With increasingly frequent reports of cyclists being injured or killed on Australian roads, the cycling community is asking whether governments and peak body Cycling Australia could be doing more

Mark Renshaw should be in Adelaide. The professional cyclist was scheduled to begin his 2019 UCI World Tour campaign at this week’s Tour Down Under. Instead, he is at home in Bathurst, recovering from a fractured pelvis after being hit by a car in December.

“I was out on a training ride and about three-quarters of the way through a roundabout when a middle-aged driver entered the roundabout into my path,” Renshaw recalls. “I didn’t even see her – I just went straight over the bonnet.” He fractured his pelvis and is expected to miss several months of racing.

One in five Australian drivers admits to cyclist road rage, survey finds Read more

The Team Dimension Data rider’s injuries have reopened debate about the safety of cyclists in Australia. According to the Australian Automobile Association, 40 cyclists died on Australian roads in the 12 months to September. Despite the stated intent of the government’s 2011 National Road Safety Strategy to decrease cycling-related fatalities, the death toll has remained largely static. Cycling casualties as a proportion of all road traffic causalities have even risen.

Renshaw might be a high-profile example, but his circumstances are alarmingly common. A study in the Medical Journal of Australia found that injuries to cyclists in Victoria doubled between 2007 and 2015, with $700m in associated health costs.

“I have been hit several times,” says Lauren O’Neill, a university student in Sydney who rides every day. “I can’t count the number of incidents I have been involved in, and when you go to the police they just aren’t interested. It is astonishing how differently you are treated when you are on a bike. Cycling is not inherently unsafe, but drivers make it unsafe.” O’Neill says she was recently knocked to the ground by a driver, who yelled: “That wouldn’t have happened if you were in a car.”

Scott McGrory, an Olympic gold medal-winning former cyclist, travelled around the world during his professional career. Whenever he returned home, he was shocked by what he saw. “We are not doing enough,” he says. “I suspect most Australians would consider our road infrastructure to be better than, say, India. But I felt safer riding on the ridiculously busy streets of Mumbai than I do in any Australian capital city.”

Death of promising young cyclist

Twelve months ago, Australia’s tight-knit professional peloton was shaken by the death of Jason Lowndes, a promising young rider who died after being hit by a car near Bendigo. The driver, whose prosecution is ongoing, was allegedly using a phone.

Midway through Cycling Australia’s 2018 Road National Championships in sweltering Ballarat, the peloton conducted a lap of honour in Lowndes’ memory. Tears mixed with anger as the riders, many of whom are based in Europe and only experience Australian road conditions sporadically, wondered why more was not being done. “We’re not just bike riders, we’re husbands, brothers, sons, daughters,” says professional cyclist Brenton Jones.

I am hoping that Australia will become a safe place to cycle

These elite athletes are, paradoxically, one reason why peak body Cycling Australia has not played a more prominent role in the cycling safety debate. The vast majority of the organisation’s revenue comes from Sport Australia and is linked to performance outcomes, including Olympic gold medals. While Cycling Australia’s stated vision is to foster “the world’s leading cycling nation” through “performance, participation and advocacy”, the majority of its budget is spent on the first of those objectives.

“We are very mindful of the safety of our members and the broader cycling public,” says Steve Drake, chief executive of Cycling Australia. “Our challenge in that regard is our funding situation and how we most effectively achieve outcomes.” More than 70% of the peak body’s $16m revenue in the 2017-18 financial year came from high performance-related grants, sponsorship, events and broadcasting, which is overwhelmingly reinvested in high performance.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Australian women’s road cycling team member Amy Gillettt was killed in an accident in July 2005 while the team was on a training run at Zeulenroda, 80km south of the city of Leipzig, Germany. Photograph: cyclingnews.com/AIS/EPA

To date, much of Cycling Australia’s cycling safety work has been conducted via the Amy Gillett Foundation (AGF), a charitable organisation established in 2006 following a tragic incident in Germany. Gillett, 29, was riding with other members of the Australian team when a car hit the bunch, injuring five and killing Gillett.

The AGF has since become a prominent voice for safer cycling, including effectively lobbying for its signature “A Metre Matters” campaign. “We have had success right around Australia at bringing in laws requiring motorists to pass cyclists with a minimum of one metre in speed zones up to 60km/h and a minimum of 1.5 metres in speed zones of over 60km/h,” says AGF chief executive Phoebe Dunn.

South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory have all legislated minimum passing laws. Northern Territory has committed to doing so by May and the scheme is currently being trialled in Western Australia. But Victoria remains unmoved – despite Cycling Australia being headquartered in Melbourne and the state hosting a World Tour race every year. “Different laws in different states in itself causes safety issues,” says Simon Gillett, Amy’s husband and one of the founders of the AGF. “Victoria can’t be an outlier forever.”

The AGF has also been looking towards education as a way to improve cyclist safety. “There is little to no information provided to learner drivers on how to share the road safely,” says Dunn. “Drivers are being failed by the training and testing processes that are in place.” The organisation recently created an educational package, which has become a mandatory part of driver training in the ACT.

Dutch cyclist's death in Melbourne prompts calls for 'immediate' action on safety Read more

Motoring bodies are supportive of this push for better education. “The number of cyclist fatalities is very worrying,” says National Roads and Motorists Association spokesperson Peter Khoury.

“Every road user has to play a role. Cycling is a relatively new transport mode in Australia, compared with some cities in Europe, so many drivers are simply not used to sharing the road. But this is the new reality – more and more people are going to be cycling in Australia. We need to build the infrastructure to support that and run the education campaigns to teach people how to share the road safely.”

Cyclists, too, bear some responsibility. “It is up to riders and car drivers to pay more attention,” says the injured Renshaw. “Some cyclists give cycling a bad name, and equally there are car drivers that make the roads dangerous.”

‘Burning with rage for cyclists’

While AGF “talks on behalf of Cycling Australia” on safety issues, according to Dunn, the peak body admits it can and should do more. “One of our objectives over time is to be more present in the advocacy space,” says Drake.

A major challenge is the sector’s fragmentation, with more than 20 organisations representing different elements of cycling in various states and territories. “We have a whole bunch of small voices that nobody is listening to,” says Drake. “Do ministers wake up in the morning and worry what the cycling lobby is going to say about them? No.

“That fragmentation wastes time and money, which could be better focused on delivering services to all riders – including a better effort on the advocacy front. When you have a larger body with a larger membership base, politicians will have to pay attention.”

An even bigger obstacle for Cycling Australia, AGF and the entire cycling community, is Australia’s motoring culture. A survey found that one in five Australian drivers had acted aggressively towards cyclists. Almost every recreational rider has anecdotes about abuse from motorists.

“I often get told to get off the road,” says psychology academic Andrew Flood, who cycles to his office in Canberra’s north. “One day a guy basically climbed out of his window to abuse me. The funny thing was that he was travelling in the opposite direction – I wasn’t even in his way. I can only assume on that particularly lovely morning he was just burning with rage for cyclists.”

While Gillett believes “we are moving in the right direction” with only a “very vocal minority still of the opinion that cyclists do not belong on the road”, his chief executive is less optimistic. “We are a long way behind in Australia in relation to attitudes to cyclists,” says Dunn. “We are trying to address the us versus them rhetoric and move towards a shared responsibility to protect all road users.”

Australia's biggest bike-lane sceptic 'wants to destroy cycling in Sydney' Read more

Dunn points to Queensland as the “standout state” with a “very active cycling safety agenda”. But Queensland’s cycling community was sent into mourning by the death of Cameron Frewer, killed in November after being hit by a car while riding.

Frewer’s death came just days after he had penned an open letter to Queensland politicians, Cycling Australia and the AGF bemoaning inadequate enforcement of minimum passing laws. In the letter he asserted “it is beyond reasonable doubt that a majority of police are using their [statutory] ‘discretion’ as a smoke screen for their own anti-cyclist prejudice and ignorance of the very laws they are entrusted to uphold”.

Among the comments shared on social media following Frewer’s death were suggestions that “cyclists have a death wish”, “bike riders are arrogant and should be banned on roads” and “they never take their share of blame when something awful happens”.

The AGF’s stated commitment is zero cyclist fatalities. While the lack of progress may make that aspirational target sound unrealistic, Dunn remains hopeful. “In 15 years’ time I am hoping that the Amy Gillett Foundation’s work is done,” she says. “Australia will be a safe place to cycle.”

Until then, there will be hundreds more deaths and injuries on Australian roads. Renshaw knows that he is among the lucky ones. He may have missed the beginning of his World Tour season, but it could have been much worse. As he tweeted after the incident: “Cars vs bike never ends well for the bike.”