In the news

The widower wants to introduce an offence of 'causing death by dangerous cycling'. I think Andrea Leadsom tried this a few years ago in a private members' bill - does anyone know what happened to that?

The Andrea Leadsom private members bill for 'causing death by dangerous cycling' was talked out in Parliament in 2012. It arose out of a fatal crash in her constituency in 2007. Jason Howard ran into 17 year old Rhiannon Bennett, she was fatally injured, hitting her head on the curb. She had been with a group of friends who stepped into the road as Jason was coming down a steep hill towards them. He shouted a warning, aimed his bike at a gap between the teenagers and the pavement but had been going too fast to stop.
The media frenzy that followed Jason's trial was just as bad as this month. His shouted warning was seen as arrogance, he had a flash expensive mountain bike and was not a likeable character. Rhiannon's devastated family sadly picked up the most sensationalist mis-reporting of the evidence and campaigned for a change in the law.
Andrea Leadsom's bill failed because it did not get support from government nor from the police. At the time of the crash the possible legal penalties for cyclists were as high or higher than for motorists. The charge of 'causing death by dangerous driving' had not come into use. Jason's £2200 penalty was double the average given out to car drivers for similar levels of culpability. Since then the penalties for drivers have gone up and are closer to those of the manslaughter charge used against Charlie Alliston.
In the media as the story moved from local reporting to national front page tabloid news only the most sensationist and often untrue parts of the story were highlighted. Only the local journalists who had been in court reported that the teenagers had come from a session drinking lager in the park before crossing the road without looking.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/7496757.stm