Two cyclists killed in Hanham

As has been nationally reported, two cyclists were killed in Hanham on Sunday afternoon. The driver of the car has turned themselves in.

The thoughts and condolences of most Bristolians, whether they cycle or not, will be with the friends and families of the deceased.

Bristol is a much smaller town than London; you end up recognising and becoming acquainted with many people, just because you pass them and meet them more often. For that reason, its possible that one of the regular Bristol Traffic submitters may know of them -or know someone who does. Right now: uncertainty; the only news anyone has are the snippets that come out on the press. On that topic, the Evening Post has shown the decency to turn off comments in their coverage of the tragedy. Having idiots post comments about helmets is not appropriate or welcome.

For those people outside the city who don't know Hanham, well, it's unappealling to cycle through. Kingswood has long had a tradition of being outside Bristol; Hanham similar -and it's not far from St George -one of whose resident's was convicted last year of a "moment of madness" road rage attack on a cyclist. That's not representative of the area; another way to view it is as "a part of the city that is not yet a cycling city".  The A431 may be a more direct route from Bitton to the city centre, but the Railway Path is preferred by cycle. Even there, the Kingswood stretch is the one where you are most likely to encounter a teenager on a motorbike.

There's no reason to speculate on the killing itself, except we will use that term: killing. Someone made some decisions on Sunday that resulted in the death of two people.

Assuming it was the driver who drove off after the crash who made those decisions, the track record of the UK legal system's ability to deliver justice in death-by-car killings is very awful. Sometimes the penalty can be less expensive than a parking ticket.

We've seen the Avon and Somerset police to be supportive of cyclists in the past, what we shall wait to see is if the CPS and judiciary are also supportive. Certainly we don't think that any crime that results in death -even if is "just" a car accident - should be handled by a magistrate alone.

Let's wait and see.

In the meantime, we extend our condolences to those who knew the deceased.

An exchange of views

Another snippet of Taypet21's photostream showing how abusive cyclists can be just because you swerve past them and then in without warning.



Some comments for the elusive Taypet, who, whether they intend it or not, is becoming our Fishponds correspondent.

1. It's not clear that swearing helps you achieve your goal, unless being beaten up is your goal.
2. Yes, you had an exit strategy -and we can see how V484ETF tried to swerve after you, but unless you could be confident that the driver would not catch up with you later, that wasn't a sustainable plan.
3. Lodge Road, eh? You know that Kingswood is getting a bit of a reputation of a place where people on bicycles get beaten up? Just bear that in mind before being quite so abusive. It also doesn't help you if you wish to raise the issue with the polis, as they may have some paperwork for you too.
4. At least he saw you. You weren't going to get Smidsy'd here, and he gave you lots of clearance for the first half of his overtake -right up to the moment he saw the traffic and decided to swing in rather than brake.

As for the driver

1. The emergent ubiquity of cycle cameras means that your actions are more likely to be documented. When at 0:40 you swerved completely into the oncoming lane to pass the (electric) cycle doing approximate 15-20 mph, you should have indicated.
2. Why did you swerve in before you'd actually passed him? There was no oncoming traffic, and if you'd gone past him and then pulled in followed by a full-ABS brake then you'd have stopped before going in to the van (not ours, it is new, clean and has all brake lights lit up), leaving the bicycle to deal with the problem that it was going to have to filter left rather than stop.
3. Finally: why bother, really? You can see the van in front stopped, if your  V-reg doesn't have ABS then your stopping distance on bald tyres isn't going to be great, so look at the speed of the bicycle before trying to pass. 
4. It's not worth the hassle of running them over, especially when the police get called out and those issues about insurance crop up.

We explicitly mention insurance because a quick check of askmid says:

NO V484ETF is NOT showing as insured on the Motor Insurance Database today.

That's despite the fact the DVLA site says the Lexus V484ETF has paid its road tax. 
You need to be glad that Taypet's video has him swearing enough it it that he can't forward it to the police and say "I have evidence that this car is being driven without insurance".

Brian Rogers of Kingswood: speaking the truth

We've been a bit quiet recently. The main problem: thinking of new things to say.

Everyone has this problem. Take this well thought out letter from Brian Rogers of Kingswood.

It certainly pushes our buttons:

1. affluent middle classes cycling
2. holding up important people on their way to work
3. tax-payer funded lycra clad louts
4. sanctimonious, car-hating people
5. fill up the car parks

That would be a good article: tax dodging affluent (actually, this is probably true), car hating, and driving to our favourite parking spaces. It would make a good article, and we have formally invited Brian to actually write for us. All he'd need is "in our lane", "red light jumping" and "speeding along too fast" and we'd win this week's Daily Mail "lycra lout" bingo.

Of course, the same day that George "coke" Osborne announces that air passenger duty won't be applied to people flying in and out of the city on private planes is particularly bad timing for the tax-payer funded text. Remember: those people who live in Monaco and fly in for three days a week may retain non-resident tax payer status, but they hold up the economy, and adding £30/week on the already outrageous cost of (tax free) jet fuel would force them stop flying in to the UK at all.

Brian needs to work on his timing a bit there.

Furthermore, a quick web search shows that he wrote pretty much the same letter  a year ago.

 irresponsible for the city council to pour tax payers' funds into a cycling track that is, well, just a hobby for a privileged and sanctimonious few?

See? The same problem we have. There's only so much orginality you can do from one point-of-vitriol. Brian is having trouble writing the same letter once a year -you can imagine how hard it us for us.

Maybe its time for the team to retire