A national report detailing fatalities among road cyclists has prompted renewed safety messages from Wagga groups.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Compiled from the government's Australian Road Deaths Database over the past three decades, the statistics reveal younger riders are more likely to experience trouble on the road.
Wagga Cycling Club rider Cameron Oke believes that comes down to a combined lack of discernment and driver-blindness.
"Motorists tend to see cyclists as a pest," he said.
"When they think of cyclists they think of 'the mamal' - that is, the middle-aged man in Lycra. A lot of the time drivers just don't think of kids being out there."
While secondary and primary students were more likely to be in an incident around 7pm, preschoolers experienced their peak troubles between 7am and 10am.
As drivers subconsciously filter out anything that does not fit the perception of the 'average road rider', as Mr Oke pointed out, they "just don't see the kid on the bike next to them".
"Both of those times are peak traffic times too," said Mr Oke.
"For the preschoolers, it seems to me that they would be riding along the footpaths when a car has come out of a driveway and didn't see them.
"But that after-school time, that's when older kids would be coming home from school, possibly doing some training before it gets dark."
At 14 years old competitive rider Luke Nixon has had his fair share of spills on both the road and the track.
Last year he was hospitalised with burns from sliding down the velodrome during the National Junior Track Competition.
More recently at the weekend, the teenager was shoved from his bike by a fellow competitor on Victorian roads. Crashing onto a fence, he says he managed to walk away with "just a bit of pain to my ego".
Training six days a week, covering up to 100km a day, he spends most of his time on shared roads and has a simple message to those around him.
"[Cyclists] need to know where they are when a car passes because it can be close," he said.
"But drivers, that's another human on the road, it's not an animal. Pass them with that 1.5 metre [buffer]."
Related:
Over the past 20 years in Wagga, local business groups have sponsored the implementation of 'share the road' signage around cyclist hotspots, which Mr Oke said has done a lot to curb incidences.
"There hasn't been a cycling fatality in the Riverina in years, and that might be because people are riding in groups more, or it could be the introduction of indoor cycleways.
"At the same time in this city, bikes have been selling faster than cars, so there are more cyclists out there.
"The more people are aware of bikes, the more they see cyclists, the more awareness there will be."
There is a propensity, Mr Oke said, to begin pointing the finger when a cyclist and a car collide.
But Mr Oke said, focusing on who is at fault is the wrong question.
"We're yet to see a motorist die from hitting a bike," he said.
"I don't know what the circumstances in every situation, certainly accidents do happen and you always hope it wasn't malicious.
"But a cyclist in a safety helmet will never win against a car, so the important thing to keep people safe is to build that awareness that the roads must be shared."