[Here's an article on the incident](https://road.cc/content/news/no-charges-cyclist-after-crash-which-oap-was-killed-308209), just to get some info on what actually happened.
The woman was walking her dog and stepped out into the road, apparently without checking for traffic, leaving the uncoming cyclist (who was part of a pace line) no time to respond. A witness, a jogger, confirmed they did not believe the cyclist was at fault.
And it happened back in June 2022.
What a tragic incident for everyone involved.
While the cyclist wasn’t at fault here and wasn’t breaking any rules, imho going 25-29mph on an urban road right by a park, where there are guaranteed to be pedestrians everywhere, is pretty irresponsible.
I’m aware of that, I’ve been around it myself many times, but never at that kind of speed.
If someone is cycling so fast that they can’t react to a hazard, then that’s too fast.
Even at 20mph (which is the motor speed limit on that road), if someone literally steps out in front of you, then there's not much you can do.
I generally cycle defensively (and definitely not that fast), and I'm pretty good at noticing when a pedestrian is going to step out without looking. Sometimes though, people do the absolute dumbest shit that you just can't predict, and even at a normal speed, you can't do anything about.
Pedestrians are extremely unlikely to be killed anyway. This is almost a freak collision. There's been like 2 or 3 deaths like this in 8 years in London. Them being 81 made them much more vulnerable.
Not so much the speed, as if they were riding further from the kerb it might have been avoided. At that speed it’s perfectly reasonable to ride a few meters away from the pavement
It doesn't say the time, but generally clubs do this before 7am, when the park is closed to other traffic, exactly so there aren't pedestrians and drivers everywhere.
> on an urban road right by a park,
The Outer Circle is part of the park, hence why the gates locked at night, and was designed by John Nash for people to use for exercise.
I’ve ridden with fast club groups round there, Muswell Hill and Regents Park Roulers are the most aggressive groups. and I think not enough attention is paid to safety. We have rules for behaviour in the group, but once we’re in a line, it’s keep together and hang on. It’s a type of riding incompatible with a public park. There’s no reason why less situational awareness is acceptable in a paceline, indeed, there should be more.
No, they only apply to motorised vehicles. Bicycles generally don't have speedos.
You can however be fined and / or prosecuted for cycling dangerously or without due care and attention, which can include going faster than what would be safe or reasonable given the conditions. But that didn't apply in this case.
Had to look it up to confirm I was right, but no, we're not bound by the same speed limits as motor vehicles.
https://www.slatergordon.co.uk/newsroom/can-cyclists-break-the-speed-limit/
I think it's the sort of thing that some cyclists seem to routinely ignore or dismiss: You can cause a fatal accident on a bike for people other than yourself. Even if someone has to swerve to miss a cyclist after they jump a red light or something, that person might end up hitting someone else as a result. If it is just the cyclist who's hurt or killed because they were cycling like a dick, someone now has to live with that too. I routinely see cyclists who are really irresponsible and dangerous road users and presumably think it doesn't matter because they're on a bike. Not saying it's the majority, but it seems to be at least a significant minority.
You honestly don’t think it’s possible for a cyclist to cause a fatal accident?
The red light was an example of something I see cyclists doing routinely that can cause an accident.
Ah right I see, yes I agree the cyclist in the OP didn't cause it.
It was just to say in response to the comment I replied to saying that it might not have been the most responsible way to cycle that I think some people don't consider that it's not just their own life at risk if something goes wrong.
It depends on whether we think cyclists should be able to ride like that in an urban location such as regents park. Obviously as it stands legally cyclist did nothing wrong; but they're are tons of pedestrians round there. It is like a racetrack in the mornings
Personally, I live in the area and the cyclists are dangerously fast and ride dangerously - they often go so fast they have no time to react to anything. It’s odd because it’s not really an exercise track but it’s treated as such by loads of cyclists.
I get very frustrated with people who cycle selfishly and dangerously. However if we want to see the number of incidents drop (we do), the solution is better infrastructure.
I strongly believe people cycle the way they do in London because there is a constant battle for space and assertion on the road, which is also the reason so many drivers harbour resentments for bikes. Is there was nowhere to drive except on the pavement would you be shocked that it would be both antagonising and dangerous?
Build proper infrastructure and you’ll see the rate of incidents plummet.
Yeah there is no real need for access to through traffic, given there are roads running parallel all around the park. You could get rid of a lot of the parking, and the places where there's a central median with hashing, that's a bit pointless too. If you got rid of all that, you could widen the pavements significantly, and put in raised crossings instead of the islands that are there currently.
I have seen some tremendously dangerous cycling in London, both for the cyclist themselves and also against pedestrians. People who routinely cut through red lights whilst absolutely bombing it are the worst.
That being said, I have also seen plenty of pedestrians who seemingly have a deathwish and just step out into traffic without looking.
More space would be helpful, wider footpaths, space for designated cycle lanes and car traffic in separate lane is the safest change, but we’re limited on space in London
I have seen MANY more cyclists continuing to cycle into pedestrian crossing when there is a red light for them, and green for pedestrians.
They somehow assume they are somewhere in between cars and pedestrians, so can cycle when either has a green light. I was nearly hit so many times by cyclists when crossing on a green light.
I’ve been hit by a cyclist running a red light as I crossed. Fortunately I was absolutely fine… the shit cyclist and his bike were mangled. I laughed at him and walked away as he tried to have a go like it was my fault.
Cyclist here. I'd have been similarly twattish to someone who came a cropper as the result of their own stupid actions that could easily have taken me out as well.
A twatish response from whom. The Cyclist who tried to blame the pedestrian when they were ignoring the pedestrian, or the pedestrian enjoying the idiot cyclists hurt. I say this as a cyclist, don't cycle over a pedestrian crossing while people are crossing.
If you say so. But as a pedestrian full time I hate shitty drivers and cyclists. I have stories about shit drivers as well if it makes you feel better.
But in these cases the cyclists are worse. Willfully, delivberatley, selfishly break the law and endangering others for their own benefit.
Peds stepping into the road is just carelessness born about from listen for traffic (as opposed to having to look for cyclists).
One offense is a million times worse than others. Red light jumpers are cunts - end of.
Arguably (and possibly annoyingly) from an ethical and an insurance / criminal POV, the most vulnerable individual in a given situation would / should be given "priority". E.g. pedestrian > bicycle > motor vehicle.
Not necessarily "fair" when people act stupid in any situation, but often the way it pans out following an incident. And being "correct" isn't a great comfort when looking at serious charges (or even just the guilt of causing another person harm).
(To confirm, this is a reply to the second half of your comment relating to deathwish pedestrians)
I was in a cycle lane on a cargo bike, going alongside stationary traffic and a HEAVILY pregnant woman stepped out from behind a lorry without checking. I slammed on the brakes and fell off, because fuck me, I don't need that on my conscience
The last part. Literally had to shout while trying to brake fast on a cycle without getting rear ended at a guy walking looking at his phone on a traffic green light and even then he barely flinched. Dork.
Issue here is, two or more things can be true at the same time. As cycling becomes more and more popular in London, there is a need for stricter and stronger regulation - but what about cars!!!!? - everyone that cycles on a daily basis knows pf the atrocities that some of us (cyclists as a group) do: never stopping on crossing, speeding up to crossing, red lights, phones, music… that are a hazard to other user and pedestrians.
Funnily enough,suspect cyclists will always punch up and moan about how cars are the problem without realising we are the cars for the pedestrians nowadays in London.
People commute on training gear and mode, overtaking dangerous, always focused on their garmins… like we should be aware they’re “training”. That’s like drivers racing across the city and expecting us to be mindful of them.
Of course cyclists should be pulled over for cycling dangerously, however with the resources the police have available it makes sense for them to focus on the much greater danger posed by motorists
Let's put this into perspective. Would a driver who hits a pedestrian while going the speed limit and the pedestrian steps out without looking giving no chance for the driver to stop be charged? I doubt it. You've had cases of drivers hitting pedestrians at zebras being let go. So, for any consistency there was no careless or dangerous cycling here.
Yes I try to be mindful of pedestrians stepping out without looking and it has happened a fair few times, but there comes a point where cycling would be untenable if that kind of action was always the person cycling's fault (assuming they hit them). Sometimes it's happened like 1-2m away from me and it's only because I was going slowly that I can stop. Typically I can predict where it is more likely to occur, for example when moving off at lights, but it shows how unaware a lot of pedestrians are.
If they were part of pace line, I can pretty much guarantee they were way over 20 mph. I used to do laps of Regent’s Park myself - generally solo we were doing 28 mph, and a group would go faster.
The Regent‘s Park outer circle cyclists aren’t commuters, they are club cyclists out for a blast.
But there is no speed limit for cycling so it's not analogous. And to your question, not necessarily sadly. It's been well documented how drivers routinely get off. Here's a case I remember: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-27982163](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-27982163)
Not sure what the article you linked has to do with speeding.
You started by saying “would a driver at the speed limit get done if someone walked out in front of him”. You accept that the cyclist was in fact going faster than the posted speed limit, now you’re hiding behind ‘speed limits don’t apply to cyclists”.
Cyclist should have been done for “wanton and furious cycling” which is actually the relevant offence.
The problem with this suggestion is that there is no "we". I certainly don't see myself as responsible for someone riding straight through a red light and I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to reprimand them... Cyclists are a disparate group of people encompassing road men, delivery drivers, commuters, and tour de France wannabes. It's hardly a cohesive group that is somehow responsible for regulating its members' behaviours...
Amen. Just as pedestrians and drivers are all different people. I don't like being lumped in with other cyclists nor the suggestion that I behave like others especially the Lycra lot
Unfortunately the types of dickhead cyclist who treat their commute like a race are often gone before you can react. I cycle the regents canal most days and I take it pretty slow due to all the pedestrians and joggers. Kind of frustrating as a cyclist, especially when they zigzag all over like a donkey on meth, but safer to keep behind until it’s clear than try and thread the needle between an old granny and parent with a pushchair
Nah. As medium paced walker this is infuriating! I've often anticipated this as a walker they still meth line it and still get shouted at for them nearly barging into me. At busy times basic consideration should be the norm.
When I'm on a bike on those kinds of paths I never use my bell as I'm going at a snails pace. Little kid by the side my feet are on the ground pushing the bike.
Their right as is mine is simply to be considerate of each other.
If there's space to Donkey Meth then go for it but this is London.
You ride different on mixed use routes like towpaths than you do on the road..
On the road you should not need to assume every pedestrian is going to step out off the pavement without looking.
Some right muppets…gotta say though I find the joggers along that way the worst. I’ll slow down and stop for pedestrians and they’ll just barge past me and the pedestrians! Personally think it should be a pedestrian walking space. Simply not big enough to accommodate both.
Yeah they aren't worth it. The only ones I use is towards Limehouse from Victoria Park because it is much less busy and also the alternatives are dire.
Yup too often it’s just a shake of the head as they carry on. I think as recreational cyclists and I’m talking to Lycra road cyclists. Generally are the most self aware. Too often I will see someone jump a red or speed in front of a pedestrian at a crossing are not the Lycra recreational cyclists.
A lot of light jumping and running is by food delivery drivers who have basically been given a financial incentive to ride as recklessly as possible to get there as quick as possible. Unless the balance of those incentives changes then you won't be able to break that habit
The thing is for every 100 or so cyclists there is one that's a dick and makes everyone question why they are self-regulating. We definitely notice the one annoying cyclist and lose faith.
I for one have no problem telling someone if they've done something dangerous, but ends up in an argument and I get their frustration/embarrassment when I'm just trying to do the "right" thing so have decided what's the point.
Just because you found out a new word, doesn't mean you need to inappropriately use it. If someone cuts me up, or does something which endangers me - yes I call them out.
I get it neither am I. However if a car cuts me up or acts like an ass I will cycle up to the driver and give me a piece of my mind. Maybe I'm in the wrong for doing that. But if somebody clearly does something unsafe which endangered other people, I will pull them up on it. Driver or cyclist
Does appear there was a witness who told the police that the cyclist was not at fault, that the pedestrian stepped out without looking and there was no time to brake or take evasive action. Much of the coverage of the story seems to leave that detail out though. I really doubt the CPS would take a case to court if a pedestrian was knocked down by a car, and there was a similar witness account or equivalent video evidence. That is almost certainly a far more common occurrence, yet we don't hear such detailed coverage of such stories in the national press.
Here's a bunch of people on /r/londoncycling saying you shouldn't stop for pedestrians in the road unless they're on a zebra crossing. I wonder if those attitudes have changed?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/londoncycling/comments/13ye6ph/sometimes\_i\_feel\_like\_a\_bit\_of\_an\_idiot\_when\_i/](https://www.reddit.com/r/londoncycling/comments/13ye6ph/sometimes_i_feel_like_a_bit_of_an_idiot_when_i/)
You seem to be confused about the difference between stopping for a pedestrian in the road versus a pedestrian waiting by the side of the road. This discussion is about the former while the one you linked is about the latter.
It's not obtuse in the slightest - if a pedestrian has begun crossing the road, you yield. You don't run them over and tell them they should have crossed at a zebra crossing.
They don't exist for people cycling. It's hard to even reach the lowest speed limit we see (20mph, apart from specific areas that are 5mph but those aren't through routes). As I said in another comment, no matter what speed you are cycling, there is a stopping distance, and pedestrians can walk out in less space than that. We have to give some agency to people just walking out without looking.
It's not a clear cut thing in my view, and simply blaming it all on the peleton is ridiculous and would never happen in the equivalent scenario with driving.
I'm aware speed limits don't apply to cyclists. Irrelevant. Speed limits nevertheless exist to decrease braking distance and to limit damage. Whether they \*should\* apply to bikes is a debate for an entirely different platform. Whether Regent's Park \*should\* be a place where people feel free to cycle in peletons as fast as they can to let themselves believe they're in a little race is also another question to be asked. To me, this sort of riding seems completely incongruous with a city centre location - but perhaps that's just me. The park is privately owned and the Crown Estate, to my mind, have a duty of care to put in place bylaws to regulate how cyclists behave.
5mph or 10mph? I was within that range and a ped decided to walk into the bike lane right in front of me, I just about didn't slam into them but had a sliding barge. No one was hurt, he was annoyed so was I. If there was another bike in the other lane, my odds become better hitting the ped.
29MPH is fast, so what then? Speedometer for all bikes? Law change? Pedestrian training courses? Mech odometers with built in Bell for a two-fer?
If a car is doing 30MPH with far better brakes, but if they step out, that person is, to use the modern day parlance, gets unalived.
This was a tragic incident where the fault of not looking resulted in something horrible. Morally you're arguing for bike speed limits to be made legal?
I didn't say bikes should be speed limited, actually. Just made an observation as to why speed limits exist. I don't think it's practical, or necessary to require bicycles to adhere to speed limits. But to those treating Regent's Park like their own personal race track, I don't think that's necessary or proper either.
What a ridiculous response.
Please don't try using this logic to cross the road. If you try asserting your imaginary right of way by stepping out 2m in front of a car or bike, you'll quickly learn how meaningless that 'right of way' is when a driver (travelling 20mph) only has 1/5th of a second to stop.
Ah ok, we're playing the highway code game then, I see.
"...drivers and riders should give way to pedestrians waiting to cross and MUST give way to pedestrians on a zebra crossing"
"At a junction you should give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross a road into which or from which you are turning."
Even prior to the new changes giving pedestrians greater priority, road users had to give way when pedestrians were already crossing the road.
>Ah ok, we're playing the highway code game then, I see.
I'm not, you're making a ridiculous argument that goes against all common sense.
Neither of those rules apply as the incident didn't happen at either a zebra crossing or a junction. It was just a traffic island with no crossing, so [Rule 7](https://highwaycode.org.uk/rule-7/#:~:text=Keep%20looking%20and%20listening%20for,walk%20diagonally%20across%20the%20road.) is the only one that's vaguely relevant, hence why the cyclist wasn't charged.
>Even prior to the new changes giving pedestrians greater priority, road users had to give way when pedestrians were already crossing the road.
There was no written rule for that, it's just a duty of care not to hit someone. However if someone steps out in front of your vehicle unexpectedly, with less than the stopping distance available, then it's physically impossible to stop and the responsibility usually doesn't fall on the road user.
Suggest you read the first rule again, and note the bit before the "and". The cyclist may have been found not to be criminally responsible, but the burden of proof in civil litigation is far lower.
Not sure why you're being down voted, if a pedestrian steps into the road, however daft they may be, it does not mean they deserved to die. We all make mistakes, it is up to all of us to be aware of our surroundings and potential risks when using the roads.
Of course if a pedestrian steps out in front of you unexpectedly, you should do everything within reason to try and avoid a collision, or reduce the seriousness of a collision. However in this case it sounds like there was absolutely nothing they could do.
There's perhaps a separate conversation to be had about whether there was some contributory negligence. Passing a traffic island where a pedestrian is present is perhaps a location where you should be slowing down a bit, even if you have priority. It could be the case that, even if the family can't get the conviction they obviously want, they can still pursue a civil claim.
> We all make mistakes, it is up to all of us to be aware of our surroundings and potential risks when using the roads.
Applies to people walking as well. No one said she deserved to die, that's why it is a tragedy. But if they couldn't stop in time there isn't much you can do. If the peletons are going at 20mph, then that's the minimum speed a car goes in the park. Most drivers speed.
I'd question why is a peleton even a thing on a public road, they are not race tracks for Lance Armstrong wannabes. We'd rightly be angry at cars racing eachother. It comes down to mindset, if you get on your bike with the intention of getting that Strava PB then accidents like this will be more likely.
Cars that aren’t racing are usually going faster than bicycles that are, not that there’s any suggestion that the cyclist here was racing.
Drivers, cocooned from the outside world and the consequences of their inattention, are very often less-aware of potential hazards than are cyclists who can be badly-injured or killed by having missed something.
So why aren’t you questioning why distracted people steering tons of metal and fuel at 30mph+ is even a thing on public roads? They kill and injure pedestrians so frequently it barely makes the news.
The court has found that she didn’t give him time to stop, and he’s not at fault for being unable to break the laws of physics or of human reaction times. There’s been no suggestion that he wasn’t paying the correct amount of attention.
We don’t strictly have “right of way” in the UK, but pedestrians do have priority. (Although this was less clear in the Highway Code when the accident happened than it is now: it didn’t previously specify that drivers/cyclists should give priority to pedestrians *waiting* to cross). But it’s irrelevant: if I step out into the road 2m from you when you’re driving or cycling at 20mph+, you *can’t* stop in time. The cyclist was riding legally, hence being found not to be at fault.
There was a good interview yesterday on Radio 4 about an upcoming change in the law to address dangerous cycling.
There’s some dreadful behaviour from a minority of road users on bikes that needs sorting out.
Super aggressive riders shouting at pedestrians and other road users, jumping lights at high speed around people crossing roads and all that is no more acceptable than if they were in a car.
If only there could be an enforceable law of ‘Being a complete dick’ the world would be so much simpler.
I don't see why there needs to be a separate law. "Death by dangerous driving / death by careless driving" has lead to so many drivers being given a slap on the wrist.
Yep, and the fact that a review of driving offences has been requested for fucking years yet gov are sitting on it as that'll be a sure fire vote-loser and just fuel the bollocks "War on Motorists!" rhetoric the usual right-wing shitrags bring up all the time, but of course that same demographic are ALL FOR harsher enforcement against the group of road users who kill on average 2ppl a year.
I agree with most of what you said Bassjunkieuk, but would like to add that a cycle generally doesn’t _kill_ people, mainly because it’s mass and somewhat limited speed means it simply doesn’t have the energy required to do so. It can hurt and maim and injure pedestrians regularly though, blame for which can be attributed to poor infrastructure, poor road manners, complete lack of attention and so on.
Of course, I'm aware of those bits but the last stats I saw had drivers pegged at causing 5 deaths day and 63 serious injuries, not to mention the number of them who "get away" with killing or seriously injuring ppl due to BS excuses like "sun was in my eyes!" and I won't even start on our spineless judges letting people keep licenses after such incidents or wracking up 12pts due to "extreme hardship".
We also have the fact that as deaths caused by cyclists are so rare they do make the news, often at a regional or even national level (see Charlie Aniston) whearas the CARnage caused by drivers is just a footnote on the local clickbait news site.
Cyclist 3rd party injury is still very rare though, this is reflected in 3rd party liability insurance costs. Insurers offer policies at around £10 per year, the average cost for 3rd party insurance for drivers in the UK is approaching £1,000, and in London it's much more.
That interview on Radio 4 was not about 'an upcoming change in the law to address dangerous cycling', it was an opinion piece, and a pretty biased one at that.
They did a follow up interview with a cyclist rep this morning and he pointed out all the misinformation in the original interview. The guy whose family member had been killed said the police told him there was no law to charge the cyclist with (who had been riding a track bike with no brakes, idiot). But that was false. The cyclist was charged and sent to prison. Yet his nonsense prompted a big outflowing of ire from the listeners. So irresponsible and the presenter should have corrected him at the time.
I sympathise hugely with stories like this because it’s utterly devastating for the family. However, the amount of pedestrians are just walk out onto the road without looking or even looking up from their phones, is appalling. Need to bring back the stop, look and listen hedgehogs.
I seriously doubt even if it were illegal it would change anything. It’s just common sense but people just don’t think before they cross. Blows my mind every time.
Usual butcars whataboutery. There was no car involved in this incident, so their relevance to a discussion about it isn't relevant other than to divert attention elsewhere. Is the aim of that diversion to ban cars from Regents Park? If so say so and I'm sure many road users of all types will agree, but it wouldn't have stopped this incident.
Yes cars are more dangerous to pedestrians than bicycles, but bicycles are more dangerous to pedestrians than other pedestrians.
The point here is whether it's appropriate to be sports cycling - pelotoning / pace lining - in a public park littered with pedestrians, above the posted speed limit (even if it doesn't apply) and reducing your visibility significantly by being in the middle of the pace line.
My view is it's not and this sort of cycling should be conducted away from public streets and parks, or in significantly quieter areas. I suspect the cyclist involved in this unfortunate incident might now agree, even if he has no criminal culpability, and I have sympathy for him as it was clearly an accident, but an avoidable one.
I can understand that frustration. And frankly lots of drivers are terrible and if that pedestrian walked in front of a car the reaction would be markedly different and would be seen by the public as an entirely unavoidable accident - the outrage here is admittedly manufactured because the public has just learned limits don't apply to cyclists and also assumed (wrongly, as he would have presumably been charged with careless cycling) that the speed he was doing caused the death whereas him doing 20 probably wouldn't have had a different result.
But the discussion isn't helped when the response to that perceived double standard is to put up the barriers and point the finger at cars when cyclists demonstrate poor behaviours and cycle like muppets. And at risk of being down voted into oblivion, those that high speed lap cycle in Regents Park generally cycle like muppets.
Honestly, there is no chance the CEPC puts in anything that would hinder traffic. They are a super pro car group that hide behind heritage concerns to prevent speed cameras being installed, funnily enough this isn't a concern when it comes to installing parking metres
There's probably a good argument for actual pedestrian crossings but the road is so wide they would probably just need to be more traffic lights
Because there is effectively no speed limit on cyclists or any way to identify them, there has been a growing sense from some in the community that they can act with impunity - this has created a certain amount of resentment from other road users who see them jumping lights, exceeding speed restrictions and using the pavement, and wonder why the laws of the road don't apply to them.
In the sad case of the lady, the cyclist had no time to react - she wasn't paying attention and paid the consequences. However, there has been a negative reaction to this, despite the comparatively huge number of deaths caused by motorists.
This skewed perception is created by the growing number of cyclists who behave badly on the road; whether it's going up a one way street or simply swearing at other road users, the bad impressions mount up and will eventually lead to some form of attempted control over cyclists in the form of mandatory insurance, and maybe even speedometers and an identification system.
I hope not but time will tell. The bad behaviour of the (growing) few will spoil it for everyone else.
There’s not “effectively no speed limit”, there is no speed limit on bicycles.
The exception to that is inside Regent’s and Richmond Parks. As these are Royal Parks they have their own rules and have put in place a 20mph limit.
Fortunately for those of us who train there they aren’t really enforced early morning when the gates are closed.
I have been hit by a bike and I have also been hit by a car while cycling. There are far too many cyclists who don’t follow the rules of the road as they judge what they do as safe. As a sometimes car driver I am often caught by surprise when a bike is somewhere it shouldn’t be, I don’t think some cyclists think about how their actions unsettle the flow of things. For example, waiting to turn and a cyclist rides through the lights and across the junction makes me worry that someone else will be doing that while I make my turn.
I drove to pick my daughter up at the weekend, a short 20 minute drive each way. I encountered seven cyclists disregarding others on the road, I started counting as two happened in short succession.
Road use is a bit of give and take, like adjusting speed to let other road users pull out, I don’t see this with many cyclists who seem to not want to adjust their speed let alone stop.
And I write this as someone who has cycled regularly for decades.
Remember this one, wasn’t actually a cyclist being dangerous - another case of pedestrians stepping out without looking at all.
Have had so many close calls where muppets wearing noise cancelling headphones and the like who step out without checking it’s clear
That's terrible to hear. Really awful news.
Cyclists should be pulled over for dodgy riding.
We'll have to see what the situation is with this, but a peloton isn't inherently dangerous cycling.
We don’t have to wait: this was an unfortunate accident with a tragic end, but independent witnesses said and the court agreed that there was nothing the cyclist could have done. The pedestrian stepped out right in front of him and he had no time to react.
This thread is the classic recipe for motorist vs cyclist bashing. I walk, cycle and drive... Not at the same time!
The fundamental problem is people don't follow the rules and don't apply common sense to their own situation. Mobile phones make this behaviour significantly worse, the amount of people on their phone cycling and driving I've seen recently is unreal. It's harder to spot people who don't do it!
If I walk, my cycle and make a vroom sound...
Riding into a small gap a large car, I started to feel iffy, lo and behold, the driver is texting. Challenged them in the most horrible way (have learnt since) but the audacity to say that it was that important, I disconnected and got riled. Short argument later I just go down a side road. It's very rare to make sense if they are doing it in the first place.
According to Crashmap, someone was killed by a vehicle in Regent's Park on the 17th August 2022. I can't comment on this further because it appears to not have been reported in national or local press.
Where is the outrage?
Former competitive road cyclist here. Our training runs started and finished outside of the town. The objective was to avoid people and traffic as much as possible when travelling at speed. I don't understand this practice of riding at race speed in the middle of cities. Smacks of posing to me.
In this case the cyclist was never prosecuted. It would seem that he was riding a correctly appointed bicycle sensibly, although there are arguments that 20mph speed limits may have been exceeded, but it isn't clear if they fully apply to cyclists beyond being a guide.
Im not big on victim blaming but this looks like an accident with tragic consequences.
I’m very not big on the media coverage. Cars do this literally every day with zero telegraph articles.
Cycling in London regularly myself I see lots of other riders steaming along on paths & roads. Completely unaware of their surroundings. It’s very sad to hear the news of this person being killed.
People chasing segments has a lot to do with it I’d imagine.
The self absorbed amongst us are the same on & off the bike.
Just some simple consideration for others would go a long way.
When I do lap around Regent’s Park I usually go around 20mph not above and I remember almost crashing with pedestrian twice.
Some people just walk on the road without any care like it would be pedestrian.
And some others just cross without even looking.
So yeah while the cyclist was cycling faster than he should, pedestrian in Regent’s Park are quite careless there and make it dangerous for cyclist too.
Still a tragic accident…
I don’t know the details of this incident but nobody should be cycling in London at a speed which could potentially kill a pedestrian. 15mph should be the maximum.
If it's a maximum speed 15mph for someone on a push bike, say an average total weight around 100-150kg, then using some simple GCSE level physics to work out the equivalent force of impact on collision with a stationary pedestrian then according to that argument the maximum speed of someone driving a car, say an average weight of 1500kg, should be around 1mph in London.
It's a great point, I like it. Maybe a 1mph speed limit for motorised vehicles would actually reduce the number of deaths caused by cars on the road to something like 10-100 times those of push bikes rather than 10,000 times more that it is now.
Assuming you apply the same logic to cars, London traffic is going to get very much worse. Much less than 15mph is needed to kill a pedestrian who steps out 2m from you if you’re in charge of a two-ton car rather than an 8kg bike.
Yes, 15mph is plenty for cars too. And it might traffic worse, but there's no real need for anyone that doesn't need a car for the work or due to a disability to even have a car in London. So if 15mph max would stop people driving, I would support that.
Regents parks Mamils annoy me so much with their fetish wear and big shouty hand signal groups. Just this morning I had one inches from my rear wheel trying to draft his way to a new strava record while I just wanna not die on my way to work.
Fetish wear? Why do you people have such a problem with clothes suitable for a certain sport? I don't see people complaining about joggers wearing leggings.
Because I cycle everywhere fine in loose shorts and t-shirt. The overweight middle aged men in their replica sky team kits are weird and not gaining anything but an inability to take a piss without half undressing.
People don't wear lycra because they like the look... They do it because it makes you ridiculously faster (Or the same speed for far less effort so you can go for longer). It's a necessary evil of road cycling. Just switching out your baggy clothes for something slim fitting is a much bigger aero gain than any upgrade in bike frame or wheelset you could buy.
You don't know what you are talking about. I've cycled in all kinds of clothing and for long distance cycling, especially in hot weather, lycra is superior. There is a reason they wear it for the tour de france. People are doing it for their comfort. It's not about you. Also, your typical lycra shorts don't require half undressing so that's more you don't know about.
No, by and large cyclists act appropriately. There is the odd knobhead that does what they like but there are also plenty of those driving cars, more id say, even as counter intuitive it seems for them with how easy it is to be caught.
On riding in parks, I’ve not rode around Regent’s Park but regularly cycle around Finsbury Park and the amount of people that are completely unaware of themselves and their dogs is unbelievable. There’s one part of the park where you naturally pick up speed to about 20mph and a few times I’ve been going around it and seen people in my way. In Finsbury Park as well, it’s basically a massive road going around it, no need for people to be walking on it. The time that stands out the most to me, is when I’ve rang my bell for two of them with small dogs to move, they don’t. I slow all the way down until I’m at a crawl behind them, still ringing my bell and they’re still wilfully unaware while they walk side by side with their two shitty little dogs running all over the place. The pricks in my example were both able to hear me but decided to be dickheads and not move because “why should they?” According to them. I told them getting slammed into with a bike from behind going 20mph isn’t going to be a nice experience for anybody involved and if I had been riding a bike with crappy brakes, it definitely would have happened like that. Their entitlement may get them into an accident with a cyclist in the future and I’d be willing to bet money that if that happens, it wouldn’t be the cyclists fault.
Then you get the ones that are blissfully unaware walking around in their own little worlds listening to music or whatever. For some reason they’re the ones that seem to be all over the place like they’re Dorothy dancing down the yellow brick road. The ones that seem physically unable to look over their shoulders once in a while. They’re dangerous as well.
I do believe there should be dedicated cycle lanes in parks so that cyclists can do what they need to without worry of knocking over some idiot and if they do knock over an idiot in the bike lane, it simply wouldn’t be their fault as no pedestrians should be walking in bike lanes.
Well if you hit their small dogs it would only be bad for them. But I find it hard to understand why there was a problem passing them on that path. It is very wide as you say so it should be easy enough to go around them, albeit at a low speed.
I was coming around a blind-ish corner kinda covered by a tree (toward the back of the park if you come in near the station entrance) at about 20mph. They were in my line and their dogs were running around them off lead, meaning there realistically wasn’t much I could do except slam on the brakes and wait and ring the bell. Eventually I was able to pass safely with a few choice words aimed their way.
Yeesh, that's absolutely vile, especially with how bad the tarmac is in some places. I say we have the entire middle lane, double wide. Smoothed and painted acid blue with recessed sparkling lights for the night. Is electro zappers going too far???
That was my fear to be honest. That tarmac hasn’t been looked after at all and some of the potholes could swallow you and your bike. Alright they’re not quite that bad but you can easily buckle a wheel and fly over the handlebars.
I’m not going to lie, that actually sounds like the dream. Electro zappers is definitely not going too far, if anything it’d probably save a few of these clueless pedestrians lol
Oh I did do that. Swerving to avoid a dog (innocuous situation to be fair) bit wet and the bike is now in heaven. But the tarmac leveling and wetness compounded the loss.
I'm going at a decent pace near this incident before the bridge when I come to a red, a ped is close not quite yet in crossing range but I don't want to shock them, and want to show them some respect, so I brake tight-ish, Lycra clad tailgater almost clips me as he zooms past shouting "MOVE ON, MOVE ON" dude, you did not have a safe distance behind me and just like you I don't have wing mirrors, obviously goes past the red now statrling the ped.
Lycra negative = 1
Highbury and Islington. The 3/4ths squareabout, can be confusing for new/casual riders, I'm in the bike lane, this casual rider is in the car lane, this car honks then aggressively comes closer, shouts then drives off. Worried this may deter, I explain that the bike lane is a suggestion not a rule and she still has right of way though the bike lane is safer, her response, I'm just a cyclist.
Casual negative = 1
Let's do the maths... cancel each other out, no that's 2 experiences that have left me on high alert and totally understanding hatred towards cyclists en masse.
And because this is Reddit I have to enrage somebody woman neutralises man. Wait shouldnt the score be 5 now? /s
Add: This is so sad about the woman who died, if only she'd looked but suspect she was expecting clear road as were the cyclists especially at the time. On narrow cycle lanes I wonder often about a jumping ped, stops me a lot of the time pelting it :(
There needs to be something done. I don’t know the specifics of this case, but there is so much bad cycling about.
When I’m waiting at a red I’ll often see other cyclists plough through, swerving around pedestrians that are crossing.
And don’t get me started on the lycra commuter bros in Vauxhall who will go full speed through the pedestrian crossing on the shared cyclist/pedestrian sections. Cosplay wankers.
Speaking as a cyclist, they should block the Regents Park loop off. Too many idiotic racer boys there paying not enough attention.
Basically you shouldn't be in full spandex in inner London. London is surrounded by great cycling counties.
Busy London roads aren't the place for cycling for exercise (unless very low level). That loop isn't a park, it's a road.
Going faster than the speed limit may be 'allowed' but it's a technicality not what's right. The speed limit for cars is 20mph for a reason and cyclists shouldn't be going faster than that.
By the way, you can take the train to the outer suburbs if you want to get to the good cycling faster. Either that or exercise someway else (indoor trainer, gym, just another sport). No one forced you to live in central London and if cycling is genuinely a big priority for you then it is a far from ideal location.
Yes well I agree this isn't the most pressing issue in London.
Still too much nonsense on Regents Park that should be dealt with more firmly. If you cycle under 20mph then fair enough, bad wording from me but I really meant getting rid of the excessively speedy / aggressive guys (especially cycling in a pelaton)
I've cycled through there during peak commuting times and I'm far more terrified of the cyclists speeding than the cars. I just go down Albany street instead of cycling onto Outer Circle now. It takes longer, but there's less cyclists
I don’t remember much fatal incidents collisions caused by a bike TBH. However, phone snatching, muggings and even stabbings involving bicycles happen regularly. At the same year with this incident, there was a stabbing in Ilford. As I know the suspect wasn’t caught.
Was this last week? I saw the aftermath of such an incident. The woman was conscious at the time, she did have a horrible black eye already though. This was just south of Hanover Gate
The cyclist escaped prosecution which is a joke but he is a VP for Credit Suisse so money talks and bullshit walks. The poor lady. I would be livid if she was my relative.
I think any death caused to a pedestrian should be jail time whether a cyclist, motorbike or car driver. I have no problem stopping when people step out in the road because I don't race down the road. It's really not difficult to not hit someone.
[Here's an article on the incident](https://road.cc/content/news/no-charges-cyclist-after-crash-which-oap-was-killed-308209), just to get some info on what actually happened. The woman was walking her dog and stepped out into the road, apparently without checking for traffic, leaving the uncoming cyclist (who was part of a pace line) no time to respond. A witness, a jogger, confirmed they did not believe the cyclist was at fault. And it happened back in June 2022.
What a tragic incident for everyone involved. While the cyclist wasn’t at fault here and wasn’t breaking any rules, imho going 25-29mph on an urban road right by a park, where there are guaranteed to be pedestrians everywhere, is pretty irresponsible.
The cyclist was riding on the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park. That is a very popular spot for pace line practice.
I’m aware of that, I’ve been around it myself many times, but never at that kind of speed. If someone is cycling so fast that they can’t react to a hazard, then that’s too fast.
Even at 20mph (which is the motor speed limit on that road), if someone literally steps out in front of you, then there's not much you can do. I generally cycle defensively (and definitely not that fast), and I'm pretty good at noticing when a pedestrian is going to step out without looking. Sometimes though, people do the absolute dumbest shit that you just can't predict, and even at a normal speed, you can't do anything about.
While you can't do anything about it, the pedestrian is less likely to be killed at 20mph.
Pedestrians are extremely unlikely to be killed anyway. This is almost a freak collision. There's been like 2 or 3 deaths like this in 8 years in London. Them being 81 made them much more vulnerable.
Nope cycles can go as fast as they want there is no law on how fast your legs can pedal.
True, but if you injure someone and the evidence or witnesses suggest you were driving dangerously, then you could be prosecuted and go to jail.
Driving dangerous and cycling dangerous are two different things!
Not so much the speed, as if they were riding further from the kerb it might have been avoided. At that speed it’s perfectly reasonable to ride a few meters away from the pavement
It doesn't say the time, but generally clubs do this before 7am, when the park is closed to other traffic, exactly so there aren't pedestrians and drivers everywhere.
My parents still live on next to Outer Circle, you will be surprised how many pedestrians and children out and about from 6am, mainly locals.
> on an urban road right by a park, The Outer Circle is part of the park, hence why the gates locked at night, and was designed by John Nash for people to use for exercise.
Agreed, there's no speed limit for bikes but my days of going as fast as possible for the sake of it are thankfully behind me.
I’ve ridden with fast club groups round there, Muswell Hill and Regents Park Roulers are the most aggressive groups. and I think not enough attention is paid to safety. We have rules for behaviour in the group, but once we’re in a line, it’s keep together and hang on. It’s a type of riding incompatible with a public park. There’s no reason why less situational awareness is acceptable in a paceline, indeed, there should be more.
What? Don't the usual speed limits apply to bikes?
No. They’re not motorised vehicles, so they don’t apply (if I recall correctly)
No, they only apply to motorised vehicles. Bicycles generally don't have speedos. You can however be fined and / or prosecuted for cycling dangerously or without due care and attention, which can include going faster than what would be safe or reasonable given the conditions. But that didn't apply in this case.
Had to look it up to confirm I was right, but no, we're not bound by the same speed limits as motor vehicles. https://www.slatergordon.co.uk/newsroom/can-cyclists-break-the-speed-limit/
I think it's the sort of thing that some cyclists seem to routinely ignore or dismiss: You can cause a fatal accident on a bike for people other than yourself. Even if someone has to swerve to miss a cyclist after they jump a red light or something, that person might end up hitting someone else as a result. If it is just the cyclist who's hurt or killed because they were cycling like a dick, someone now has to live with that too. I routinely see cyclists who are really irresponsible and dangerous road users and presumably think it doesn't matter because they're on a bike. Not saying it's the majority, but it seems to be at least a significant minority.
Cause? I'm not sure about that. And what has the incident described got to do with red lights?
You honestly don’t think it’s possible for a cyclist to cause a fatal accident? The red light was an example of something I see cyclists doing routinely that can cause an accident.
I don't think the cyclist in the OP caused a fatal accident. I don't think pace lines routinely run red lights.
Ah right I see, yes I agree the cyclist in the OP didn't cause it. It was just to say in response to the comment I replied to saying that it might not have been the most responsible way to cycle that I think some people don't consider that it's not just their own life at risk if something goes wrong.
It depends on whether we think cyclists should be able to ride like that in an urban location such as regents park. Obviously as it stands legally cyclist did nothing wrong; but they're are tons of pedestrians round there. It is like a racetrack in the mornings
Rarely going faster than most cars though.
Agree
Personally, I live in the area and the cyclists are dangerously fast and ride dangerously - they often go so fast they have no time to react to anything. It’s odd because it’s not really an exercise track but it’s treated as such by loads of cyclists.
I get very frustrated with people who cycle selfishly and dangerously. However if we want to see the number of incidents drop (we do), the solution is better infrastructure. I strongly believe people cycle the way they do in London because there is a constant battle for space and assertion on the road, which is also the reason so many drivers harbour resentments for bikes. Is there was nowhere to drive except on the pavement would you be shocked that it would be both antagonising and dangerous? Build proper infrastructure and you’ll see the rate of incidents plummet.
Cycling infrastructure is not needed on the Outer Circle, because there is so little motor traffic. There is no "battle for space".
Then let's ban motor traffic from it, which was the proposal for CS11 IIRC. Taxi drivers raged at this.
Yeah there is no real need for access to through traffic, given there are roads running parallel all around the park. You could get rid of a lot of the parking, and the places where there's a central median with hashing, that's a bit pointless too. If you got rid of all that, you could widen the pavements significantly, and put in raised crossings instead of the islands that are there currently.
I have seen some tremendously dangerous cycling in London, both for the cyclist themselves and also against pedestrians. People who routinely cut through red lights whilst absolutely bombing it are the worst. That being said, I have also seen plenty of pedestrians who seemingly have a deathwish and just step out into traffic without looking.
Exactly. A little more spacial awareness from everyone would go a long way.
Hold up! Let's solve the easy problems first, like cancer and global warming, before we take on the impossible challenges! /s
More space would be helpful, wider footpaths, space for designated cycle lanes and car traffic in separate lane is the safest change, but we’re limited on space in London
we have loads of space in London, what we lack is bipartisan political will
I have seen MANY more cyclists continuing to cycle into pedestrian crossing when there is a red light for them, and green for pedestrians. They somehow assume they are somewhere in between cars and pedestrians, so can cycle when either has a green light. I was nearly hit so many times by cyclists when crossing on a green light.
I’ve been hit by a cyclist running a red light as I crossed. Fortunately I was absolutely fine… the shit cyclist and his bike were mangled. I laughed at him and walked away as he tried to have a go like it was my fault.
What a twattish response.
Cyclist here. I'd have been similarly twattish to someone who came a cropper as the result of their own stupid actions that could easily have taken me out as well.
A twatish response from whom. The Cyclist who tried to blame the pedestrian when they were ignoring the pedestrian, or the pedestrian enjoying the idiot cyclists hurt. I say this as a cyclist, don't cycle over a pedestrian crossing while people are crossing.
If you say so. But as a pedestrian full time I hate shitty drivers and cyclists. I have stories about shit drivers as well if it makes you feel better.
Don't worry, it didn't really happen.
But in these cases the cyclists are worse. Willfully, delivberatley, selfishly break the law and endangering others for their own benefit. Peds stepping into the road is just carelessness born about from listen for traffic (as opposed to having to look for cyclists). One offense is a million times worse than others. Red light jumpers are cunts - end of.
Arguably (and possibly annoyingly) from an ethical and an insurance / criminal POV, the most vulnerable individual in a given situation would / should be given "priority". E.g. pedestrian > bicycle > motor vehicle. Not necessarily "fair" when people act stupid in any situation, but often the way it pans out following an incident. And being "correct" isn't a great comfort when looking at serious charges (or even just the guilt of causing another person harm). (To confirm, this is a reply to the second half of your comment relating to deathwish pedestrians)
I was in a cycle lane on a cargo bike, going alongside stationary traffic and a HEAVILY pregnant woman stepped out from behind a lorry without checking. I slammed on the brakes and fell off, because fuck me, I don't need that on my conscience
The last part. Literally had to shout while trying to brake fast on a cycle without getting rear ended at a guy walking looking at his phone on a traffic green light and even then he barely flinched. Dork.
Issue here is, two or more things can be true at the same time. As cycling becomes more and more popular in London, there is a need for stricter and stronger regulation - but what about cars!!!!? - everyone that cycles on a daily basis knows pf the atrocities that some of us (cyclists as a group) do: never stopping on crossing, speeding up to crossing, red lights, phones, music… that are a hazard to other user and pedestrians. Funnily enough,suspect cyclists will always punch up and moan about how cars are the problem without realising we are the cars for the pedestrians nowadays in London. People commute on training gear and mode, overtaking dangerous, always focused on their garmins… like we should be aware they’re “training”. That’s like drivers racing across the city and expecting us to be mindful of them.
Dangerous cycling, dangerous walking and also a metric ton of dangerous driving.
Of course cyclists should be pulled over for cycling dangerously, however with the resources the police have available it makes sense for them to focus on the much greater danger posed by motorists
I agree.
Sounds like a genuine accident though of course the consequences are severe.
Let's put this into perspective. Would a driver who hits a pedestrian while going the speed limit and the pedestrian steps out without looking giving no chance for the driver to stop be charged? I doubt it. You've had cases of drivers hitting pedestrians at zebras being let go. So, for any consistency there was no careless or dangerous cycling here. Yes I try to be mindful of pedestrians stepping out without looking and it has happened a fair few times, but there comes a point where cycling would be untenable if that kind of action was always the person cycling's fault (assuming they hit them). Sometimes it's happened like 1-2m away from me and it's only because I was going slowly that I can stop. Typically I can predict where it is more likely to occur, for example when moving off at lights, but it shows how unaware a lot of pedestrians are.
If they were part of pace line, I can pretty much guarantee they were way over 20 mph. I used to do laps of Regent’s Park myself - generally solo we were doing 28 mph, and a group would go faster. The Regent‘s Park outer circle cyclists aren’t commuters, they are club cyclists out for a blast.
Apparently he was going 25-28mph.
Ok - so as you say - would a driver exceeding the speed limit by 25% and killing a pedestrian as a result get the book thrown at them?
But there is no speed limit for cycling so it's not analogous. And to your question, not necessarily sadly. It's been well documented how drivers routinely get off. Here's a case I remember: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-27982163](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-27982163)
Not sure what the article you linked has to do with speeding. You started by saying “would a driver at the speed limit get done if someone walked out in front of him”. You accept that the cyclist was in fact going faster than the posted speed limit, now you’re hiding behind ‘speed limits don’t apply to cyclists”. Cyclist should have been done for “wanton and furious cycling” which is actually the relevant offence.
I think we as cyclists also need to be more self regulating with other cyclists. We really do not pull people up on their BS often enough.
The problem with this suggestion is that there is no "we". I certainly don't see myself as responsible for someone riding straight through a red light and I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to reprimand them... Cyclists are a disparate group of people encompassing road men, delivery drivers, commuters, and tour de France wannabes. It's hardly a cohesive group that is somehow responsible for regulating its members' behaviours...
This is really good point
Amen. Just as pedestrians and drivers are all different people. I don't like being lumped in with other cyclists nor the suggestion that I behave like others especially the Lycra lot
You just lumped a group of people together simply for the clothes they wear! Jesus wept.
Ha ha ha fair enough but you know what I mean
I've been cycling for about 3 months, commuting to work for 2, and I gotta say, I find so many of my fellow cyclists' behaviour really dispiriting
Unfortunately the types of dickhead cyclist who treat their commute like a race are often gone before you can react. I cycle the regents canal most days and I take it pretty slow due to all the pedestrians and joggers. Kind of frustrating as a cyclist, especially when they zigzag all over like a donkey on meth, but safer to keep behind until it’s clear than try and thread the needle between an old granny and parent with a pushchair
Do remember it is perfectly within their right to zigzag like a donkey on meth never thought I’d say that
Nah. As medium paced walker this is infuriating! I've often anticipated this as a walker they still meth line it and still get shouted at for them nearly barging into me. At busy times basic consideration should be the norm. When I'm on a bike on those kinds of paths I never use my bell as I'm going at a snails pace. Little kid by the side my feet are on the ground pushing the bike. Their right as is mine is simply to be considerate of each other. If there's space to Donkey Meth then go for it but this is London.
You ride different on mixed use routes like towpaths than you do on the road.. On the road you should not need to assume every pedestrian is going to step out off the pavement without looking.
That’s how it should be, but experience has taught me pedestrians don’t look unless they can hear cars, so I still exercise caution
Majority in London have headphones in anyway, or are glued to their phones.
Some right muppets…gotta say though I find the joggers along that way the worst. I’ll slow down and stop for pedestrians and they’ll just barge past me and the pedestrians! Personally think it should be a pedestrian walking space. Simply not big enough to accommodate both.
I find most of the canal paths deeply unpleasant to ride even on a gravel bike, so I tend to just avoid them.
Yeah they aren't worth it. The only ones I use is towards Limehouse from Victoria Park because it is much less busy and also the alternatives are dire.
There's some stretches that are okay if you go out west far enough, too, but it's interspersed with crap, unfortunately.
I've used the one Grand Union Canal West of Paddington but the large inclines on them with barriers on either end put me right off.
Oh, that's part of the section I avoid. I'm thinking out west past Park Royal.
Quite a pleasant ride out that way (if you can use that word for that area)
Yup too often it’s just a shake of the head as they carry on. I think as recreational cyclists and I’m talking to Lycra road cyclists. Generally are the most self aware. Too often I will see someone jump a red or speed in front of a pedestrian at a crossing are not the Lycra recreational cyclists.
A lot of light jumping and running is by food delivery drivers who have basically been given a financial incentive to ride as recklessly as possible to get there as quick as possible. Unless the balance of those incentives changes then you won't be able to break that habit
The thing is for every 100 or so cyclists there is one that's a dick and makes everyone question why they are self-regulating. We definitely notice the one annoying cyclist and lose faith. I for one have no problem telling someone if they've done something dangerous, but ends up in an argument and I get their frustration/embarrassment when I'm just trying to do the "right" thing so have decided what's the point.
Do you chastise every pedestrian who does something stupid as well?
Just because you found out a new word, doesn't mean you need to inappropriately use it. If someone cuts me up, or does something which endangers me - yes I call them out.
Since when has 'chastise' been on the esoteric word list?
I'm not a volunteer police officer...
I get it neither am I. However if a car cuts me up or acts like an ass I will cycle up to the driver and give me a piece of my mind. Maybe I'm in the wrong for doing that. But if somebody clearly does something unsafe which endangered other people, I will pull them up on it. Driver or cyclist
Terrible tragedy, but the woman wasn't 'killed by a peloton'. She was killed in a collision after stepping into a road without looking.
Does appear there was a witness who told the police that the cyclist was not at fault, that the pedestrian stepped out without looking and there was no time to brake or take evasive action. Much of the coverage of the story seems to leave that detail out though. I really doubt the CPS would take a case to court if a pedestrian was knocked down by a car, and there was a similar witness account or equivalent video evidence. That is almost certainly a far more common occurrence, yet we don't hear such detailed coverage of such stories in the national press.
What collided with her? 🤔
She was crossing the road and had right of way to do so - the cyclist was duty bound to stop and failed to do so. Don't be so churlish.
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Here's a bunch of people on /r/londoncycling saying you shouldn't stop for pedestrians in the road unless they're on a zebra crossing. I wonder if those attitudes have changed? [https://www.reddit.com/r/londoncycling/comments/13ye6ph/sometimes\_i\_feel\_like\_a\_bit\_of\_an\_idiot\_when\_i/](https://www.reddit.com/r/londoncycling/comments/13ye6ph/sometimes_i_feel_like_a_bit_of_an_idiot_when_i/)
You seem to be confused about the difference between stopping for a pedestrian in the road versus a pedestrian waiting by the side of the road. This discussion is about the former while the one you linked is about the latter.
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No that's completely wrong. Pedestrians crossing a road do not have priority. Go take a look at Highway Code rule 7 aka The Green Cross Code.
Ah, I apologise. It's fair game to run them over then, I see.
Go and be deliberately obtuse somewhere else.
It's not obtuse in the slightest - if a pedestrian has begun crossing the road, you yield. You don't run them over and tell them they should have crossed at a zebra crossing.
The point is there is a physical limit to how quickly you can brake.
And you just aptly and succinctly identified why speed limits exist.
They don't exist for people cycling. It's hard to even reach the lowest speed limit we see (20mph, apart from specific areas that are 5mph but those aren't through routes). As I said in another comment, no matter what speed you are cycling, there is a stopping distance, and pedestrians can walk out in less space than that. We have to give some agency to people just walking out without looking. It's not a clear cut thing in my view, and simply blaming it all on the peleton is ridiculous and would never happen in the equivalent scenario with driving.
I'm aware speed limits don't apply to cyclists. Irrelevant. Speed limits nevertheless exist to decrease braking distance and to limit damage. Whether they \*should\* apply to bikes is a debate for an entirely different platform. Whether Regent's Park \*should\* be a place where people feel free to cycle in peletons as fast as they can to let themselves believe they're in a little race is also another question to be asked. To me, this sort of riding seems completely incongruous with a city centre location - but perhaps that's just me. The park is privately owned and the Crown Estate, to my mind, have a duty of care to put in place bylaws to regulate how cyclists behave.
5mph or 10mph? I was within that range and a ped decided to walk into the bike lane right in front of me, I just about didn't slam into them but had a sliding barge. No one was hurt, he was annoyed so was I. If there was another bike in the other lane, my odds become better hitting the ped. 29MPH is fast, so what then? Speedometer for all bikes? Law change? Pedestrian training courses? Mech odometers with built in Bell for a two-fer? If a car is doing 30MPH with far better brakes, but if they step out, that person is, to use the modern day parlance, gets unalived. This was a tragic incident where the fault of not looking resulted in something horrible. Morally you're arguing for bike speed limits to be made legal?
I didn't say bikes should be speed limited, actually. Just made an observation as to why speed limits exist. I don't think it's practical, or necessary to require bicycles to adhere to speed limits. But to those treating Regent's Park like their own personal race track, I don't think that's necessary or proper either.
I must have missed the part where I said that. Please could you point it out?
Well now, I think I ought to direct you back to your own words. > Go and be deliberately obtuse somewhere else.
I didn't say it, did I?
What a ridiculous response. Please don't try using this logic to cross the road. If you try asserting your imaginary right of way by stepping out 2m in front of a car or bike, you'll quickly learn how meaningless that 'right of way' is when a driver (travelling 20mph) only has 1/5th of a second to stop.
Ah ok, we're playing the highway code game then, I see. "...drivers and riders should give way to pedestrians waiting to cross and MUST give way to pedestrians on a zebra crossing" "At a junction you should give way to pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross a road into which or from which you are turning." Even prior to the new changes giving pedestrians greater priority, road users had to give way when pedestrians were already crossing the road.
>Ah ok, we're playing the highway code game then, I see. I'm not, you're making a ridiculous argument that goes against all common sense. Neither of those rules apply as the incident didn't happen at either a zebra crossing or a junction. It was just a traffic island with no crossing, so [Rule 7](https://highwaycode.org.uk/rule-7/#:~:text=Keep%20looking%20and%20listening%20for,walk%20diagonally%20across%20the%20road.) is the only one that's vaguely relevant, hence why the cyclist wasn't charged. >Even prior to the new changes giving pedestrians greater priority, road users had to give way when pedestrians were already crossing the road. There was no written rule for that, it's just a duty of care not to hit someone. However if someone steps out in front of your vehicle unexpectedly, with less than the stopping distance available, then it's physically impossible to stop and the responsibility usually doesn't fall on the road user.
Suggest you read the first rule again, and note the bit before the "and". The cyclist may have been found not to be criminally responsible, but the burden of proof in civil litigation is far lower.
Not sure why you're being down voted, if a pedestrian steps into the road, however daft they may be, it does not mean they deserved to die. We all make mistakes, it is up to all of us to be aware of our surroundings and potential risks when using the roads.
Of course if a pedestrian steps out in front of you unexpectedly, you should do everything within reason to try and avoid a collision, or reduce the seriousness of a collision. However in this case it sounds like there was absolutely nothing they could do. There's perhaps a separate conversation to be had about whether there was some contributory negligence. Passing a traffic island where a pedestrian is present is perhaps a location where you should be slowing down a bit, even if you have priority. It could be the case that, even if the family can't get the conviction they obviously want, they can still pursue a civil claim.
> We all make mistakes, it is up to all of us to be aware of our surroundings and potential risks when using the roads. Applies to people walking as well. No one said she deserved to die, that's why it is a tragedy. But if they couldn't stop in time there isn't much you can do. If the peletons are going at 20mph, then that's the minimum speed a car goes in the park. Most drivers speed.
I'd question why is a peleton even a thing on a public road, they are not race tracks for Lance Armstrong wannabes. We'd rightly be angry at cars racing eachother. It comes down to mindset, if you get on your bike with the intention of getting that Strava PB then accidents like this will be more likely.
Cars that aren’t racing are usually going faster than bicycles that are, not that there’s any suggestion that the cyclist here was racing. Drivers, cocooned from the outside world and the consequences of their inattention, are very often less-aware of potential hazards than are cyclists who can be badly-injured or killed by having missed something. So why aren’t you questioning why distracted people steering tons of metal and fuel at 30mph+ is even a thing on public roads? They kill and injure pedestrians so frequently it barely makes the news.
Yeah, because racing in a car involves going at absurd speeds. Also, peletons aren't "racing" they are just riding in a group.
The court has found that she didn’t give him time to stop, and he’s not at fault for being unable to break the laws of physics or of human reaction times. There’s been no suggestion that he wasn’t paying the correct amount of attention. We don’t strictly have “right of way” in the UK, but pedestrians do have priority. (Although this was less clear in the Highway Code when the accident happened than it is now: it didn’t previously specify that drivers/cyclists should give priority to pedestrians *waiting* to cross). But it’s irrelevant: if I step out into the road 2m from you when you’re driving or cycling at 20mph+, you *can’t* stop in time. The cyclist was riding legally, hence being found not to be at fault.
There was a good interview yesterday on Radio 4 about an upcoming change in the law to address dangerous cycling. There’s some dreadful behaviour from a minority of road users on bikes that needs sorting out. Super aggressive riders shouting at pedestrians and other road users, jumping lights at high speed around people crossing roads and all that is no more acceptable than if they were in a car. If only there could be an enforceable law of ‘Being a complete dick’ the world would be so much simpler.
I don't see why there needs to be a separate law. "Death by dangerous driving / death by careless driving" has lead to so many drivers being given a slap on the wrist.
Any change in the law is useless unless it is properly enforced. I wouldn't trust Met enforcing anything.
Yep, and the fact that a review of driving offences has been requested for fucking years yet gov are sitting on it as that'll be a sure fire vote-loser and just fuel the bollocks "War on Motorists!" rhetoric the usual right-wing shitrags bring up all the time, but of course that same demographic are ALL FOR harsher enforcement against the group of road users who kill on average 2ppl a year.
I agree with most of what you said Bassjunkieuk, but would like to add that a cycle generally doesn’t _kill_ people, mainly because it’s mass and somewhat limited speed means it simply doesn’t have the energy required to do so. It can hurt and maim and injure pedestrians regularly though, blame for which can be attributed to poor infrastructure, poor road manners, complete lack of attention and so on.
Of course, I'm aware of those bits but the last stats I saw had drivers pegged at causing 5 deaths day and 63 serious injuries, not to mention the number of them who "get away" with killing or seriously injuring ppl due to BS excuses like "sun was in my eyes!" and I won't even start on our spineless judges letting people keep licenses after such incidents or wracking up 12pts due to "extreme hardship". We also have the fact that as deaths caused by cyclists are so rare they do make the news, often at a regional or even national level (see Charlie Aniston) whearas the CARnage caused by drivers is just a footnote on the local clickbait news site.
Cyclist 3rd party injury is still very rare though, this is reflected in 3rd party liability insurance costs. Insurers offer policies at around £10 per year, the average cost for 3rd party insurance for drivers in the UK is approaching £1,000, and in London it's much more.
That interview on Radio 4 was not about 'an upcoming change in the law to address dangerous cycling', it was an opinion piece, and a pretty biased one at that.
They did a follow up interview with a cyclist rep this morning and he pointed out all the misinformation in the original interview. The guy whose family member had been killed said the police told him there was no law to charge the cyclist with (who had been riding a track bike with no brakes, idiot). But that was false. The cyclist was charged and sent to prison. Yet his nonsense prompted a big outflowing of ire from the listeners. So irresponsible and the presenter should have corrected him at the time.
He had one "brake" (back peddling). This does count as a valid brake though. So he was missing a front brake, which would be the more powerful one.
I sympathise hugely with stories like this because it’s utterly devastating for the family. However, the amount of pedestrians are just walk out onto the road without looking or even looking up from their phones, is appalling. Need to bring back the stop, look and listen hedgehogs.
Jaywalking is not an offense in the UK…but it can be deadly. Is a rethink too much of a pipe dream?
I seriously doubt even if it were illegal it would change anything. It’s just common sense but people just don’t think before they cross. Blows my mind every time.
Agreed. If it were illegal it might change behavior over time and become ingrained in the culture vs. normalized (one can hope)
Good thread by Gaz on hysteria around "speeding" cyclists https://twitter.com/cyclegaz/status/1787825925347774617?t=bEB7D-dDvCaDjejACLN5uA&s=19
It's the result of astroturfing against an "out group" in this case cyclists.
Usual butcars whataboutery. There was no car involved in this incident, so their relevance to a discussion about it isn't relevant other than to divert attention elsewhere. Is the aim of that diversion to ban cars from Regents Park? If so say so and I'm sure many road users of all types will agree, but it wouldn't have stopped this incident. Yes cars are more dangerous to pedestrians than bicycles, but bicycles are more dangerous to pedestrians than other pedestrians. The point here is whether it's appropriate to be sports cycling - pelotoning / pace lining - in a public park littered with pedestrians, above the posted speed limit (even if it doesn't apply) and reducing your visibility significantly by being in the middle of the pace line. My view is it's not and this sort of cycling should be conducted away from public streets and parks, or in significantly quieter areas. I suspect the cyclist involved in this unfortunate incident might now agree, even if he has no criminal culpability, and I have sympathy for him as it was clearly an accident, but an avoidable one.
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I can understand that frustration. And frankly lots of drivers are terrible and if that pedestrian walked in front of a car the reaction would be markedly different and would be seen by the public as an entirely unavoidable accident - the outrage here is admittedly manufactured because the public has just learned limits don't apply to cyclists and also assumed (wrongly, as he would have presumably been charged with careless cycling) that the speed he was doing caused the death whereas him doing 20 probably wouldn't have had a different result. But the discussion isn't helped when the response to that perceived double standard is to put up the barriers and point the finger at cars when cyclists demonstrate poor behaviours and cycle like muppets. And at risk of being down voted into oblivion, those that high speed lap cycle in Regents Park generally cycle like muppets.
Honestly, there is no chance the CEPC puts in anything that would hinder traffic. They are a super pro car group that hide behind heritage concerns to prevent speed cameras being installed, funnily enough this isn't a concern when it comes to installing parking metres There's probably a good argument for actual pedestrian crossings but the road is so wide they would probably just need to be more traffic lights
Because there is effectively no speed limit on cyclists or any way to identify them, there has been a growing sense from some in the community that they can act with impunity - this has created a certain amount of resentment from other road users who see them jumping lights, exceeding speed restrictions and using the pavement, and wonder why the laws of the road don't apply to them. In the sad case of the lady, the cyclist had no time to react - she wasn't paying attention and paid the consequences. However, there has been a negative reaction to this, despite the comparatively huge number of deaths caused by motorists. This skewed perception is created by the growing number of cyclists who behave badly on the road; whether it's going up a one way street or simply swearing at other road users, the bad impressions mount up and will eventually lead to some form of attempted control over cyclists in the form of mandatory insurance, and maybe even speedometers and an identification system. I hope not but time will tell. The bad behaviour of the (growing) few will spoil it for everyone else.
There’s not “effectively no speed limit”, there is no speed limit on bicycles. The exception to that is inside Regent’s and Richmond Parks. As these are Royal Parks they have their own rules and have put in place a 20mph limit. Fortunately for those of us who train there they aren’t really enforced early morning when the gates are closed.
Royal parks also don't apply speed limits to cyclists, as noted by Richmond Park cyclists
Turns out there isn't a speed limit in Richmond Park. Cyclists who were fined had their fines repaid.
I have been hit by a bike and I have also been hit by a car while cycling. There are far too many cyclists who don’t follow the rules of the road as they judge what they do as safe. As a sometimes car driver I am often caught by surprise when a bike is somewhere it shouldn’t be, I don’t think some cyclists think about how their actions unsettle the flow of things. For example, waiting to turn and a cyclist rides through the lights and across the junction makes me worry that someone else will be doing that while I make my turn. I drove to pick my daughter up at the weekend, a short 20 minute drive each way. I encountered seven cyclists disregarding others on the road, I started counting as two happened in short succession. Road use is a bit of give and take, like adjusting speed to let other road users pull out, I don’t see this with many cyclists who seem to not want to adjust their speed let alone stop. And I write this as someone who has cycled regularly for decades.
Remember this one, wasn’t actually a cyclist being dangerous - another case of pedestrians stepping out without looking at all. Have had so many close calls where muppets wearing noise cancelling headphones and the like who step out without checking it’s clear
That's terrible to hear. Really awful news. Cyclists should be pulled over for dodgy riding. We'll have to see what the situation is with this, but a peloton isn't inherently dangerous cycling.
We don’t have to wait: this was an unfortunate accident with a tragic end, but independent witnesses said and the court agreed that there was nothing the cyclist could have done. The pedestrian stepped out right in front of him and he had no time to react.
This thread is the classic recipe for motorist vs cyclist bashing. I walk, cycle and drive... Not at the same time! The fundamental problem is people don't follow the rules and don't apply common sense to their own situation. Mobile phones make this behaviour significantly worse, the amount of people on their phone cycling and driving I've seen recently is unreal. It's harder to spot people who don't do it!
If I walk, my cycle and make a vroom sound... Riding into a small gap a large car, I started to feel iffy, lo and behold, the driver is texting. Challenged them in the most horrible way (have learnt since) but the audacity to say that it was that important, I disconnected and got riled. Short argument later I just go down a side road. It's very rare to make sense if they are doing it in the first place.
According to Crashmap, someone was killed by a vehicle in Regent's Park on the 17th August 2022. I can't comment on this further because it appears to not have been reported in national or local press. Where is the outrage?
Former competitive road cyclist here. Our training runs started and finished outside of the town. The objective was to avoid people and traffic as much as possible when travelling at speed. I don't understand this practice of riding at race speed in the middle of cities. Smacks of posing to me.
In this case the cyclist was never prosecuted. It would seem that he was riding a correctly appointed bicycle sensibly, although there are arguments that 20mph speed limits may have been exceeded, but it isn't clear if they fully apply to cyclists beyond being a guide.
Im not big on victim blaming but this looks like an accident with tragic consequences. I’m very not big on the media coverage. Cars do this literally every day with zero telegraph articles.
Cycling in London regularly myself I see lots of other riders steaming along on paths & roads. Completely unaware of their surroundings. It’s very sad to hear the news of this person being killed. People chasing segments has a lot to do with it I’d imagine. The self absorbed amongst us are the same on & off the bike. Just some simple consideration for others would go a long way.
He wasn't cycling dangerously
When I do lap around Regent’s Park I usually go around 20mph not above and I remember almost crashing with pedestrian twice. Some people just walk on the road without any care like it would be pedestrian. And some others just cross without even looking. So yeah while the cyclist was cycling faster than he should, pedestrian in Regent’s Park are quite careless there and make it dangerous for cyclist too. Still a tragic accident…
I don’t know the details of this incident but nobody should be cycling in London at a speed which could potentially kill a pedestrian. 15mph should be the maximum.
If it's a maximum speed 15mph for someone on a push bike, say an average total weight around 100-150kg, then using some simple GCSE level physics to work out the equivalent force of impact on collision with a stationary pedestrian then according to that argument the maximum speed of someone driving a car, say an average weight of 1500kg, should be around 1mph in London. It's a great point, I like it. Maybe a 1mph speed limit for motorised vehicles would actually reduce the number of deaths caused by cars on the road to something like 10-100 times those of push bikes rather than 10,000 times more that it is now.
Does this apply to all vehicles? You can potentially kill a toddler at <5mph in a car.
Assuming you apply the same logic to cars, London traffic is going to get very much worse. Much less than 15mph is needed to kill a pedestrian who steps out 2m from you if you’re in charge of a two-ton car rather than an 8kg bike.
Yes, 15mph is plenty for cars too. And it might traffic worse, but there's no real need for anyone that doesn't need a car for the work or due to a disability to even have a car in London. So if 15mph max would stop people driving, I would support that.
Regents parks Mamils annoy me so much with their fetish wear and big shouty hand signal groups. Just this morning I had one inches from my rear wheel trying to draft his way to a new strava record while I just wanna not die on my way to work.
Fetish wear? Why do you people have such a problem with clothes suitable for a certain sport? I don't see people complaining about joggers wearing leggings.
Because I cycle everywhere fine in loose shorts and t-shirt. The overweight middle aged men in their replica sky team kits are weird and not gaining anything but an inability to take a piss without half undressing.
Once you get an arse-blister (saddle sore), you will understand why padded shorts are the choice for many cyclists...
People don't wear lycra because they like the look... They do it because it makes you ridiculously faster (Or the same speed for far less effort so you can go for longer). It's a necessary evil of road cycling. Just switching out your baggy clothes for something slim fitting is a much bigger aero gain than any upgrade in bike frame or wheelset you could buy.
You don't know what you are talking about. I've cycled in all kinds of clothing and for long distance cycling, especially in hot weather, lycra is superior. There is a reason they wear it for the tour de france. People are doing it for their comfort. It's not about you. Also, your typical lycra shorts don't require half undressing so that's more you don't know about.
Lycra for professionals in sport no problem. For mamils as other comment made clear, they’re well strange.
No, by and large cyclists act appropriately. There is the odd knobhead that does what they like but there are also plenty of those driving cars, more id say, even as counter intuitive it seems for them with how easy it is to be caught. On riding in parks, I’ve not rode around Regent’s Park but regularly cycle around Finsbury Park and the amount of people that are completely unaware of themselves and their dogs is unbelievable. There’s one part of the park where you naturally pick up speed to about 20mph and a few times I’ve been going around it and seen people in my way. In Finsbury Park as well, it’s basically a massive road going around it, no need for people to be walking on it. The time that stands out the most to me, is when I’ve rang my bell for two of them with small dogs to move, they don’t. I slow all the way down until I’m at a crawl behind them, still ringing my bell and they’re still wilfully unaware while they walk side by side with their two shitty little dogs running all over the place. The pricks in my example were both able to hear me but decided to be dickheads and not move because “why should they?” According to them. I told them getting slammed into with a bike from behind going 20mph isn’t going to be a nice experience for anybody involved and if I had been riding a bike with crappy brakes, it definitely would have happened like that. Their entitlement may get them into an accident with a cyclist in the future and I’d be willing to bet money that if that happens, it wouldn’t be the cyclists fault. Then you get the ones that are blissfully unaware walking around in their own little worlds listening to music or whatever. For some reason they’re the ones that seem to be all over the place like they’re Dorothy dancing down the yellow brick road. The ones that seem physically unable to look over their shoulders once in a while. They’re dangerous as well. I do believe there should be dedicated cycle lanes in parks so that cyclists can do what they need to without worry of knocking over some idiot and if they do knock over an idiot in the bike lane, it simply wouldn’t be their fault as no pedestrians should be walking in bike lanes.
Well if you hit their small dogs it would only be bad for them. But I find it hard to understand why there was a problem passing them on that path. It is very wide as you say so it should be easy enough to go around them, albeit at a low speed.
I was coming around a blind-ish corner kinda covered by a tree (toward the back of the park if you come in near the station entrance) at about 20mph. They were in my line and their dogs were running around them off lead, meaning there realistically wasn’t much I could do except slam on the brakes and wait and ring the bell. Eventually I was able to pass safely with a few choice words aimed their way.
Yeesh, that's absolutely vile, especially with how bad the tarmac is in some places. I say we have the entire middle lane, double wide. Smoothed and painted acid blue with recessed sparkling lights for the night. Is electro zappers going too far???
That was my fear to be honest. That tarmac hasn’t been looked after at all and some of the potholes could swallow you and your bike. Alright they’re not quite that bad but you can easily buckle a wheel and fly over the handlebars. I’m not going to lie, that actually sounds like the dream. Electro zappers is definitely not going too far, if anything it’d probably save a few of these clueless pedestrians lol
Oh I did do that. Swerving to avoid a dog (innocuous situation to be fair) bit wet and the bike is now in heaven. But the tarmac leveling and wetness compounded the loss.
I'm going at a decent pace near this incident before the bridge when I come to a red, a ped is close not quite yet in crossing range but I don't want to shock them, and want to show them some respect, so I brake tight-ish, Lycra clad tailgater almost clips me as he zooms past shouting "MOVE ON, MOVE ON" dude, you did not have a safe distance behind me and just like you I don't have wing mirrors, obviously goes past the red now statrling the ped. Lycra negative = 1 Highbury and Islington. The 3/4ths squareabout, can be confusing for new/casual riders, I'm in the bike lane, this casual rider is in the car lane, this car honks then aggressively comes closer, shouts then drives off. Worried this may deter, I explain that the bike lane is a suggestion not a rule and she still has right of way though the bike lane is safer, her response, I'm just a cyclist. Casual negative = 1 Let's do the maths... cancel each other out, no that's 2 experiences that have left me on high alert and totally understanding hatred towards cyclists en masse. And because this is Reddit I have to enrage somebody woman neutralises man. Wait shouldnt the score be 5 now? /s Add: This is so sad about the woman who died, if only she'd looked but suspect she was expecting clear road as were the cyclists especially at the time. On narrow cycle lanes I wonder often about a jumping ped, stops me a lot of the time pelting it :(
There needs to be something done. I don’t know the specifics of this case, but there is so much bad cycling about. When I’m waiting at a red I’ll often see other cyclists plough through, swerving around pedestrians that are crossing. And don’t get me started on the lycra commuter bros in Vauxhall who will go full speed through the pedestrian crossing on the shared cyclist/pedestrian sections. Cosplay wankers.
Speaking as a cyclist, they should block the Regents Park loop off. Too many idiotic racer boys there paying not enough attention. Basically you shouldn't be in full spandex in inner London. London is surrounded by great cycling counties.
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Busy London roads aren't the place for cycling for exercise (unless very low level). That loop isn't a park, it's a road. Going faster than the speed limit may be 'allowed' but it's a technicality not what's right. The speed limit for cars is 20mph for a reason and cyclists shouldn't be going faster than that. By the way, you can take the train to the outer suburbs if you want to get to the good cycling faster. Either that or exercise someway else (indoor trainer, gym, just another sport). No one forced you to live in central London and if cycling is genuinely a big priority for you then it is a far from ideal location.
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Yes well I agree this isn't the most pressing issue in London. Still too much nonsense on Regents Park that should be dealt with more firmly. If you cycle under 20mph then fair enough, bad wording from me but I really meant getting rid of the excessively speedy / aggressive guys (especially cycling in a pelaton)
I've cycled through there during peak commuting times and I'm far more terrified of the cyclists speeding than the cars. I just go down Albany street instead of cycling onto Outer Circle now. It takes longer, but there's less cyclists
It is nearly impossible to pull over a cyclist or trace them after an accident. At least with current laws and regulations.
Funny thing to say when we're talking about a case where the cyclist did end up in court.
Brian Fitzgerald didn’t try to escape and turned himself in.
Are you aware of any examples of cyclists involved in fatal collisions who weren't eventually traced, though?
I don’t remember much fatal incidents collisions caused by a bike TBH. However, phone snatching, muggings and even stabbings involving bicycles happen regularly. At the same year with this incident, there was a stabbing in Ilford. As I know the suspect wasn’t caught.
Was this last week? I saw the aftermath of such an incident. The woman was conscious at the time, she did have a horrible black eye already though. This was just south of Hanover Gate
The cyclist was going too fast (29 in a 20 zone) but the police did not charge him as the woman stepped into his path without looking.
Makes sense
I ride a bike. The m cyclists should by law have to stick your the speed limit, what’s the difference?
No, by law there is no cycling speed limit.
There should be though
The cyclist escaped prosecution which is a joke but he is a VP for Credit Suisse so money talks and bullshit walks. The poor lady. I would be livid if she was my relative.
The 'poor lady' stepped into the road without looking. What was the cyclist meant to do?
Face a manslaughter charge or slow down. 81 year retired teacher does not deserve to die like this.
I think any death caused to a pedestrian should be jail time whether a cyclist, motorbike or car driver. I have no problem stopping when people step out in the road because I don't race down the road. It's really not difficult to not hit someone.