End Cycle Fatalities - London, DO MORE

We’ve have had three cycle fatalities in London already this year. Three cycle fatalities attributed to HGVs, at that.  This should simply be criminal.

Would we accept this same statistic if it were attached to, say for example, using the Underground to travel? The death toll is utterly intolerable and yet the fight for cyclists to be given the protection they deserve continues on.

I found the vigil of the late Akis Kollaros, a music producer and sound engineer who lived in Dalston, particularly moving.  I drew similarities with him - his passion for music and his love for his friends who gathered in huge numbers to pay homage to him.  Particularly alarming - I think for many people - was the fact that Akis was an experienced rider.  I think it made many of us feel uneasy; I felt, “if such an experienced cyclist can fall victim to this kind of collision, where does that leave me on the scale of vulnerability?”

As a tribute from Akis’ parents was read out, in which they hoped that never again should we have to gather as we did that night, under those circumstances, we listened with grave sadness as we knew we would be meeting together in another week’s time, this time to mourn a third fatality. That of Federica Baldassa, 26, who was crushed by a left-turning lorry at Vernon Place, Holborn.

Why should the act of using a bicycle to travel carry such a risk?

As we debuted at The London Bike Show last weekend, we invited you to visit us in the safety zone and show your support in pushing use of education and technology solutions forward in order to prevent these devastating types of accidents.

And support us you did.  In huge numbers.  Our warm reception at our first ever London Bike Show was a great testament the public’s desire for more widely available road user education, and for life-saving technologies to keep cyclists protected.

We were thrilled with the huge numbers that came to take part in MPS’ Exchanging Places program to see for themselves, the sight limitations that drivers are faced with.

CLOCS were also greeted with a warm welcome as they presented their work to reduce work-related road-risk and offered members of the public to sit in a low-entry ergonomic cab to see what hopes we have for the future of road safety.

We still have a steep hill to climb in getting the government to embrace the need for space and better infrastructure, better vehicles and more effective use of technologies, but if the weekend taught us anything, it’s that the tools are there and the support is there.