Hire bike ‘danger’ is riders to themselves
THE biggest danger from hire bike users in Surfers Paradise appears to be to themselves after a shocking recent trike crash.
A female hire trike rider in her 20s ended up bleeding from the head and taken away on a stretcher by paramedics who noted she collided with a stationary object on Sunday afternoon.
Surfers Paradise MP JohnPaul Langbroek, who long campaigned for tougher hire bike rules brought in last year, said since then he has had far fewer public complaints about dangerous incidents with scooters.
But a witness to the hire bike crash on the Esplanade and View Avenue at 3.45pm said he still felt hire bikes and scooters posed a risk and the top legal speed of 25km per hour was still too fast.
Surfers Paradise’s Michael Keegan, 60, who saw the aftermath of the crash, said there was “blood everywhere”.
“There were two or three of those bikes milling around Next minute this woman was on the ground, her head was bleeding pretty bad.
“She was well wrapped up by the ambulance but must have hit her head hard. She was just moaning.”
Mr Keegan, who relocated from the Sunshine Coast four years ago said he used to walk twice a day - at morning and at dusk along the Esplanade but no longer did at night due to hire bikes and scooters.
“There is no way in the world I will do it in the afternoon, it’s just too dangerous. The amount of near misses that go on - they use people as dodgem points to zip in and out of. It is pretty dangerous.”
“When we take our grand daughter for a walk, I walk out in front because you don’t know what the hell they are going to do. I slow them down.”
Mr Keegan added he showed footage of hire bike riders to Sunshine Coast councillor who told him no way would such an activity be not allowed in Noosa.
“This councillor said ‘That’s ridiculous, way too dangerous’. I’m not a wowser, we use jet skis but you don’t use them in the marina - you have a separate area.”
Mr Keegan said he could not understand how shopping centre car parks could have five and 10km per hour speed limits - yet youngsters without licences could ride motorised hire bikes at 25km an hour on footpaths.
“Someone on one of these things will kill someone sooner or later.”
Under law, hire bikes are treated as bicycles as long as they have a pedal power option and small engine with last year’s new laws requiring motors to cut out at 25km per hour and restricting footpath riding.
A Queensland Ambulance Service spokeswoman said its mobile team saw the incident and “the person riding the scooter has had the accident”.
“It looks like it was due to inexperience using this thing.”
Mr Langbroek said before Labor toughened up the laws he was getting at least two complaints of hire bike danger a month but now had hardly any: “This does show the danger of a motorised implement in the hands of someone inexperienced.”