Action for the death of our cyclists - protest this friday 3rd - cps - 4pm

Swindon

Sadly I'm out :(

see you there peeps.

Already here (London), ss a walkenger. See you guys soon.

Red road-works barriers at front of building.

petition submitted. Let's keep the pressure on.

1 Attachment

Kate,
I rode the memorial ride, but just could not get away from work an hour early for this one.
I wish you all the success in this campaign. I'll be writing to my MP and the mayor (again - depressingly) to remind them of the lack of government action which has resulted in the loss of seven more lives since I last wrote.

I was travelling today, would have supported if it had have been possible. the work your doing is highly admirable and I for one appreciate it and support you.
will keep reading this thread.

Thanks msj110
what happened today? How many people turned up? was it enough?
thanks so much for going to all who made it.
a lot of eilidhs friends (all her flatmates and giles and more) were away this w.e. so couldnt go down. I hope you thought it was worth it.
K

We had a nice little protest with a speech and handed over the statement to the CPS receptionist. I have some more pictures and will post some later. Excellent turnout at such short notice.

wish i could have been there.

We had a nice little protest with a speech and handed over the statement to the CPS receptionist. I have some more pictures and will post some later. Excellent turnout at such short notice.

As Oliver said, with probably about 30 people there. A few more pictures here http://www.flickr.com/photos/booksnake/sets/72157620905829640/ and on Real Cycling blog.

Surely if someone has been killed, it's because of bad driving

I realise this is a really bad place to say this, and completely beside the point of this article, but I don't agree with this, or that the driver should always be at fault.

Obviously more often than not it is the fault of the driver, and something needs to be done about it, but there are also a huge amount of irresponsible cyclists too. As a theoretical example, the huge numbers of cyclists who jump red lights, if they get run over while doing that, I'd say that's their fault, not the driver who's driver across the junction who runs them over, and has to live with that for the rest of their life.

But I don't want to piss on the memory of those that have been run over by the fault of drivers, and I support what you are doing.

I realise this is a really bad place to say this, and completely beside the point of this article, but ...........................BLAH..............................time and place fail...............................BLAH.....................and I support what you are doing.

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Then there needs to be a trial to determine fault, doesn't there, Jr?

The point is, if any other road user was killed by an HGV things would be taken a lot more seriously. If you are going to take charge of a dangerous machine, you should be made to be responsible for your actions and aware of the damage you can cause. I dont think every driver is necessarily guilty. I dont necessarily want Eilidh's driver to end up in jail. All we want is for them to go to court and have a fair hearing. At the moment they are not even doing that. If it had been a pedestrian at the crossing what do you think would have happened? Sorry mate, didnt see you? And that would be that? So currently these drivers can get back in their truck, the same truck, and do the same thing the next day. And come up with the same excuse! Look, Eilidh and Anthony are proof that good, experienced cylists are still killed. They are not ditsy blonde girls who dont know how to ride. They were in front and driven over! Not a left turn. We just want equal protection of the law like any other road user. These are not accidents. An accident is something that cannot be avoided. These are failures, be that failure of government policy, truck companies, drivers, or cyclists. If a driver kills a cyclist he pays with the guilt/ emotional trauma, whatever. No fine, no points, no ban, no court case, no job loss, no need to prove his innocence. And they know this. So there is no recourse, no incentive by truck company or driver to make sure it doesnt happen. But the cyclist dies, the dependants are left without a parent, the family and friends suffer, the emergency teams suffer and we as tax payers all suffer. The law is supposed to protect the innocent and vulnerable. Compare the vulnerability of a cyclist sharing space with a fully loaded tipper truck with that of its driver. QED.
PS If you wait for a green light at Hyde Park corner you will be mashed. Maybe they have put in better cycle lanes since I did that commute a long time ago.

Agree with Ktee.

In my mind, if people get killed, at least give them the respect to bother with prosecution and trial. If that turns out to prove innocence or even reasonable doubt, so be it. But even then there are cost implications and raised attention of a court case, that might lead to more political pressure to fix the problems, force extra mirrors, training etc ...

I don't know how the legal system here works, but a judge might rule that the fault is in the road safet policy etc, and that ruling couldn't be ignored?

SO here it is again: Considering that the legal system also prosecutes instances of petty crime, I think they should prosecute things that result in killings.

Then there needs to be a trial to determine fault, doesn't there, Jr?

Absolutely, I was just disagreeing with the statement that it's always the fault of the driver, but yes more cases should go to court

The point is, if any other road user was killed by an HGV things would be taken a lot more seriously. If you are going to take charge of a dangerous machine, you should be made to be responsible for your actions and aware of the damage you can cause. I dont think every driver is necessarily guilty. I dont necessarily want Eilidh's driver to end up in jail. All we want is for them to go to court and have a fair hearing. At the moment they are not even doing that. If it had been a pedestrian at the crossing what do you think would have happened? Sorry mate, didnt see you? And that would be that? So currently these drivers can get back in their truck, the same truck, and do the same thing the next day. And come up with the same excuse! Look, Eilidh and Anthony are proof that good, experienced cylists are still killed. They are not ditsy blonde girls who dont know how to ride. They were in front and driven over! Not a left turn. We just want equal protection of the law like any other road user. These are not accidents. An accident is something that cannot be avoided. These are failures, be that failure of government policy, truck companies, drivers, or cyclists. If a driver kills a cyclist he pays with the guilt/ emotional trauma, whatever. No fine, no points, no ban, no court case, no job loss, no need to prove his innocence. And they know this. So there is no recourse, no incentive by truck company or driver to make sure it doesnt happen. But the cyclist dies, the dependants are left without a parent, the family and friends suffer, the emergency teams suffer and we as tax payers all suffer. The law is supposed to protect the innocent and vulnerable. Compare the vulnerability of a cyclist sharing space with a fully loaded tipper truck with that of its driver. QED.
PS If you wait for a green light at Hyde Park corner you will be mashed. Maybe they have put in better cycle lanes since I did that commute a long time ago.

Well put, Ktee.

Riding a bike shouldn't be a dangerous thing. Roads (with the exceptions of motorways) were not built for cars, irrespective of what people behind the wheel will tell you. We all pay for them through our taxes (not the ficticious 'road tax'), we deserve consideration and due care. Lots of drivers cite people jumping red lights and running people over on pavements as though it's a justification for driving like pricks. It's not.

Thanks to all of you who made it to the CPS demo on Thursday.

The issue of HGVs, cyclists and fatal crashes will be one of the subjects on Wednesday's edition of Woman's Hour - BBC Radio4 at 10am. They will be talking to Cynthia Barlow of RoadPeace and Chief Inspector Jo Oakley, Head of Collision Investigation for Metropolitan Police.

The Police have just posted a cyclst <--> HGV video on You Tube, what do you think? ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPkbNFt5NuY

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The Police have just posted a cyclst <--> HGV video on You Tube, what do you think? ...

It makes the point nicely IMO - the point being stay well clear of HGV's

It's never going to get a million hits but it's good to see the Met making an effort. Some will doubtless say it's not enough or it's too little too late but every little helps and if it saves one person from injury or worse then it's a job well done

The Police have just posted a cyclst <--> HGV video on You Tube, what do you think? ...
YouTube - Exchanging Places

Very sensible advice there, if you have to overtake them, then do it on the outside, but of course there's much better advice. Don't overtake them.

It's not exactly up there with the dancing bear, but at least it's something. Whatever happened to the viral HGV video idea?

there's no advice on the situation of being way in front of the truck, it accelerates towards you and mows you down....

cemex are doing good things. think it is the industry leader. thanks to cynthia barlow of roadpeace buying shares and voting at the agm and forcing them to look at this issue when one of their trucks killed her daughter (the second time for that particular truck and that particular place!)

charlie, I though the womens hour programme was on monday 13th? cant see it on their website.