Could a little black box strapped to the back of a bicycle be the key to bringing in new laws in Victoria that force motorists to leave at least a one-metre gap when passing?
The device – called PassBox – is being trialled by a group of bike riders in an effort to gather useful data about which streets in Melbourne are prone to dangerously close passes between cyclists and cars.
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Could 'PassBox' on bikes save lives?
The Age's Adam Carey trialled a gadget known as PassBox to see how close motorists got to him while riding along St Kilda Road.
The volunteer group, Melbourne BUG, invited The Age to test out PassBox this week, on a busy road that might be one of the city's worst for such near misses: St Kilda Road.
The grand boulevard's reputation for bike bingles and serious crashes is already well established.
![In the hotseat: Adam Carey tests out cycling safety tool PassBox on St Kilda Road.](/web/20170305012406im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/g/e/z/m/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtgfgn.png/1482372243323.jpg)
In the five years to June 30, 2014, there were 131 crashes involving cyclists on St Kilda Road, with 25 resulting in serious injuries, VicRoads crash data shows.
More than 60 of the crashes were from dooring, when a driver or passenger suddenly opens a door into the path of a passing cyclist.
I took a ride along St KIlda Road at 11am on Sunday, when traffic was relatively quiet.
Even so, on a 15-minute ride between Princes Bridge and St Kilda junction, PassBox detected that I was overtaken four times by motorists who gave me a buffer of less than a metre.
The closest of them, 61 centimetres, was by a driver in a white car who revved his engine as he passed me. It felt like a deliberate act of intimidation.
There is debate in Victoria about whether minimum passing distance laws would make cycling safer. Police say such laws would be virtually unenforceable because measuring the gap requires a subjective judgment on the part of a police officer.
At a parliamentary inquiry into the issue last year, Victoria Police acting senior sergeant Ryan Burns warned that the gap a motorist left would be "difficult to detect and easy to contest".
VicRoads and the TAC also expressed doubt about the laws during the hearing, in part because of a lack of evidence that they would reduce crashes.
Melbourne BUG spokeswoman Megan Hopper said the PassBox trial was an attempt to gather data that could help road safety authorities such as VicRoads, as well as researchers and councils, assess the case for safe passing laws.
"Nobody will know if one metre passing laws work unless we measure what is happening now," Ms Hopper said.
![adam carey story age news 22/12/2016 passbox, an ultrasound device that measures the distance between a cyclist and passing cars.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170305012406im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/g/g/d/h/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x0.png/1482371268680.png)
PassBox is an ultrasound sensor that measures the distance between a cyclist and passing cars. Photo: supplied.
PassBox is a precision distance sensor that uses ultrasound technology to measure how close vehicles and bikes come to each other.
Police in Chattanooga, Tennessee have recently pioneered the same technology to enforce that state's three-feet passing distance law.
Ms Hopper, a former Moreland mayor and councillor, said Melbourne BUG would put PassBox on volunteers' bikes for a week at a time to gain a better understanding of how motorists behave around cyclists, and which road conditions are more likely to lead to close passes.
"When a crash occurs it's too late," she said.
The parliamentary committee published a report that backed the introduction of a one-metre minimum passing distance on roads with speed limits of 60 km/h or less and 1½ metres on faster roads.
This would bring Victoria into line with Queensland and South Australia, where laws already exist, and with New South Wales, Tasmania and the ACT which are trialling them.
The Victorian parliament has six months to respond to the recommendations in the report, which was released on September 15.
For info visit passboxmelbourne.com
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