Opinion
I thought I was a safe driver. Then … thud!
Kerri Sackville
Columnist and authorI was driving to pick up my daughter from a play rehearsal after school. It was early evening. It was dark. I paused before turning right to let an oncoming car pass, then made the turn. As I entered the road, I felt a thud at the rear of my car.
A thud. It was shocking. I stopped my car. I got out. I saw a bike, a helmet, a man on the road.
Two police officers arrived at the scene of my accident and I was profoundly relieved.Credit: iStock
“Oh my god!” I exclaimed. “Are you OK?”
He nodded. I didn’t believe him. He looked like he was in pain. What happened? Where did he come from? What was I supposed to do now?
I tried to think. I’d been in accidents before. Many years ago, I was a passenger in a car that slammed into a tree after being forced off a highway. On another occasion, a car flipped in front of me, and I assisted the passengers to climb out while calling an ambulance.
Ambulance. I needed to call an ambulance. I picked up my phone and dialled for help. A man approached from a nearby home. He spoke to the cyclist, brought him water, moved his bike to the kerb.
“This is a terrible intersection,” he told me. “There are accidents here all the time.”
I had driven that road a thousand times. I would have seen a car coming from half a kilometre away. But the man was on a bike. I didn’t see the bike.
The ambulance arrived quickly. The ambo was lovely, and tended to the cyclist.
“I didn’t see him,” I told him, and the ambo nodded compassionately.
“That’s why it’s called an accident,” he said. “These things happen all the time.”
These days, they do. Cyclist injuries and fatalities have increased dramatically over the past decade. My own son has been brushed by a car twice when out riding. I know it’s dangerous out there for bikes. I just never considered that I could be the one to pose the risk.
I tried to comfort the cyclist. He was younger than my son. I asked if there was someone I could call. I asked if he had anyone at home. I wanted to hug him, tell him everything would be OK. And all the while, I was hearing that thud in my head. The thud, and a man on the ground.
Two police officers arrived. They were young too, and smiled politely as they approached. I was profoundly relieved. I’d expected them to be hostile. Perhaps I’d been watching too many police dramas.
My middle child is a P-plater. I worry about her … [not] myself. I always assumed I was an excellent driver.
The cops asked me questions. Did a breath test. Took a statement. “I didn’t see him,” I said. It was starting to become a tic.
My phone pinged. My middle child, texting from home. Where are you? she asked. I’d forgotten all about her. I’ve had an accident, I texted back. I’ll be home when I can.
My middle child is a P-plater. I worry about her when she’s in the car. I didn’t worry about myself. Like pretty much every other person on the road, I always assumed I was an excellent driver.
“Where was the impact?” the policeman asked me. I realised I didn’t know. We walked across the road together and surveyed the damage. The left rear quarter panel and passenger door were seriously dented. But it was just a car. It really didn’t matter. As long as the cyclist was OK.
“What will happen?” I asked the police. I had no idea how these things worked.
“We’ve taken your statement. We’ll talk to him. And then we’ll decide who was at fault.”
“And if I am?” I asked. I felt panicked for a moment. Would I be charged with a crime?
“You may get a fine,” he said, and I breathed. A fine was just money. The cyclist could have been dead.
I drove home at a snail’s pace. The cyclist called the next day. He’d been released from hospital. It was brilliant news. It could have gone a very different way.
I hear so many drivers complaining about bikes, and just as many cyclists complaining about drivers. I know it can be annoying to have to veer around a slow cyclist, or to wait for a peloton, or to look out for bikes in your blind spot.
But those feelings of irritation pale in comparison to the horror of an actual collision. The politics of road transport mean nothing when someone is lying on the ground.
It has been a couple of weeks now and I can still hear that thud. In a matter of moments, everything could have changed.
I just didn’t see him. Make sure you do.
Kerri Sackville is an author and columnist.
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