Cycle danger-spot warning ignored, coroner told

A bike placed in memory of cyclist Jane Bishop who was killed by a truck after swerving to avoid a car. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Advice that the former Auckland City Council ignored a warning about a pinch-point on Tamaki Drive where a cyclist was killed has been offered to a coronial inquiry.

Former Cycle Action Auckland chairman Bevan Woodward has written to the Chief Coroner, Judge Neil McLean, attaching a letter he sent to the council in 2006 highlighting the corner near Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World as "a very dangerous situation for cyclists".

That was more than four years before 27-year-old English nurse Jane Bishop was killed at the same spot in November, when she allegedly swerved to avoid an opening car door and was hit by a truck.

A 35-year-old man is due to appear in Auckland District Court tomorrow charged with careless use of a motor vehicle causing death.

Mr Woodward told Judge McLean that his letter to the council, reinforced by a meeting with transport general manager Stephen Rainbow, was unfortunately "ignored and it was no great surprise that on November 17, 2010, Jane Bishop was tragically killed whilst cycling through the identified hazard area".

Dr Rainbow, now a senior official with Auckland Transport, told the Herald the day after the accident he could not recall the letter or a safety audit which Mr Woodward said the former council commissioned from Cycle Action Auckland.

But Auckland Transport acted swiftly to remove four car-parking spaces on November 19 from the spot where Ms Bishop was killed, which is what Mr Woodward said the cycling group recommended to the council in April 2006.

Mr Woodward said he wondered whether the council should share some legal responsibility for the death with the man who opened the car door.

While not wanting to detract from motorists' obligation to look behind them before opening doors, he believed the council as the road-controlling authority for Tamaki Drive had legal responsibility "to oversee the safe running of its transport network".

He said Cycle Action Auckland identified the scene of Ms Bishop's death as the worst pinch-point in a 50km cycling route which the council paid the group to audit.

There was not enough room between parked cars and the centreline for motorists to pass cyclists safely, and the group had recommended the removal of parking spaces.

Mr Woodward said Judge McLean, who has indicated a desire for a joint coronial inquiry into eight recent cycling deaths including Ms Bishop's, had written back to tell him to expect to hear from Hamilton-based coroner Gordon Matenga. A spokesman for the judge confirmed yesterday he had referred files on the eight cases to Mr Matenga for a possible joint hearing to determine whether the cases shared any similar circumstances from which lessons could be learned.

He said Mr Matenga would wait until all criminal proceedings were completed before deciding how to proceed, in consultation with cycling advocacy groups.

It was not for the coroner to recommend whether the former city council should face legal action.

"The coroner's job is very much to look forward and discover any lessons that can help prevent similar deaths happening in the future," the spokesman said.

Sentences have already been imposed on two motorists responsible for four of the cycling deaths, three of which resulted from a single crash near Morrinsville just days before Ms Bishop was knocked down.

Kirsty King, 23, was sentenced last month to 300 hours of community service, disqualified from driving for 12 months and fined $10,000 on each of three charges of careless driving causing the deaths of cyclists Wilhelm Alois Muller, Mark Andrew Fergusson and Kay Wolfe.

That was followed this week by a sentence imposed on Marton kitchen-hand Christopher David McClelland for careless driving causing the death of cyclist Patricia Anne-Veronica Fraser, a 35-year-old mother of four children, on the same day as the Morrinsville crash.

He was ordered to perform 175 hours of community work and was disqualified from driving for 10 months.