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Today I noticed an article about the crash involving Dan Andrews' wife Catherine Andrews and a 15 year old cyclist that occurred in 2013. I decided to check out the location. You can find the location by copying and pasting the following coordinates or address into Google Maps. -38.37233221847381, 144.77570100737393 The accident occurred at 1:10pm on the 7th of January 2013. In 2013 Melbourne Road had a speed limit of 70km/h, which is also the current speed limit. Ridley Street had/has a speed limit of 50km/h. All I can really say is it must have been gut wrenching for all parties involved. I was once pulling out of a drive very, very slowly where the hedge obscured my view and out of the corner of my eye I noticed something and immediately hit the brakes. It was a small child on a bike who had got ahead of the mother. The bike ended up on it's side and just near or possibly under the wheel of my car (I can't quite recall). No one was hurt, the bike was not damaged, but I was shaken and lived with the memory for some time. There's no winners in this situation. I don't like checking out accident information as it's often horrible. I do like to understand what may have happened in broad terms so if there's something to learn, I can learn and pass the information on to family and friends. Using Google Streetview to check out the location you'll see there's no warning to cars that a bike track exists. Nothing. Visibility is very limited. The path is around 17 metres from the main road. There's perhaps 2-3 metres visibility of anyone on the path. A bike travelling at 20km/h would give a driver 0.36-0.72 seconds to respond and hit the brakes. On roads for traffic lights, response time is assumed to be around 1 second. In other words, there may be insufficient time for a driver to respond and apply their brakes irrespective of their speed. The bike path being 17 metres from the main road is around a house block in from the road. Drivers expect paths to be near roads, not a house block in. But it is a warning when in these areas look out for signs of bike paths and drive appropriately. Cyclists also need to consider they may not be seen. Perhaps some signage or line markings indicating cycling crossing point may be worth considering. I hope this information may help others in some way. It has certainly taught me to be more alert for bike trails and paths. Kelvin |
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