Cycle safe: Crash prompts high-visibility fit-out

Alice Barker thinks riding has many health and social benefits. Photo / Greg Bowker

Students raise cash for new gear after group of riders mown
down from behind

Cyclists from an east Auckland school are kitting up for a flying return from the holidays, even though several were bowled over by a car last year.

The crash, in which an adult cyclist was seriously injured but three students riding with him from Howick's Macleans College escaped relatively unscathed, sparked fund-raising for high visibility uniforms.

Local businesses and the For Everyone community trust of All Blacks Richie McCaw and Ali Williams helped to raise more than $21,000 to kit out all 50 of the college's cycling team with the fluorescent yellow and black uniforms, which are now compulsory for training rides.

One of the keenest sponsors was Howick Glass owner Wayne Bennie, who suffered multiple injuries including a punctured lung and shattered shoulder in the crash with the students in February.

Although he and the students were all wearing proper cycling clothes in various colours when hit from behind by a car in Te Irirangi Drive, East Tamaki, "that kit they have got now is fluorescent, it shows up at night, it's exceptional," said Mr Bennie, 61, a former national cycling title holder who spent three months recovering from his injuries before getting back on his bike.

Student Daniel Cooper, 17, was not involved in February's crash but said he was a victim of a "little accident" last week when he was knocked off his bike.

Although he was unhurt, his bike's front wheel was ruined.

Such incidents did not put him off cycling, for the freedom and fitness it gave him to help him through his studies.

"It wakes you up in the morning, energises you," he told the Weekend Herald.

"I feel mentally strong all day - if I don't ride in the morning I just feel tired all day."

The school's head cycling coach, Bruce Hunter, said that although high-viz clothing was not "fail-safe", the uniforms made it far easier for motorists to identify the team.

"We can only take as many precautions as possible, and fluoro safety is one of them," he said.

Alice Barker, 15, said she learned to ride a bike only in April and hadn't heard about last year's crash when she joined the team to complement her rowing, but believed the health and social benefits of cycling outweighed the dangers.

Green Party transport spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter is concerned that the Ministry of Transport's household travel survey last year found just 5 per cent of children aged 5 to 12 cycling regularly, compared with 20 per cent in 1989. The rate for 13 to 17 was 6 per cent, but that was down from 26 per cent.