KILLERS ON TWO WHEELS
These six people all died after being hit by cyclists. 100 more are badly hurt every year. When WILL the law crack down?
SLEEP doesn’t come easily to Marilyn Taylor and when she does finally drift off, she is invariably jolted awake by a recurring nightmare. It starts with a deafening bang. Then there is the sensation of something hitting her face and a feeling she is being smothered. Marilyn is unequivocal about what causes these dreams — her collision with a cyclist seven months ago.
The married mother of two was left maimed when a Lycra-clad man on a bike hit her with such force that her blouse ended up ripped to shreds in the spokes of his wheel and her face was battered and bloody.
‘He made no attempt to slow down. Nor did he say sorry. When I reported him to the police they didn’t seem interested,’ says Marilyn, 50, who suffered facial, chest, hand and elbow injuries in the crash and is still reliant on super-strong painkillers.
As bike riding becomes ever more popular — nearly three million people in Britain cycle at least once a week, and 25 million own a bike — more and more pedestrians are being hurt by those who ride dangerously.
According to statistics released by the Department for Transport this week, the number killed or seriously injured in collisions with cyclists has more than doubled in the past decade. Over the past seven years, 25 pedestrians have died in collisions with bikes and 700 sustained serious injuries.
This week, cyclist Richard Manners, 21, was convicted of causing bodily harm by wilful misconduct and jailed for 27 weeks after running over four-year- old Matteo Carlucci on a pedestrians- only road in Windsor, Berkshire.
Matteo, who had been on his way to Legoland with his parents, was left with a broken arm, a missing tooth and burns on his face and head.
Last month, Charlie Alliston, 20, a former courier, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for killing motherof- two Kim Briggs, 44, after he collided with her at 18 mph on a bike with no front brakes on a busy London street last February.
Her death highlights not only the rising danger to pedestrians but just how difficult it is to prosecute rogue cyclists. There is no cycling equivalent to the charge of causing death by dangerous driving, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
ALLISTON was instead convicted of ‘wanton and furious driving’ — an offence originally enshrined in Victorian law in 1861 to protect people from reckless carriage- drivers, which carries a maximum sentence of just two years in prison.
After his sentencing, Transport Minister Jesse Norman announced an urgent review of the legal process surrounding irresponsible cyclists.
Of course, the vast majority of cyclists are not hooligans. But Marilyn, from Preston in Lancashire, a full-time carer for her 85-year-old mother Mary, agrees that a change in the law is needed.
One lunchtime last March she was walking along a narrow path near Blackpool pier with her wheelchairbound mother, a friend and her two dogs. ‘ From nowhere the bike smashed into me,’ she recalls.
After feeling the handlebars hit her, she was thrown backwards onto the concrete path.
‘Blood was dripping down my face,’ says Marilyn.
The cyclist, meanwhile, had been knocked off his bike. ‘ He said I’d stepped out in front of him and cycled off after about 20 minutes. A witness told me he’d been going at around 20mph and was known in the area for cycling too fast.’
Marilyn was too shocked to consider calling the police at the time: ‘My friend asked for his [the cyclist’s] contact number and he refused to give it to her.’
she was helped back to her car and then the horrendous pain set in. ‘I was shaking and in tears, it hurt to move my hand and my head was throbbing.’
Her husband Ian, 53, drove her to Accident and Emergency at Preston Royal Hospital, where a deep gash on the bridge of her nose was glued together.
The next day she contacted Preston Police station. ‘ They interviewed me over the phone but said there was nothing they could do,’ she says. ‘I felt fobbed off so I went to Blackpool police station the same week and they said the same.’
A spokesman for Lancashire Police told the Mail that Marilyn’s ordeal
‘appears to be an unfortunate accident’, while Blackpool council told her the path where the crash happened is a ‘ shared space’ for cyclists and pedestrians.
‘I now have constant pins and needles in my left arm and my right shoulder is painful from the impact,’ says Marilyn. ‘I can no longer sleep on my side and I may need steroid injections.’
One factor in the rising number of collisions is the increasing popularity of fixed-wheel bikes without proper brakes ( you brake by pedalling backwards, which slows the back wheel, but this method requires a far greater stopping distance than a handlebar brake) that are illegal to ride on the road.
These bikes have become increasingly fashionable in recent years because they need less maintenance, as they don’t have gear systems — and it’s very rare that anyone checks or challenges their legality on the road. Indeed, Evans Cycles — the biggest cycling retailer in the country — sells 33 models, ranging in price from £230 to £3,000.
Sometimes local bylaws allow for a prosecution of sorts, as in the case of four-year-old Aaliyah Raj, who was run over by cyclists on mountain bikes in July 2014. Later that year, the cyclists were prosecuted for breaching Eastbourne Borough Council’s bylaws, which prohibit cycling on the seafront, where the incident took place.
The two young men were fined £135 and £50 and one of them — who was responsible for cycling over Aaliyah’s face — was given a police caution.
It is a punishment that seems pitiful to Aaliyah’s mother Samita, 28, a supermarket team leader from Eastbourne. ‘Just because the injuries were caused by a bicycle it doesn’t make them any less severe,’ she says.
Samita and Aaliyah had been on their way to an ice-cream parlour when Samita heard a cry from her daughter, who was lying on the ground behind her as the cyclists sped off.
‘I tried to confront them but they hurled abuse at me. Aaliyah’s ear was torn from where the bicycle caught her earring,’ says Samita. ‘She had grazes all over her legs and was crying with shock.’
Samita flagged down a passing police car, and an ambulance rushed mother and daughter to Eastbourne District Hospital. Two days after police put out an appeal, the cyclists responsible handed themselves in.
ONE was let off with a fine and a police caution on the condition that he apologised to Samita at Eastbourne Police Station.
‘He seemed sorry but that didn’t make it right,’ says Samita. ‘I felt incredibly angry.’
Often cyclists resort to riding on pavements to avoid cars, a practice which is illegal and punishable by a maximum court fine of £500.
Yet many pedestrians, including Stephanie Hodgson, whose elbow was broken after a cyclist on a pavement collided with her last December, are unaware of this before they are hit.
Stephanie, 30, a marketing manager from Pontefract in West Yorkshire, was on her way to work in Leeds when it happened.
‘ I landed on my elbow and banged my head,’ says Stephanie. ‘I was lucky not to have been run over by a car.’
Stephanie says the cyclist was apologetic. ‘He asked if he should stick around,’ she says, ‘but I told him he could go. He didn’t offer to give me his details and it didn’t occur to me to report him.’
Stephanie’s husband drove her to Leeds General Infirmary, where X-rays revealed that her elbow was broken and Stephanie was told she would have to wear a sling for six weeks to protect the bone as it healed.
‘I was in pain for days,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t type at work and cooking and housework were a struggle. Even now my elbow hurts if I lie on it or carry heavy shopping bags.’
Her understanding attitude towards the cyclist, meanwhile, shifted. ‘ Colleagues told me I should have got his details and I started to feel cross about it,’ she says. ‘The pavement was crowded with rush-hour pedestrians and he ought to have known he shouldn’t be on the pavement.
‘ I’m not against cycling but irresponsible cyclists need to realise they can’t get away with it.’