Hey babe… take a ride on Auckland's wild side

Herald reporter Mathew Dearnaley takes on the Auckland traffic. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Cyclists say Auckland streets are like a war zone and take a similar toll. Transport reporter Mathew Dearnaley takes a ride in the city and lives to tell the tale

After turning up for work on Thursday morning and being told not to bother changing from my sweaty commuter cycling garb, I wonder if I have arrived late once too often. It turns out that as one of the few foolhardy cyclists in the building, I'm being asked to "volunteer" to lay my body on the line for a handlebar commentary on trying to survive Auckland's traffic wars.

Cyclists have been seriously hurt in two crashes in Auckland in the past fortnight, another has been killed by a bus in Ngaruawahia and I am still having flashbacks of the flying car-door which left me a paralytic heap in Queen St at the end of June with a broken collar-bone and battered ribs.

It turns out another cyclist will die this day - a 77-year-old in Takanini on his daily constitutional ride.

No sooner do I nose out of the garage at the top of the Wyndham St hill to head across the Albert St intersection than a left-turning tow-truck cuts me off with just a couple of hand-widths to spare.

It is still only 10.30am, though, and the streets are relatively quiet. So I traipse around Hobson St (a one-way fast-traffic zone - it doesn't pay a cyclist to linger), then left down Kingston St, where a van driver with the right-of-way along Federal St stops to wave me past.

A left turn into Albert St, where extra care is needed, as newish lane markings still leave many motorists uncertain where to place themselves in the road. Straight-ahead cyclists are made vulnerable by having to ride in mid-stream, as left-hand lanes are for turning traffic only.

This is where my revolutionary controlled wobbling technique comes in handy to snap motorists out of their reverie to pay attention to the unpredictable and doddery-looking cyclist in their path, and take evasive action.

Over the Customs St intersection to the waterfront more care is needed as road workers have rationed the traffic to one lane each way at the bottom of Albert St.

Right into Quay St, where a widened footpath guarded by bollards on the approach to the Ferry Building has left fast-flowing traffic squeezed into narrower lanes. More judicious wobbling is called for.

Another right-turn, into Tangihua St, where I am unnerved by a rush of air from a truck carrying steel girders from the waterfront. It has charged across the intersection from Tinley St and almost swiped me.

Moments later, two container trucks whizz past to the left, as I am sticking out in a right-turning lane heading to Beach Rd and Customs St.

Another kind of hazard awaits in Customs St, a pedestrian straying into my path while talking on a mobile phone. This time it's me who has to take the evasive action - and he who has the most to lose.

The Queen St traffic is reasonably well-behaved but allowing vehicles to drive two abreast leaves little room for cyclists, especially when goods vans are double-parked. It is not yet lunch time, when walls of traffic will make Queen St an absolute no-go zone for cyclists, but that's no cause for letting down my guard. A concrete-truck muscling its way out of Fort St in front of me, a car shooting through a red light at the Wyndham St intersection and a young woman skateboarding without a helmet down Queen St while tailgated by a van are par for the course.

A block later, I have to slow for another man straying into my path, across the road from the Civic Theatre. Onwards to the Queen St hill, a truly frightening slog for cyclists as other traffic flies past at close quarters and I am almost clipped by a taxi.

The top of the hill is even scarier, as cyclists puffing their way towards the intersection with Karangahape Rd must cross to a centre lane while risking being mown down by traffic swooping into a left-hand turn.

But I'm turning left myself this time, to survey Grafton Bridge, soon to be out-of-bounds to day-time traffic apart from buses, cyclists and pedestrians.

I find the one lane in each direction wide enough for cars to pass me with a comfortable margin for error.

Symonds St is scarcely cycle friendly, despite being a main route for two-wheeler students. Cyclists can share bus lanes on the outbound journey uphill between K Rd and Khyber Pass Rd, but they are too slow for buses, which do not have enough room to pass.

There are no bus lanes in the other direction but there is a rare cycle-path on the pavement.

An uneventful ride down K Rd is marked only by the sight of two cyclists without helmets and an uncomfortable wait at the intersection with Ponsonby Rd in the hot sun while choking on fumes from vans and 4WDs.

Ponsonby Rd is also uneventful, despite its poor reputation for pedestrian safety, but I find myself having to stare down the drivers of three vehicles vying to edge out in front of me from side streets off College Hill.

Back via Beaumont and Fanshawe Sts to Queen St for a photo shoot in which I am sandwiched between two lines of lunch-time traffic banked all the way to Wyndham St.

Incredibly, a cash courier van decides to make a u-turn in lower Queen St, just missing me. I head back up Symonds St to Khyber Pass Rd and Broadway in Newmarket, both challenging environments for cyclists.

There are short green cycle lanes on two approaches to the Khyber Pass-Broadway intersection, another rare sight for Auckland.

A motor-scooter occupies a "bike box" at the head of the queue in the inside traffic lane, an innovation by city council traffic engineers designed to offer cyclists a relatively safe head-start out of the blocks when the lights change.

I pull alongside and the rider tells me he usually cycles and expects to be knocked down about once a year - which is about three times my crash average.

"Auckland is the pits for cyclists," he says.

After a brief ride up and down Broadway, I decide it's time to put in another appearance back at the office and head along Parnell Rd, where I encounter my only episode of road rage in what has become a 2 1/2 hour obstacle course.

The driver of a car parked on the footpath with a dented left-side door is being berated by two female occupants of a compact 4WD.

On the home straight, southbound up Albert St, I suffer the final insult when a car swings from the other direction straight across my bow and into Swanson St.

I feel sure I have made eye contact with the driver, who sails on through regardless.


44 knocked off bikes each month

On average, 44 cyclists are being knocked off their bikes each month in the upper North Island.

Some are left with cuts and bruises while others, such as the 77-year-old South Auckland man who collided with a car last Wednesday, die from more serious injuries.

The elderly man was the second cyclist to die in the past week and the seventh this year, prompting St John to urge motorists and cyclists to take care on the roads - especially with the start of daylight saving and the school holidays.

Duty manager Patsy Carlyle said she had noticed an increase in the number of cycle accidents being attended by St John - an observation that is reflected in the Northland district statistics.

In the year to June St John officers attended 529 cycle accidents in Northland, Auckland and the Hauraki/Coromandel area - an average of about 44 accidents a month. In the previous year the average was 40.

This year the worst month for cyclists, up until June, was in March when 64 people were injured. That followed a peak in February 2005 when 70 cyclists were involved in accidents.

The injuries are varied and often leave people with life-long problems or unable to work for long periods.

Mrs Carlyle said the increase in accidents might be due to more people using bikes.

Some of the accidents have occurred while people are out riding bike trails in places such as Woodhill Forest.

But in many cases the cyclists have been involved in collisions with cars on the roads. Often the accidents have been preventable.

Mrs Carlyle said cyclists could lessen the risk of injury to themselves by wearing appropriate clothing, including high visibility vests.

Motorists could also take extra care by giving cyclists a wide berth where possible.


CYCLE ACCIDENTS

* 2004-2005 482

* 2005-2006 529

- Elizabeth Binning