I knew Dave Reilly - not well, never had a beer with him, but I knew him nonetheless. Well enough to feel a deep sadness at his passing, anyway. Guy Stanford from the NSW MCC wrote the email below and posted it to the Syd Uni MC club, and I thought it merited reposting here. There has been some debate about this event, and there will probably be more. I understand the reasons for that. However I'd be grateful if, just for this thread, we can simply honour the poor man and his family, and leave the debates for another time. Manning ---------- Forwarded Message ----------- From: "Guy Stanford" Sent: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:18:39 +1100 Subject: Re: Dave Reilly Dave Reilly was assistant manager at MCA city store in Wentworth Avenue in Sydney. Most of us have bought riding gear from him at some time, or been helped out in selecting the right kit or spares and enjoyed his ratbag humour and irreverent take on life. Some of us have worked alongside him or partied with him. He certainly knew how to do that! Another rider had a very cliche altercation later on Saturday. He was loaded with "Look Out for Motorcycles" stickers to distribute in the servos up around the Old Road and got cleaned up by a Volvo in Mosman, when it turnd left into a nursery, from the right hand lane on Military Rd. The ambo crew that took him to hospital for X-rays (nothing broken) was the same that picked up Dave and they gave him a word sketch of the incident. Apparently, Dave was travelling East on Epping Rd on his way to the city for work early Saturday morning. At the intersection of Herring Rd, the road rises to the intersection and there is the possibility that morning sun glare can obscure vision. Approaching the intersection, Dave was travelling in the far left Bus Lane, against the kerb. Buses coming from the city turn right here to go down to Macquarie Centre and the Uni. The intersection is unusually wide and it takes a bus a little time to complete the turn, so a bus that enters on the orange may not have finished turning before the lights change on Epping Rd. I have seen this happen several times. The sequence of events is unclear, but according to the second hand story related to me, he entered the bus door and took out the ticket machine. There are many questions and while we are culturally disposed to seek to apportion blame, in some ways to avoid facing our grief at the loss of a good man, it serves little purpose to do so. It is just plain irrelevant for Dave. Maybe in a few months the coroner will indicate there are lessons for us, or the road authorities. Those may be a good legacy if they are heeded and keep others from the same fate. Some of us knew him well and the grief is real. We would be a poor society if we failed to honour and mourn him.
Given the second-hand story I got of this one, it's pretty right... Chris lives on a boat, and while the leg isn't broken, it's apparently pretty sore - can't put any weight on it. So he is forced to suffer the indignity of staying with friends on the land. Apparently the poor suffering bugger is forced to spend his mornings playing XBox at Robyn's house, before hobbling next door to Mark's place to play Playstation-2 all afternoon!!! (No word on which platform has the better bike racing games as yet!) After the incident in Mosman, he apparently held his composure well enough to hand the offending driver one of the "Look out for Motorcycles" stickers and say "You should do this, otherwise, you're gonna kill someone.". Driver burst into tears. I think she'll be checking the mirrors better in the future! G
