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news
Big Ben © Simon MacMichaelGovernment to crack down on “reckless” riders with causing death by dangerous cycling law
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has repeated a pledge to introduce a causing death by dangerous cycling law that would see bike riders found guilty of the offence face the same punishment as drivers convicted of causing death by dangerous driving, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
The Daily Mail reports that the new legislation would be included in the Transport Bill which will begin its passage through Parliament later this year.
Currently, cyclists involved in crashes in which a pedestrian is killed or injured can face prosecution under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 for causing bodily harm through wanton or furious driving, which has a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment. They can also be charged with manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
In the past five years there have been roughly one prosecution per year of a cyclist under the 1861 Act, the most recently concluded case resulting in 29-year-old Stewart McGinn jailed for 12 months after he crashed into pedestrian Elizabeth Jayne Stone, aged 79, in Monmouth in June last year, fatally injuring her.
> Jail for pavement cyclist who rode off after fatally injuring pensioner
Shapps described the relevant section of the 1861 Act as an “archaic law,” telling the newspaper that it was “a legal relic of the horse-drawn era,” and that charging a cyclist with manslaughter was “a draconian option.”
He insisted that the law needed to be overhauled to crack down on reckless cyclists who harm others.
“We need the cycling equivalent of death by dangerous driving to close a gap in the law and impress on cyclists the real harm they can cause when speed is combined with lack of care,” he said.
“For example, traffic lights are there to regulate all traffic. But a selfish minority of cyclists appear to believe that they are somehow immune to red lights.
“We need to crack down on this disregard for road safety. Relatives of victims have waited too long for this straightforward measure.
“As we move into an era of sustained mass cycling, a thoroughly good thing, we must bring home to cyclists – too often themselves the victims of careless or reckless motoring – that the obligation to put safety first applies equally to every road user. There can be no exceptions,” he added.
Calls for an offence of causing death by dangerous cycling to be put on the statute books intensified in 2017 after cyclist Charlie Alliston was sentenced under the 1861 Act to 18 months in a young offenders’ institution following a crash in London’s Old Street that resulted in pedestrian Kim Briggs losing her life. Her widower, Matthew Briggs, has campaigned since then for the law to be reformed.
Alliston, who had been riding a fixed wheel bike with no front brake at the time of the fatal crash, was also charged with manslaughter, but was found not guilty of that offence by a jury at the Old Bailey.
Until recently, the maximum jail term for causing death by dangerous driving stood at 14 years but for offences committed on or after 28 June this year a life sentence can be imposed.
However, even in the most egregious cases, the sentences handed down to drivers convicted of the offence are far less.
By contrast, cyclist Emir Loka, who crashed into pedestrian Peter McCombie in east London in July 2020, causing fatal injuries, was jailed last year for the maximum two year term stipulated in the 1861 Act. Like Alliston, he was cleared of manslaughter.
> Cyclist who killed London pedestrian jailed for two years
Shapps’ latest comments on the subject follow confirmation he planned to bring in an offence of causing death by dangerous cycling when he appeared on Nick Ferrari’s show on LBC earlier this year.
At the time, Duncan Dollimore, head of campaigns at the charity Cycling UK, told road.cc: “Changes to the Highway Code are beneficial to all road users, and it is unhelpful of the Transport Secretary to try and explain or justify them on a quid pro quo basis by linking them to the potential introduction of new cycling offences. The two issues are entirely separate.
“As the Transport Secretary’s own minister Andrew Stephenson confirmed in December, the DfT is already working on the terms and remit of a call for evidence into road traffic offences. While that is long overdue, with a full review first promised over seven years ago after prolonged campaigning from Cycling UK, there’s little more than we can say on this issue, other than that we’ve never opposed cycling offences being be part of that review.
“Introducing new cycling offences in isolation however would simply be a sticking plaster on a broken system, because our current careless and dangerous driving offences aren’t fit for purpose – replicating them for cycling makes no sense at all,” he added.
In 2020, 346 pedestrians were killed in road traffic collisions in Great Britain, but cyclists were only involved in four of those fatal crashes.
It should also be underlined those figures, compiled by the Department for Transport from police reports, do not seek to apportion blame.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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126 comments
I certainly take your word it wasn't difficult for you (I mean that sincerely, not taking the piss!)...but day in day out riding in London has shown me that many people don't have the spatial awareness to drive large SUVs safely and people driving rented Transit vans are positively scary; if I see a Transit with an Enterprise or other rental logo I stay as far away as possible. The idea that people could be allowed to drive vehicles twice the current legal size permitted on their licence with no additional training scares the shit out of me, quite frankly.
Yep, I agree that some additional check of competency for a larger vehicle like that is a good idea. There must have been a reason they brought in the additional tests back in '97.
But as there's a whole raft of the population who have an entitlement to drive these vehicles through gaining a licence prior to '97, I would hope any prospective employer would put a new employee through some sort of basic competency check prior to letting them loose on a company vehicle. They can't just rely on the C1/E stamp on the driving licence.
Well, if we are happy with the probability of self harm being much higher than harming others, it makes sense. I had flying lessons on an RAF scholarship at 17, and soloed an aeroplane long before I soloed a car. I never did get a pilot's licence because the RAF didn't pay for enough training.
If I'd got into difficulties, it's almost certain I'd not have hit anything except trees and the ground. Training is done on fully dual control aircraft, so during lessons, the instructor can take complete control. That's safer than driving lessons, I'd say.
Amazing! Just checked mine and C1, C1E, from 1982. So not convinced about 'before 1997', but your point is well made: city car experience is no preparation for a 7.5 tonne lorry, with or without a trailer.
Greetings from Rally Finland: Forrest and Gravel, what could go wrong with 380bhp..
Under present rules you are allowed to drive a 7.5T vehicle privately. The law change will end the requirement for further qualifications to drive these vans professionally.
Law loves a loophole...
Having moved countries several times, and converted my drivers license each time, I was allowed to drive a small tank for a while (despite doing my test in a small hatchback car). Sadly in my last conversion I lost that without ever having the opportunity to give it a go.
(I can't recall how small the tank had to be and if they actually made tanks that size...)
If you've got the permission, there is a tank for you.
You can, it's known as Grandfather rights.
"We need to crack down on this disregard for road safety."
This from the guy who wants to allow regular car licence holders to be allowed to drive 7.5t trucks?
Would that they were. Unfortunately many traffic lights are designed without any consideration for the needs of cyclists, who are often obliged to choose between compromising their own safety to fit themselves around a system designed with only the needs of motorists in mind, or bend the rules.
Also, can Mr Shapps tell us how many pedestrians are killed each decade by cyclists who go through red lights? Hint - there is only one on record! (Ermir Loka, who killed Peter McCombie). Was jailed for 2 years.
“For example, traffic lights are there to regulate all traffic. But a selfish minority of cyclists appear to believe that they are somehow immune to red lights
Black Mazda 2 PE62 ZZG went straight on through these lights 1.2 seconds after they turned red and right across the junction. This was reported to OpSnapLancs as APL105914 on 10th July with stills and video and you will all know by now that there was no response and no action from Lancashire Constabulary. In Lancashire, pretty much any driver is 'immune to red lights', if LC chooses to 'let them off'. They do have a combined speed/red light camera in Blackburn, but that gives them the choice of who to let off and who to penalise- that's what they like: complete control of the law given to Lancashire Constabulary
Meanwhile, a drugged texting uninsured driver gets 21 months for killing a cyclist.
Just fuck off Shapps, and tackle the real issues rather than playing to the gallery of Daily Mail readers.
I think it's more than that. I think the Conservative Party have decided that they only need to play to the gallery of Conservative voters now and the rest of the population can go screw themselves... That story recently about Sunak saying it was unfair that so much Govt money gets spent on poor urban areas so why can't more be spent on wealthier rural or suburban communities instead, for example (FFS). Shapps wants to seem tough/borderline psycho so that Truss will give him a job when she founds the New Regime...
I'm no particular apologist for Sunak, but that's a bit of a misrepresentation. What he said was more along the lines that it was unfair that poor areas in otherwise wealthy regions weren't given the same funding as more generally poor regions.
(And that he'd 'solved' this problem by taking money away from the latter to give to the former - rather than, y'know, giving them all adequate funding...)
I watched the clip and heard what he said. It was not as you suggest.
'For example, traffic lights are there to regulate all traffic. But a selfish minority of cyclists appear to believe that they are somehow immune to red lights.'
I recently submitted footage of a driver that rolled through a Stop sign. He had actually overtaken me and was on his phone but my camera didn't catch that. I was told that it was below the threshold for action. I'm not sure I really see the difference. Other road users are already doing their own risk assessment on which rules apply to them and the police are then confirming that's okay by refusing to enforce those rules.
I'm not averse to the law because the only people it will affect are the people who cause death, which is virtually nobody, including most of the worst cyclists out there.
On the other hand, could a politician step up and solve the dangerous driving is impossible to prosecute in most cases loophole? It probably only needs half a dozen words inserted into the legislation.
I do think there's an argument the cycling law should be rolled together with the rest of the road law. Don't think that's a priority - not like e.g. a comprehensive review of road danger - but hey, sounds logical.
As you've alluded to though it's just political theatre. Can the government be seen to do something but not have it cost anything in votes or cash? That something better not be to disabuse the majority of their beliefs. Especially if it's saying that some of them are the problem. Putting more people into the legal system or into our failing prisons for longer would be spendy - and not just while they're there either.
Where are the benefits? If the government can give a nod to the
prejudicesstrongly held beliefs of many people for the cost of a bit of law which will almost never come into play - that's a political win.On "priorities" - yes, we should look at *all* unnecessary deaths and injuries but governance is about addressing the main issues - ideally efficiently. For those who want a visual representation of the scale of things (posted before but bears repetition):
https://robertweetman.wordpress.com/2017/09/09/just-one-year/
It does matter, as the wholesale coverage of it demonises all cyclists, and gives the impression that this is a big problem, when it is so small, that you'd need an electron microscope to see it in the mess of motor caused deaths. It's just that it gives the media, especially the BBC, so dedicated to balance and truth, an opportunity to bash the only out group they still can.
So where are the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport in all this?
Yes, that's "The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) helps to drive growth, enrich lives and promote Britain abroad."
In practice doing nothing to promote Sport or Active Travel in the Digital, Culture, Media by supporting reporting best practice or regulation of hate speech and ignorance against people cycling on the public highway.
Minister Nadine Dories should act, at least because this is a feminist issue of under-representation too..
Well if the behaviour of its leader is anything to go by at the minute, curled up in a corner with the gin bottle with its tears bedewing a signed fan photo of Mr Johnson...
Im pretty sure that she hates cyclists too.
There's no cure for Absurd Optimism Syndrome (AOS). I bet you do the lottery.
It's not optimistic to expect Ministers to do what they are responsible for doing.
Because cyclists are not a protected group in Equality law, yet, there's no expectation generally, but since Women (Protected) are under-represented as cyclists the Minister is expected to address that.
Since I have a STEM education I can tell that Lottery is a futile exercise. In fact there is a greater probability that I might kill a pedestrian with a bicycle.
I would rather fund sport directly.
Precisely. I was nearly taken out by a drive last week, deciding to overtake on a narrow road 50m from a red traffic light. When I caught up with him a few seconds later (the light was still red) his response was "fuck off, you don't pay any road tax!" That is a response only learned from MSM bile-pits.
I guess my take is that it just feeds the MSM to be a cyclist arguing against justice, even if it is for a vanishly rare case. However, every single argument raised needs to be reflected back against all other road users, and used against all the arguments that will no doubt be used to avoid the implementation of a similar zero tolerance policy for deadly driving.
So the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport should be promoting Sport or Active Travel in the Digital, Culture, Media by regulation of hate speech and ignorance against people cycling on the public highway in mainstream media and social media.
Minister Nadine Dories should act, and we must call her out for not acting. Lives depend on this.
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