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Calls for safe infrastructure after Bristol cyclist killed in lorry crashJunction of Whitchurch Lane and The Boulevard in Bristol (via Google Street View)

Calls for safe infrastructure after Bristol cyclist killed in lorry crash

Fatal collision yesterday happened just one week after council debated safer cycle routes
by Simon_MacMichael
Thu, Nov 17, 2022 12:50
3

A Bristol councillor has called for a “step change in infrastructure” to make the city’s streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians after a woman riding her bike was killed in a crash involving a lorry yesterday.

The victim, who Avon & Somerset Police say was aged in her 30s, died at the scene of the crash which happened just after 8am on Whitchurch Road in Hengrove, at its junction with The Boulevard.

Police said that her family have been informed and are being supported by a specially trained officer.

An appeal has been launched for anyone who witnessed the fatal crash or has dashcam footage to contact police on 101, quoting the reference number 5222275628. Alternatively, the charity Crimestoppers can be contacted, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

Last month, cyclists in Bristol rode through the city centre in a protest called the Big Ride for Safer Cycling to call for safer cycling infrastructure, with a petition signed by around 2,200 people subsequently delivered to Bristol City Council, which debated the points raised last week.

The petition was drawn up after the council removed a cycle lane on Cheltenham Road.

At the time, the Green Party’s David Wilcox, shadow councillor for transport and active travel, said: “The Labour administration’s removal of cycling infrastructure in Bristol sends completely the wrong message to anyone who wants to get around the city efficiently, and risks making cycling in our city more dangerous.

“To clean up our polluted air, reduce carbon emissions, and tackle our chronic traffic problems, we need to be creating new, high-quality bike lanes, not painting out existing ones.”

Yesterday, Councillor Wilcox tweeted: “My thoughts are with the family of the woman who died today. Bristol needs a step change in infrastructure that matches the transport hierarchy, removing the danger of simply moving around for pedestrians and cyclists. Where is @BristolCouncil’s Vision Zero policy?”

Bristol Cycling Campaign, which described the cyclist’s death as “tragic,” also expressed its sympathy to her family, adding: “We need safe cycling routes in Bristol now.”

Cyclists who ride along the road where the fatal collision happened, one of them a Liberal Democrat councillor, also took to Twitter to highlight specific problems at the location.

Bristol
Bristol City Coiuncil
Simon MacMichael

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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3 comments

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IanMSpencer | 2 years ago
7 likes

My local cycle lane of course ends when the going gets tricky. You can hear vehicles accelerate - in a 20 - as it dawns on them that the merge is going to leave them behind a cyclist, so they then take to a right turn lane across an offset junction at over 30mph - yet I still get the opportunity to glare in their mirrors at my relatively sedate place a hundred yards or so up the road.

I think any place where cyclists are placed into the road from segregated lanes should be a give way for the main traffic stream. Of course motorists will ignore it and the accidents will still happen but at least the police and courts would have something to work with and over time behaviours would change.

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hawkinspeter | 2 years ago
3 likes

I quite often cycle through that area and the roads are definitely not great for cyclists. There's a lot of lorries/HGVs that go along there and it's not too surprising that there's a fatality. It's quite incredible that Bristol is considered by some to be a "cycling city", but I struggle to think of any well designed cycle infrastructure (maybe the Bristol-Bath path, but that was hardly designed).

As always, thoughts go to the family and friends.

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Dnnnnnn replied to hawkinspeter | 2 years ago
1 like
hawkinspeter wrote:

It's quite incredible that Bristol is considered by some to be a "cycling city"

Perhaps by UK standards only! There are good bits but it's very patchy IME, and main/busier/newer roads are mostly awful. For pedestrians as well - really poor, narrow pavements in many places and too many cars taking up too much streetspace. I think it suffers from being older and smaller but wealthier than the other major cities - narrower roads (fed by a motorway ending in the centre), poor public transport, high car ownership, etc.
www.understandingglasgow.com/indicators/transport/vehicle_availability/u...

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