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Canberra - licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Simon Yeo.JPG13-year-old girl drives into cyclist
Aussie police are investigating after a cyclist was hit by a car driven by a 13-year-old girl in Canberra.
The girl’s 50-year-old father was in the passenger seat when the collision took place on Saturday afternoon at the junction of Cowper Street and Dickson Place.
A 24-year-old male cyclist was injured when the girl turned right across his path. He was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Pavement cycling now legal in all but two Australian states
Community and Safety Superintendent Rob Wilson said police would now investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident and the appropriate actions to take.
“Police will be investigating this incident to understand how a 13-year-old girl came to be driving a car with her father beside her.”
“The road rules are in place to minimise injury and death on our roads – no one is safe to drive before they have gone through the appropriate road ready training. The responsibility of road safety is too great a burden to sit on the shoulders of a 13-year-old girl,” Superintendent Wilson said.
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
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Try and get rid of the negative associations around carbon and pressfit. Carbon frames are no more troublesome than metal, and pressfit is no more...
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The first generation CHPT3 items made in concert with Castelli were fantastic quality, and when purchased on sale were a reasonable investment. I...
- David9694 7 hours 28 min ago
Theres not one scrap of self-help among drivers is there, it's always someone else's issue.
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- hawkinspeter 11 hours 8 min ago
Ridiculed or is it just jealousy?
- Rendel Harris 11 hours 34 min ago
Thank goodness for that. I don't suppose anyone would want you to. You certainly behave like one though.
- Eton Rifle 11 hours 42 min ago
You do see some utterly ridiculous examples of car use....
- Eton Rifle 12 hours 4 min ago
Exactly. Every road death is a tragedy but this is at the "twat deserved it" end of the spectrum, looking at the state of that car.
- Rendel Harris 12 hours 12 min ago
I'm not the editor of this article, nor indeed of anything on this website. One would have thought that didn't require explaining.
- Eton Rifle 12 hours 12 min ago
I think the answer is in your question. I genuinely didn't know he was married to her. It does kinda explain it. Disappointing, nevertheless.
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4 comments
Not sure on the road rules for Canberra which is in ACT but most states have a principle for prosecuting road offences that takes into account that you shouldn't benefit from further breaking the law - so the offence will be treated as if the "supervisor" was the driver and pretty sure would be alcohol and drugs tested
ps might have have been from way out visiting - pretty common for kids on remote station (ranches) to drive on private land maybe an hour to a road and school bus stop
Australia hates cyclists so much that they're even allowing children to run them over now? Blimey, that's a step beyond anything my pessimistic imagination could have come up with.
More importantly, was the cyclist wearing a helmet?
I also hope the dad got breathalised. The only reason I can think of for the dad to say that the 13 year old was driving would be to escape justice for being unfit to drive himself. They should revoke his driving privileges for allowing a 13 year old to take control of his vehicle.
I hope the cyclist is OK. I also hope that the Aussie authorities come down like a ton of bricks on the 50 year old father in the passenger seat. I also wonder whether Dad got breathalised - would be interesting to know, dontcha think?