ROAD safety signs for cyclists like the ones in Moyne Shire should be adopted around Australia, according to the Amy Gillett Foundation, which campaigns to reduce death and injury among riders.
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With 48 cycling fatalities nationally last year, including six in Victoria, the foundation is concerned that driver distraction will push the toll higher.
“We’d like to see the Moyne project rolled out around Australia,” the foundation’s communications manager Sean Sampson told The Standard.
Mr Sampson was speaking after a global social media outcry over the case of 21-year-old Port Fairy driver Kimberley Davis, who pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court on Monday to dangerous driving after hitting a Koroit cyclist from behind.
The court heard she had texted on her phone 44 times before the impact, which put the cyclist in hospital for months. Davis lost her licence for nine months and was fined $4500. She later told police she was annoyed about the damage to her BMW.
Mr Sampson said the safety signs initiative had been a “collaborative effort’’ in Moyne where the Port Fairy Cycling Club proposed 15 signs on a designated route away from main roads.
The signs are part of the A Metre Matters campaign which promotes recommended minimum distance motorists should be when travelling near cyclists.
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Mr Sampson said drivers should be aware that cyclists were vulnerable road users.
“For a driver a minor bingle is not much of an issue, but for a cyclist they quite often require medical attention for injuries which can be life-changing,” he said.
“We’d like to see the Moyne project rolled out around Australia,”
- Sean Sampson, Amy Gillett Foundation
Mr Sampson said the Koroit cyclist hit by Davis last year was fortunate not to have been confined to a wheelchair.
He received a spinal fracture, a broken toe and lacerations to his head and body and was told by medical staff he could be left a paraplegic.
The newspaper’s court report sparked an extraordinary response on social media with The Standard’s website receiving thousands of responses, many of them about the leniency of the sentence.
Davis pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, a summary offence under the Road Safety Act and accordingly her sentence was not that lenient.
Davis could have been charged under the more serious indictable offence of dangerous driving causing serious injury which is available under the Crimes Act but the case would have to be heard in the County Court and it would have been more difficult to secure a conviction.
