‘My world broke’ when Fyfa died

Sarah Dawson describes the impact of losing her 19-year-old daughter, Fyfa, killed when hit by a truck while cycling in Christchurch.

On February 24, 2000, my daughter Fyfa Dawson entered this world, along with all my hopes and dreams for her future.

On October 30, 2019, the police came into my workplace and told me my daughter was never coming home. She was killed cycling to work.

In that moment, my world broke apart.

I have always known that cycling on the road with cars is dangerous. Cyclists can be hard to see and have little protection against a vehicle. But I had to put my fear aside and allow my daughter to make her own choices and do what she loved.

I just continued to hope that she would stay safe and be lucky. She was not lucky.

All it takes is a simple mistake, especially at an uncontrolled intersection, and the results can be fatal.

We need traffic management systems that will lessen the damage when a mistake is made.

Fyfa had the normal ups and downs of childhood; she was creative, curious and always challenged the status quo. She had a huge passion for cycling.

After finishing year 12, at age 16, she began fulltime work to pay for a cycle tour of the United States. She made it happen twice.

Once she spent three months cycling through Utah and Colorado – going over the Rockies a couple of times. The next tour took her through rugged New Mexico, Montana, Washington state and California – cycling a little more than 8000 kilometres in five months.

My daughter was highly motivated. She was a talented artist, a printmaker and a seamstress. She played the piano and was learning to play the