Why Mitcham hit-run death affects everyone

I DIDN’T know the motorcyclist killed in Mitcham, but his tragic death has had a chilling effect. Gangs terrorising streets doesn’t just happen on the news now. It happens in my backyard.

A motorcycle, victim of a hit-run on Glenburnie Road Scoresby. It was hit and dragged from Orient Avenue, the street sign visible about 60 metres in the background. Picture: Mark Stewart

WE DIDN’T know motorbike rider Keith Stevens, but his senseless death around the corner from where we live in Mitcham has had a chilling effect in our house.

The lawlessness that has gripped Melbourne streets — of stolen cars flying through intersections, gangs breaking down doors to terrorise families — has arrived in my quiet little suburb.

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This doesn’t just happen on the news now. It happens in my backyard.

The corner where the 33-year-old dad lost his life simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time — Orient Avenue and Glenburnie Rd — is that close to where we’ve lived happily for six years it’s a wonder my wife at home didn’t hear the awful crash.

There were clues of the unfolding tragedy that afternoon.

A motorcycle on Glenburnie Road in Scoresby. Picture: Mark Stewart

When driving my daughter home from kindy we saw a fire truck turning the Mitcham Rd corner, an innocent curiosity pointed out by my four-year-old who had ridden one at a recent birthday party.

When we got home a police chopper appeared, circling close to our house.

We chalked it up to another car crash. Living between Canterbury Rd and Whitehorse Rd, peak-hour accidents are common.

But as we checked the Herald Sun over the next few hours it emerged this was no car accident.

A car, said to be stolen, had flown through the corner and cleaned up Mr Stevens, 33, on his motorbike.

The BMW X5 four-wheel drive took off as he lay dying on the road.

He hardly stood a chance and lost his battle for life in hospital the next day.

The corner where this man’s life was cut short is within sight of the park where we play on weekends.

I cycle through the intersection most weekends.

It’s a really nice part of Melbourne, of leafy streets and young families busily renovating their homes.

But now it carries a horrible scar.

Keith Stevens, 33, died in hospital on Thursday after suffering multiple fractures and burns to 50 per cent of his body. Picture: AAP Image/Victoria Police.

A violent event like this that’s all too common now in Melbourne, one that has a lasting effect on more people than those directly involved and their loved ones.

There’s the first responders, the witnesses, the local community.

Locals like me who are left thinking that could have been my wife and daughter driving across that corner.

My friends could have been arriving home when this car came flying through.

It could have been me.

You feel a connection to the motorbike rider who lost his life, to his poor family and what they are going through.

When we heard he had died my wife wondered about the motorbike guy who drove past by our house from time to time. Could it have been him?

The fact he leaves behind a child makes the whole thing even more depressing.

His family, what must they be going through?

And you start wondering, what the hell where the people in the BMW doing in the backstreets of Mitcham?

Were they taking a short cut to avoid cops?

Or stalking our suburb for their next target?

Is my family now at risk of an invasion in the middle of the night?

There’s a sadness and anger spreading through Melbourne as this danger becomes a way of our lives now, even in the backstreets of family suburbs.

This is why this kind of terror and needless stupidity needs to stop.

We are looking to our political, social and law enforcement leaders to find a solution before Melbourne becomes a much more scary, less desirable place to live.

And our courts need to send a strong message to anyone who chooses to create terror behind the wheel or dare invade a family home with no regard for the community in which they live.

We will not stand for this.