Chasing Parked Cars

In any new activ­ity we seek to learn, there’s four phases of learn­ing that take place before true com­pet­ence is achieved.

The Phases are:-

1. Phase I – Uncon­scious Incompetence
2. Phase II – Con­scious Incompetence
3. Phase III – Con­scious Competence
4. Phase IV – Uncon­scious Competence

If we relate that to cyc­ling — spe­cific­ally — bunch rid­ing or solo train­ing, there’s a cer­tain amount of repe­ti­tion needed between phase’s one and four before you’re can com­pet­ently stay upright on the bike.

An example of these phases in cyc­ling terms might be:-

1. Phase I – First bunch ride ever, sit off the back of the bunch, where do they go? How fast? Don’t crash into anyone.
2. Phase II – A few bunch rides done, people yelling at me because I’m all over the place. Need to stay off my brakes etc.
3. Phase III – Rolling turns at the front with the big boys now, make sure I don’t pull too hard or surge and annoy people.
4. Phase IV – Rolling turns, brak­ing steady, call­ing out poten­tial dangers, think­ing about food and the hol­i­days COFFEEE! (thanks @blackthugcat)

Which brings me closer to my point.

In Mel­bourne, we have a road along the coast called Beach Road. It’s roughly thirty kilo­met­ers in length and a fant­astic ride along the coast. Cyc­lists fre­quent this ride in their thou­sands on week­ends. It seems every two minutes a bunch of twenty — fifty riders comes past.

There’s been some recent dis­cus­sion amongst local coun­cils to ban park­ing along this road on week­ends — I sup­pose to reduce incid­ents involving parked cars and cyclists.

This week, Bay­side coun­cil rejec­ted this idea, I dis­covered after read­ing Wades post.

From the Bay­side Leader art­icle, I found the fol­low­ing state­ment interesting:-

“Sandring­ham Hos­pital emer­gency depart­ment dir­ector Dr James Taylor said the hos­pital treated about 200 cyc­ling acci­dent vic­tims each year, with about 20 per cent of ser­i­ous crashes caused by hit­ting parked cars or open doors”

That’s a lot of people crash­ing into parked cars.

My first thought was — If you’re rid­ing solo and you hit a parked car — you need to ask the para­medic for a mir­ror — and take a good hard look at yourself.

After think­ing about it from a begin­ners per­spect­ive though, I figured that the envir­on­ment is quite hos­tile for begin­ner cyc­lists and most are com­pletely obli­vi­ous to all of the dangers that we’re exposed to.

I take for gran­ted the 1–2 metre gap I leave between me and every parked car I pass.

I do this subconsciously.

This is from years of con­sciously leav­ing enough room for a door to sud­denly fling open. I’m always pre­pared for the unex­pec­ted by leav­ing this gap.

I fol­low cyc­lists reg­u­larly who pass parked cars so closely, they almost tap the side mir­ror on the way through. What hap­pens if someone sud­denly opens a door whilst they’re hoot­ing along at 40k/hr?

Just yes­ter­day I watched as an ambu­lance car­ted off a cyc­list on Beach Road. She left a sur­pris­ingly large pool of blood on the road and although I didn’t wit­ness the crash, there was a parked car at the scene.

My three tips for redu­cing this risk.

1. Always look for humans inside a parked car. Chances are they’ll get out at some stage. Leave a large gap — Always.
2. When rid­ing in bunches, don’t be scared to use your voice. This is very import­ant. Warn oth­ers of parked cars.
3. Always ride with your head up and for­ward. Fix­ing brakes or play­ing with your speedo should not be done in the bunch.

If you do these three things reg­u­larly, you will def­in­itely spend less time in the emer­gency ward of your local hospital.

Safe rid­ing this weekend.

###