A big thankyou to the volunteers and everyone who helped gather signatures. The petition was submitted on Wednesday containing just under 2300 signatures, over 500 from residents of Bayside. This is apparently a record petition to Bayside council so well done.

If you still have a page of signatures out there, please still send them in as they can be submitted subsequent to the petition being lodged. This petition is being put to council at their meeting this Tuesday (25th May). It should give great leverage with council as we move towards achieving a safer Beach Rd. Let’s hope that common sense and democracy prevail.

I will keep you posted as to the results of this effort. From here we hopefully get to speak at an upcoming council meeting where it would be fantastic to have lots of people speak in support of this proposal. The petition clearly indicates that many people want council to reconsider the ’No Stopping’ zone in conjunction with parking concessions to ensure a sensible compromise for all users of Beach Rd and it’s facilities. We are aware of a number of serious accidents and injuries involving parked cars and cyclists since council last considered the issue and chose to vote against it. The statistics provided to council on bicycle / parked car accidents seem vastly understated, if you have been involved in such an accident, or know someone who has, please contact me (michael@michaelforbes.org). Whilst this issue has been ongoing for a number of years, accidents continue to happen each and every weekend.

In conjunction with the petition we are working towards addressing concerns raised at previous meetings. Particularly whether removal of parked cars would have a negative impact on the following:

• impact to businesses of ‘No Stopping’ zone
• noise levels generated by cyclists
• entry to Beach Rd from driveways and side streets
• traffic flow

Thanks again for your efforts in helping me collect this many signatures from a wheelchair. Ironically my wife and I were so busy counting signatures that we didn’t get to sign the petition ourselves! In the upcoming weeks there will be an opportunity to speak at council on this matter and I urge you to join me to show council the type of person who wants this safety measure addressed as a matter of urgency.

We have had a wonderful response thus far to the petition with over 500 signatures already received. I would like to see us at least double this number by the end of next weekend. If you have petitions out there that have been signed please send them in no later than 17 May so that I can start to collate the results and present the petition to the council. In line with this date, I would like to maximise the number of signatures that we can obtain over the next week. If you meet a group of friends for a ride please take copies of the petition with you and get them signed. If you join a group ride on a regular basis please take a copy of the petition and get it signed. Please contact me if you are willing to do this so I can make sure that all bases are covered. In addition to this, please contact me at michael@michaelforbes.org if you would be willing to spare an hour or two of your time next weekend to being in select locations to gather signatures for the petition.

Please remember I cannot use the No Stopping Zone. If you ride on Beach Road on the weekends it is for you. I’m volunteering my services to coordinate this effort but I need your help to gather the signatures. It is too hard for me to get up at that time of the morning and very difficult to do from a wheelchair. If you want this no stopping zone to make your weekend riding safer please spare an hour of your time next weekend to help get this across the line.

Thank you,

Mike.

At a Bayside Council meeting in either May or June the council will be ruling once again on the implementation of a No Stopping Zone in the Bayside Council area from 6 AM until 10 AM on weekends. Most of you know that if this had been in place on the morning of my accident I would not be a quadriplegic. I am aiming to gather with the help of volunteers as many signatures as we can to show the councillors how many people (Bayside residents or otherwise) want this parking restriction in place. Please see the Cycle Safety page for more details or to download the petition.

If you would like to volunteer to assist in distributing copies of the petition or in getting signatures please e-mail me on Michael@michaelforbes.org . The more signatures we get the more we can show the council how democracy works. Please assist me to prevent another accident like mine. I look forward to hearing from you.

For those of you who missed it I have added at the Channel 7 video that I featured on in 2009. I have also added some information and a link to Project Walk on the Rehabilitation page.

Enjoy,

Mike.

Following my attendance at the Bayside City Council meeting last week someone found it pertinent to send me my first hate mail! I am flattered by this as it is wonderful to be treated as a normal human being as opposed to somebody who has broken his neck and is confined to a wheelchair most of the time. Just so that you are aware my website is not about hate mail. It is about recovery, persistence, determination, defying the odds and the application of the human spirit. It is an important outlet for me to share my achievements and I know others look at it in the same way. Any further hate mail in relation to my involvement in the community will be deleted as soon as I am aware that it is there.

Cheers,

Mike.

There was an ordinary council meeting last night to make a judgement as to whether the Bayside Council would follow suit with the Kingston and Port Phillip councils to make Beach Road a no stopping zone between the hours of 6 AM and 10 AM on the weekend to allow clear passage for cyclists to avoid negotiating parked cars. Obviously if this ruling had been in place in the Bayside Council area during my ride in June 2008 I would not be a quadriplegic today. I attended this meeting with Monica and a friend and spoke about my experience. Please see the Cycle Safety page for more details.