wheel cause the rider in front to go fully over handlebars/front wheel?
Sure the rider behind clipped them, but I suspect it makes minimal difference to damage caused...
They were clipped, back wheel went sideways, they put their foot down to try and control the highside, braking at the same time and that flipped them over the bars. The car driver is very much in the wrong but as far as I can see it was a combination of the contact with the other rider and poor control - panic overbraking - that sent them over the bars.
Nope and nope.
I'm not defending the driver of the car, who clearly initiated the incident but the poor bike handling reponse from the rider is what caused him to crash.
There is no contact from the bike behind him, and even if there was, a touch of wheels will bring the rear rider down, not the front.
Rather than taking the avoidance route, for which there was ample time based on the response of the first rider, he panicked, started unclipping, which further destablised him and then grabbed a handful of front brake and endo'd.
If you can't afford third party insurance, you can't afford a car.
Don't really know what more I can add to that, if you look at the video on a big screen the wheels clearly touch. Not sure where you get the idea that a touch of wheels will always bring down the rear rider and not the front, it's quite possible for it to bring down either, neither or both.
Watched it several times. The lead rider saw the car pulling out and went wide. The guy behind him was the one that pranged. Driver was clearly at fault for not looking, especially as there was a car parked behind her, not indicating too.
But. If the lead rider saw her and managed to pull wide, why didn't number two? Perhaps because all he could see was the back of his lead. When the lead pulled wide it was oh *!?*'!
I can understand the appeal of bombing along in a the slipstream in a tight group, but perhaps an urban road, alongside parked cars, isn't the best possible place to deliberately restrict your forward view????
Or am I being unkind?
You shouldn't need to be giving way to vehicles joining the road you are on. Nobody would expect a car to swerve out of the way in that situation, and if there was a collision it would be clear who was at fault.
I understand that but people make mistakes. Fact is, front guy took evasive and crash guy didn't because he was too close and couldn't see ahead.
You can't completely rely on other people for your safety.
The trained emergency manoeuvre is stop.
Which makes the rider in front managing to swerve from cycle path into road (and risk collision with any car proceeding legally in road, which they have had no time to check for) not particularly relevant, other than showing just how close the driver was...
No no no. Not unkind at all. Victim blaming perhaps (along with Tom_77) but certainly not unkind.
Welcome to NZ. Will be following this with interest to see how it plays out.
Why was the driver not insured would seem to be a more pertinent question.
Not defending her at all, but insurance isn't a legal requirement for cars in NZ. Personal injury is covered by ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation), and there's a levy for that as part of the vehicle registration charge (NZ equivalent of VED).
Aside from that though, the Herald will always try to blame a cyclist where there is one to blame. An awful paper that represents some pretty dismal views.
Thanks for the insurance explanation, it's a bit of a sly headline calling the driver uninsured if 3rd party claims are dealt with differently in NZ.
The NZ Herald has never let accuracy get in gthe way of ragebait.
The compulsory third-party insurance in NZ only covers personal injury; property damage requires extra insurance that isn't compulsory, so that's what they mean by uninsured.
Who drives a nearly new SUV without insurance?