2012-12-17 - Rider Down/Fatality, Southampton (Hampshire)

The notes of the six day trial taken by Southampton Cycling Campaign members make distressing reading:
http://www.southamptoncyclingcampaign.org.uk/2014/news/1888/

The defence tried to stop the trial after evidence from the highway code advice about driving into bright sunlight was introduced. The judge decided to not make a ruling on that but to let the jury decide whether or not highway code advice was relevant to "careless driving". It seems that the jury decided that in this case the highway code could be ignored, possibly because as drivers themselves they would have ignored it too.

There does not seem to have been much emphasis put on the fact that the van driver was at least half an hour late to pick up his child from his partner's home on the other side of town. He had to pick her up and get her to school by 9am. Also the suggestion that he was in lane one and so was probably not in a hurry is nonsense. It is normal for lanes 2 and 3 to be blocked by queuing traffic heading for West Quay and the fast traffic heading for town centre always stays in lane one.

There was discussion about David's choice of route, he could have left the dual carriageway and found the alternate cycle route but it is unsigned, requires turning right out of the dual carriageway part of Paynes road and guessing your way on minor roads and tracks before joining the major road further on. David used to park his car in Totton and cycle the last 5 miles into work. When I ride in from Totton I always use the cycle lanes south of the main road, but I am usually heading for the station or town centre. Actually finding your way onto the cycle route in Totton is difficult and is only signed if you are coming in from Eling. Other access points require right turns across the flow of motor traffic or 60 metres of illegal pavement cycling if you are coming from Rumbridge st. At the other end the 'safe' route through the Toys R Us car park takes a lot of research to discover.

We will never know if David, who lived 30 miles away, chose to cycle on the main dual carriageway route because it was the most direct and quick way for an experienced cyclist, or because he had no idea that there were alternate, longer and slower routes available to him.

There is always uncertainty when this sort of case is decided by a jury. I agree with Martin Porter that having a prosecution team that understood a little bit about cycling in traffic and the law regarding cyclists would be a great improvement.

I chose to use the A4 yesterday because my GPS batteries went flat and I knew it would get me home. Should I somehow be to blame if I'm run down by some idiot rushing around in their cage?

If it's legal to cycle along the road then it's legal to cycle along the road and should be safe to do so.

Sorry about the slight outburst of that but it's really disgusting victim blaming imo.