The dark side of the road

Sydney cabbie Adrian Neylan’s Cablog is always worth reading. Sometimes his experiences parallel my own, sometimes he just makes me extraglad I’m driving in Canberra, rather than Sydney.

But he’s always readable. He talks about cyclists ignoring the road rules and he struck a chord with me. After kangaroos, cyclists are what I fear most of all.

Kangaroos just jump out into the road, and if they are moving fast, they can crash through a windscreen and thrash around in the front seat. Big powerful animals with claws. People die. I’m not keen on dying. Not just yet.

The thing is that I can’t control or deal with kangaroos. They just happen suddenly.

Likewise cyclists late at night. The ones who wear bright LED strobes and reflective gear and helmets and high visibility kit, they are fine. I can see them and avoid them.

What scares me are the ones riding on the road in dark clothing, no lights, no reflectors, nothing. On some suburban streets – Canberra’s older suburbs have streetlights aimed along the footpaths, not the roads, and the street trees cut out their light – such cyclists are almost impossible to see, and they often don’t worry too much about niceties such as right of way or STOP signs or even which side of the road to ride along.

Far too many times, I’ve turned a corner and discovered a cyclist jaunting along, all but invisible until the light from my headlights hits them at a range of about five metres. Last night I turned into Melba Street in Downer, and there was some galoot in a big black coat on a totally unlit bike. He was a black hole, and the only reason we knew he was there was that he was silhouetted against the lights on the roundabout beyond.

But he knew we were there, and he moved smartly out of our way. Onto the wrong side of the road.

If I hit a cyclist, I’ll be fine in my steel tank. Just a scratch on the paint and a dent in the flank. But unprotected flesh and blood stands little chance against a car. My injuries would be on the inside, knowing that I’ve killed or seriously injured someone, and having to live with this. Someone would get a call from a very unhappy policeman to tell them that their son or husband or father won’t be coming home tonight, and that’s something that would haunt me.