A woman has avoided jail for hitting a 13-year-old cyclist in Melbourne's north, before fleeing the scene and handing herself into police four days later.

Thi Hang Nguyen, 42, was driving a friend's car along Bell Street, Coburg, in November last year when she hit the girl, who was on the wrong side of the road and not wearing a helmet.

The girl was left with life-threatening injuries and placed into an induced coma, but survived.

Nguyen lost her licence for four years and will have to complete 150 hours of community work after pleading guilty to failing to stop after a motor vehicle accident and failing to render assistance at an accident.

"You did not stop the car in any meaningful way," County Court Judge Gabrielle Cannon said in sentencing.

"You ought to have known that your crash had caused serious injury."

The 13-year-old girl was left in a critical condition after she was knocked off her bike. ( ABC News )

But Judge Cannon said Nguyen was not responsible for the crash because the young girl was riding "erratically" towards oncoming traffic.

"It was unfortunately a matter of time before she was hit by a car," she said.

After the collision, Nguyen fled the scene with a shattered windscreen and dumped the car in a nearby side street.

Bits of the girl's hair were also lodged in the windscreen.

'Gross lapse of good judgement'

Nguyen told a friend later in the evening that she thought she hit a bike but did not see a cyclist and promised she would report herself to police.

But despite this assurance, Nguyen did not hand herself in for another four days, prompting a widely-publicised Victoria Police campaign to find the driver.

Nguyen told police officers that she returned to the crash scene shortly after the incident but thought the cyclist was okay because two young girls were standing where the damaged bicycle was.

She said she did not hand herself in sooner because she had been unable to contact her solicitor due to the Melbourne Cup public holidays.

Police seized the car involved days after the crash. ( Supplied: Victoria Police )

Judge Cannon described Nguyen's failure to stop as a "gross lapse of good judgement" and her varying accounts of the accident as "disingenuous".

"It defies belief, in my view, that the person riding the bike who collided with the front of your car was not seriously injured," Judge Cannon said.

"I accept you left the scene because you panicked."

"I also accept you are very sorrowful, angry about and ashamed of your actions."

As well as a serving a community corrections order, Nguyen will also have to provide a DNA sample to police.

'A pretty light sentence': Bicycle Victoria

Cycling advocacy group Bicycle Network said Nguyen should have received a jail sentence.

"It's a pretty light sentence," the group's chief executive Craig Richards said.

"This is a serious offence. It's a 10-year maximum penalty [for each charge.]"

Mr Richards agreed the cyclist was in the wrong but said the judge should have sent a message to the community about the importance of rendering assistance to those injured in accidents.

"People on bikes are everywhere and this is very upsetting [for] the bike riding community to see someone hurt like that," Mr Richards said.

"We say to everyone, 'Please stop, please help, if anyone is hurt', we need to stop and help."

Judge Cannon said Nguyen would have received a three-year custodial sentence, with a non-parole period of two-years, had she not pled guilty.