From Cycling Accidents to Advocacy: The Story of Ritesh Mani

Most advocates don't set out to become advocates. Often, someone simply reaches a point where staying silent feels worse than speaking up. That was the position Ritesh Mani found himself in, in 2018, after a week that changed how he thought about the sport he loved.

An Ordinary Group of Friends

Before any of this, Ritesh Mani was, in many ways, an ordinary cyclist — part of a group of nine friends who rode together regularly around Auckland. Cycling was fitness, friendship, and freedom rolled into one. It was also practical: an affordable, environmentally responsible way to get around a growing city.

That ordinary picture shifted sharply within a single week in 2018, when four members of the group were involved in cycling accidents — three after being struck by vehicles, and a fourth in a separate crash. Nothing about that week was abstract or statistical. These were people Mani rode alongside, people he knew well.

The Question Every Cyclist Eventually Asks

For a lot of cyclists, there's a moment — sometimes small, sometimes serious — that raises an uncomfortable question: is this worth the risk? For Mani, a father as well as a cyclist, that week made the question impossible to avoid. He seriously considered giving up cycling altogether.

It's a completely understandable response. Weighing personal enjoyment against personal safety, especially as a parent, isn't a small calculation. What makes Mani's story notable isn't that he asked the question — most committed cyclists eventually do — but the answer he arrived at.

Choosing to Change the Environment, Not Give Up the Activity

Rather than stepping away from cycling, Mani chose a different path: trying to change the conditions that had made cycling feel so dangerous in the first place. That choice led to the founding of Safer Cycling Foundation later in 2018 — an organisation built not around walking away from risk, but around reducing it for everyone who chooses to ride.

This wasn't a decision made in the abstract, either. Riding along Tāmaki Drive, one of Auckland's best-known cycling routes, a vehicle once passed close enough that its side mirror clipped Mani's handlebar and sent him to the ground. It was a direct, physical reminder that vague advice to "give cyclists some room" doesn't reliably translate into real-world safety — a belief that would later shape the Foundation's push for a specific, defined passing distance.

From a Personal Decision to a Public Cause

What began as one person's response to a frightening week gradually grew into sustained public advocacy. Over the years that followed, Safer Cycling Foundation built an online community, ran public awareness campaigns, and pushed for a mandatory minimum passing distance for cyclists — work that fed into the national conversation that led to the Government confirming a mandatory 1.5-metre passing rule in July 2026.

It's a reminder that meaningful change doesn't always start with institutions, funding, or formal authority. Sometimes it starts with a frightening week, a group of friends, and one person who decides the situation shouldn't be allowed to stay the same.

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To learn more about Ritesh Mani's full story and the Foundation's ongoing work, visit his founder profile, or read about why he founded Safer Cycling Foundation.