A disasterous week on the Kew Boulevard

The following letter was dispatched today to Vic Roads, Vic Police, every councillor on the Boroondara Council and the Minister for Roads and Safety

It would appear that sometime on Monday evening there was another tack attack on the Kew Boulevard.
From Tuesday morning, I was receiving reports of *dozens* of cyclists puncturing.
Notably, the perpetrators area of operations expanded to include the “teardrop” circuit near the Studley Park Road entrance to the Boulevard.
By Thursday, reports of punctures started to abate. I presume this is because the road was swept.
Most disheartingly however was an eyewitness account of an ambulance attending to an injured cyclist on the Kew Boulevard on Wednesday:
Hi George, on Wednesday 20th rode up the boulevard raced the tear drop and had coffee afterwards at the boathouse. The barista said on the way to work he saw a rider was down and being attended to by ambos etc. When we rode back down the boulie we saw the council car with the magnet bar . The car was stopped and an unmarked police car was parked behind. People were in deep conversation, and were studying what had been picked up by the magnet.
I take this opportunity to remind you of the case for installing surveillance cameras:
  1. Surveillance cameras are a proven crime fighting device. This was demonstrated in the Jill Meagher case. While I have no doubt that it will be challenging to detect someone actually throwing tacks, it is not difficult to imagine that over a period of time, police will observe common motor vehicles/common pedestrian(s) coinciding with tack attacks, which will ultimately enable them to identify the perpetrator.
  2. Surveillance cameras will act to prevent further attacks. If the perpetrator believes there is a risk that they will be identified, they are unlikely to re-offend. While this might mean the perpetrator is never caught, the cessation of attacks would be a more than acceptable outcome.
  3. Despite the fact that the Kew Boulevard is close to the CBD, it is a secluded piece of road in which the availability of witnesses to crimes and accidents is far from guaranteed. Surveillance cameras would provide supporting evidence to police in the event of other crimes and accidents.
  4. The Australian Cycling Alliance has produced an estimate in excess of $500,000 to be the cost so far incurred by Victorian tax payers and the rate payers of Boroondara. These mitigation costs more than justifies the expense of the installation of cameras. (If nothing changes, in another 15 months’ time, another $500,000 will have been expended and effectively wasted).
  5. Nothing else has worked.
I am in the process of reaching out to the cycling community to gather data re punctures and accidents as and when they occur. Furthermore, a mobile phone app is under development which will allow victims to record precise time and location details of punctures.
All data collected will be shared with you.
This correspondence will be shared with my media connections.
Regards
George Mihailides
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2 comments

  • Stephen

    If and when cameras are installed it would be best to include the park areas alongside the road too, because whoever is doing it may not even be using the road. I guess it would be quite easy to get onto the high ground and throw tacks out from under cover of the trees. It would be a shame for camera installations to still have no effect.

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