Qantas Assure is Ready to Ride!

We had the great pleasure of visiting one of our Spring Cycle Supporting Partners, Qantas Assure, to participate in their Wellbeing Day recently. A terrific incentive, the day gave staff time to engage in activities and talks that can help them achieve a greater work/life balance, look after their health, and ensure their staff have support for their personal wellbeing. 

We took our new 5 tips for safe riding presentation as well as our Minimum Passing Distance challenge to really put them to the test. Staff who attended our 5 tips presentation ranged from completely new riders keen but cautious about riding, to commuters, and even the hardened long distance riders. It was a fantastic forum to discuss every day riding etiquette and share ideas on how to be more visible, the best lane placement, and of course how the Minimum Passing Distance Rule works. Even with such a mix of riders, everyone walked a way with helpful information having learned something new.

Our MPD Challenge certainly turned some heads in the office. We put 35 willing staff members through their paces and had them put themselves in the drivers seat and show us how far they need to be from a rider as they over took. The majority were surprised at just how far a metre, or a metre and a half was.

And the results, who could give a metre and who did not give their colleagues and loved ones on a bike enough room when they simulated overtaking? In a range of scenarios including double lines or solid centre lines, 50km, 60km, 70km, 80km or 100km speed zones, 19 out of 35 FAILED to correctly give the bike rider the minimum passing distance required. That’s more than half!

Of those, the majority did not know that in speed zones higher than 60km/hr, that the minimum passing distance was increased to 1.5m, and approximately 80% did not know they are legally allowed to cross solid, or double lines, to give a bike rider enough room, when safe to overtake as per the MPD rule that came in to play in March 2016.

The ones that did pass? Most who passed with flying colours were bike riders themselves, or had loved ones who ride bikes!

We’re taking this kind of hands on activation out to the people to help spread the word and educate on how we can all better share our roads. We provide a pamphlet and further information on how the MPD rule works so that they can help spread the work and update colleagues, friends and family on how they too can give bike riders the space the need on the road.

We received some great feedback from the team and look forward to working with them more in the lead up to Spring Cycle.