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@Nishiki_Alien
pascalo +1
Petrie Hosken just used the event of Gary Mason's death as a springboard for an unrelated, poorly-informed rehearsal of the usual tired old anti-cyclist rhetoric: helmets, red lights, bikes on pavements, insurance/road tax, bicycles are anonymous, blah blah. I downloaded the show from here (English version of link)
password here:
Update: Gary Mason died of multiple injuries, according to the post-mortem.
The accident took place in the early morning, so he might in fact have been on the way to work. It seems that the driver involved in the accident was arrested, but wasn't actually charged, as was widely reported earlier. The police are still appealing for witnesses. They breath-tested the driver, but are not releasing the results.
I have reason to believe that the police are looking at a possible 'death by careless driving' charge, rather than 'death by dangerous driving'. dbcd charge means they don't have to prove that the driver's behaviour would 'obviously' have led to an accident. However, nobody gets locked up for being convicted of 'careless' driving. A dangerous driving conviction can easily see the driver locked up.
The junction is known to be dangerous. Sutton Council bid for funding to improve it in 2009, but TFL turned them down. Looking at that junction, the winning boroughs must have bid for sites where road users/pedestrians were being mowed down daily.
Disturbing press photo. Gary's bike at the scene, 6/1/11. here:
Photo from Sutton Guardian.
A contact told me that the driver may use Gary Mason's visibility as a mitigating circumstance, as the accident took place well before sunrise (8.04am on 6/1/11).
Whatever happens in the legal arena, I'm still gutted by this. I could only feel worse if it was a FM, or someone I knew personally. Perhaps it's because I'm Southside, and he was 'South London forever', or maybe because I liked the way he had an unglamorous barrel-shaped torso, but was a great boxer.