“Careless” truckie faces charge of killing police cyclist

-- Could have been me. Could have been any one of us.

I didn't know traffic safety expert and Police Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald, 57, who was killed last year cycling home from work, on Petone’s Esplanade, by truck driver Desmond Wilson, 45, who will face the charge of careless driving causing death when he appears in Lower Hutt District Court on February 26.

But on hearing news of Fitzgerald's tragic death every cyclist would have felt a grim connection. It’s hard not to shudder and grope for wood knowing that, but for the time and the place, it could have been me. Could’ve been any one of us.

Knowing Fitzgerald’s profession and track record in traffic safety it’s unlikely he was riding irresponsibly. Most 57 year-old office-bound cycle commuters aren’t built for speed, nor do they needlessly flirt with danger. And it’s unlikely that truck driver and now defendant Wilson drove that day looking for trouble, or to take a life.

But something happened on that fateful June day last year and a body of evidence will argue that truck driver Wilson's carelessness killed the police superintendent.

Fitzgerald is one of many cyclists maimed or killed by motorists (2006 Ministry of Transport crash statistics show 9 cyclist deaths and 150 serious injuries. The same report states that motorists have primary responsibility 70 percent of injuries and deaths).

Driver ‘carelessness’ will smite out many more cyclists. Careless: |ˈkerlis| not giving sufficient attention or thought to avoiding harm or errors. What makes people careless? Laziness? Inadequate skill (presumably Wilson was licensed and, at 45, experienced)? A bad attitude? 

Did Wilson de-personalise that anonymous helmeted character with its head down, pedalling along a road built principally for motorised transport? Did he take a chance, show a split-second disregard for the smaller, slower, mildly inconvenient road user? Ignorance flourishes in the warmth of a cab, where the link between disregard and death is permanently fogged, and always on another road, in some other town. 

As both a driver and cyclist I'm keen learn more about the factors behind Fitzgerald's tragic demise. I hope Wilson comes clean. And I hope the followup story gets more than a one-line brief in a midweek newspaper column, for the sake of everyone. 

RIP Steve Fitzgerald.

Touch wood.