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Fight for Justice
Allan Ramsay
Anyone who rides a bicycle or has a loved one who rides a bicycle on UK roads, should be seriously worried. In a significant number of drivers, the standard of driving, especially where cyclists are in the ‘line of fire’, leaves a lot to be desired.
Moreover, the level of respect afforded cyclists by their engine powered brethren, compared to that afforded their continental cousins, leaves a great deal to be desired.
For the majority of UK drivers, waiting behind a cyclist until it is clearly safe to give a wide berth while passing, as the vast majority of continental drivers do, is clearly something that is not in the UK driver’s repertoire. Neither is passing at a respectable, non-intimidating speed.
To highlight this truth, the recent road casualty statistics, although showing an overall reduction in fatal incidents, show cyclist deaths and serious injuries to have increased by 11% since 2004. Since about the time that mobile phones and Sat Navs became all the rage is this not?
To highlight this consideration, and indeed to show how the total lack of respect even infects our courts, right up to our Lord Chief Justice, look to the case of Leigh Dolby. A very much loved and admired family man, 54-year-old Leigh was an experienced and very capable cyclist. And in regularly riding 200 miles a week, with an End to End listed as one of his many cycling achievements, who could argue otherwise?
However, while preparing for a charity ride to celebrate his 55th birthday, he was hit from behind and killed by a driver texting his girlfriend. Like all texting drivers, Leigh’s killer simply wasn’t paying attention to the road ahead, and no doubt, since the vast majority of text messages are trivial trash, Leigh’s killer would have been distracted by trivial trash.
So Leigh basically lost his life for nothing, absolutely nothing. And what does his killer get? 12 months jail. And when Leigh’s family appealed that this was too lenient, the Lord Chief Justice basically said: “Not at all”.
Had someone jumped on Leigh in the street and killed him for nothing, what would the killer’s punishment be? What will the policeman’s fate be for killing an innocent journalist as he went about his business just recently?
And if all this isn’t bad news for UK cyclists, what about the recent incident that claimed the life of Gareth Evans? Yet another experienced and capable cyclist, Gareth was also killed by a driver who wasn’t paying attention to the road ahead.
But not only was Gareth a cyclist, he was a Major in the British army. How many bullets, mortar shells and missiles must he have dodged in our struggle to make the world a safer place, indeed to make the UK a safer place? Only to get it in the back by a ‘terrorist’ of a driver.
What might our Lord Chief Justice have to say about this injustice, this shameful example of how disrespectful of cyclists and the law that many a UK driver is?
No matter how many soldiers this government sends to the likes of Afghanistan and Iraq, it will not win respect and safe passage for cyclists on UK roads. This is a ‘war’ cyclists will have to fight for themselves.
To support this fight sign-up to the on-line petition calling for the Prime Minister to introduce tougher penalties for drivers using mobile phones.
The web address is: petitions.number10.gov.uk/mobilemenaceban
Allan Ramsay RoadPeace
A Moral for Cyclists -
What did the motorist say to the cyclist he had just ploughed into the back of ? “Sorry mate, I didn’t see you, I was too busy texting“.Of course, with the cyclist lying unconscious in the road, (dead in the case of Leigh Dolby) he didn’t hear a thing, and with no witnesses, neither did anyone else. So what does the motorist do? Call an ambulance? Call the police? Not likely, that would get him in ‘serious’ trouble, especially if the cyclist were dead - 3 years jail and a driving ban if he’s unlucky. 12 months in the case of Leigh Dolby. Can’t be having that now can he? So he speeds on his way. The moral of this story is, if you don’t want to be hit by a texting driver and leave your family fighting for justice, as are Leigh Dolby’s, give up cycling. For me I’m not prepared to give up cycling. I’ll do the fighting and hopefully spare my family the pain. And it’s not only cyclists at risk from in-car techno addiction, so too are horse rider’s and motor-bikers, and indeed families in people carriers, like the Statham’s: all six of them, killed in a fireball when a 40 ton truck, with its driver “grossly distracted”, ploughed into the back of their people carrier. To support the fight for tougher penalties for the ‘mobile menace’, like confiscate phone and car, plus an automatic driving ban, log on to:- http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/mobilemenaceban/ And don’t just think of yourself, think of your family; think of all your pals; think of all who have fallen victim to a ‘mobile menace‘; think of improving cycling health and safety throughout the UK; think of all the Jeremy Clarkson type cyclist haters who don’t want cyclists on ‘their’ road. Anyone not signing-up is effectively supporting the Clarkson mind-set - speed is good, speed is right, cyclists have no right being on the road. In Memoriam - the list’s as long as your arm and growing by the day.Allan Ramsay
RoadPeace e-mail:
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