Under our Vision Zero plan, there's a goal of no deaths or serious injuries on our transport network by 2050.
Writing on OurAuckland, the mother of one victim explains that road safety is a goal that we all must work hard to achieve.
On 24 February 2000, my daughter Fyfa Dawson entered this world, along with all my hopes and dreams for her future.
On 30 October 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 full-time work to pay for her cycle tour of the U.S. 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 8000km 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 banjo. She had a passion for the earth and growing her own food. Sadly, this year’s harvest will be bittersweet for us.
The world will never see the fulfilment of Fyfa Dawson. Her artistic talent, her passion, her encouragement and love for others is gone. The world has been robbed of all she had to offer.
I admired Fyfa and all her passion for everything she did in life. Now she is gone forever because she was hit by a truck in a stupid (preventable?) traffic accident. I cannot express the overwhelming pain and loss I feel. Life has changed forever for myself and my family. I will miss her every day for the rest of my life.
Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children. And no one should die on our roads because of human error.
Human error will always exist – people make mistakes. We must all work together to make sure that when mistakes happen on our roads – it doesn’t have to mean that another family is torn apart.
