A 16-year-old cyclist, who was killed after being struck by a speeding motorist while crossing a busy road, was “distracted by headphones and was not wearing a helmet” at the time of the fatal collision, an inquest has concluded.
Joshua Fletcher, a talented rugby player who was studying to be a mechanic, was killed on 16 October 2020 when he was hit by driver William Davies on the A48 Southern Distributor Road in Newport. The teenager fractured his skull and suffered diffuse cerebral injuries in the crash, and was pronounced dead at the scene.
An inquest at Newport Coroner’s Court heard that, following multiple tests by police investigators on the stretch of road, the driver was travelling at 8mph over the 40mph speed limit at the time of the collision.
However, the inquest concluded that the 16-year-old’s death was also caused by Joshua deciding to cross the road “when it was not safe to do so” while listening to music on his earphones, with Gwent Police’s forensic collision investigator Richard Wyatt telling the court that his “main concern is that Joshua didn’t have a helmet on”.
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The court heard this week that Joshua was riding his bike home from college when he crossed the A48’s eastbound carriageway at a set of traffic lights. However, the 16-year-old was deemed by investigators to have “misjudged” the second set of lights in the middle of the road, and chose to cross while only motorists in the filter lane were stopped at a red light.
According to an investigation carried out using reconstructions and dashcam footage, Mr Davies would have first seen Joshua emerge from the filter lane 4.2m (13.7ft) away from the point of impact.
Southern Distributor Road
PC Wyatt told the court that the motorist had managed to react within 0.26 seconds, a reaction time described by the forensic collision investigator as “really quick and almost instinctive”.
Caroline Saunders, the senior coroner for Gwent, added that “it would not have been possible for Mr Davies to stop any quicker.”
Nevertheless, Saunders also noted that had Mr Davies – who was driving at 48mph when he hit Joshua – “been travelling at 40mph prior to when that footage started, he would have been travelling at a distance of three metres per second slower, so he would have missed Joshua.”
PC Wyatt responded: “Yes, but that is purely hypothetical.”
The officer went on to explain that the 16-year-old was wearing earphones inside his hoody, which were playing music from his phone, and that he was not wearing a helmet.
“My main concern is that Joshua didn’t have a helmet on,” Wyatt told the court.
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In a statement read to the court, Mr Davies said that he believed he was driving at the 40mph speed limit and that his view was “unobstructed”.
He said he blinked and saw “a boy on a bike” and that he did not have “any time to react”.
A motorist stopped at the traffic lights also told the inquest that they saw Joshua “pedalling at quite a rate” with “his head down”, and that he “didn’t seem to be aware of the danger he was in”. Another eyewitness claimed that the teenager was “going at a fair rate stood up on his pedals” and that his “personal interpretation was that the cyclist misjudged the traffic lights”.
Recording a conclusion of a road traffic collision, Ms Saunders said: “On the balance of probabilities the excess speed at the time Mr Davies was driving has more than minimally contributed to Joshua’s death.
“That said, it is clear that Joshua decided to cross the busy road when it was not safe to do so. He was distracted by headphones and was not wearing a helmet.
“Joshua’s death was caused by a combination of factors: Joshua failing to cross the road safely, him not heeding oncoming traffic or the traffic lights, and the excess speed at which the car was being driven.”
Paying tribute to her son in a statement read to the court, Joshua’s mother Terri Fletcher said: “He was a happy, joyful, caring young man and he was dearly loved by all of his family. His aim was to become a mechanic and he’d applied for an apprenticeship. He was a lovely boy who would do anything for anyone. I was very lucky I had a lovely relationship with him.”
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Shortly after Joshua’s death, local resident Paul Flynn wrote to the leader of Newport Council, Gwent Police, and local MPs Jessica Morden and Ruth Jones, urging them to review the safety of the road.
The lack of safety measures for cyclists in the area was underlined on 2 November 2020, just weeks after Joshua was killed, when another teenage cyclist was hospitalised following a collision involving a driver on the nearby East Dock Road.
14-year-old Codi Gulliford’s mother Christine said at the time: “The road is so dangerous, you would think that after young Josh dying a few weeks ago people would be more careful.”
The director of Sustrans Cymru, Christine Boston, said the incidents demonstrated a need for rapid change.
“One of the main barriers is around safety and the fact that there’s no safe space,” she said.
“There will need to be a lot of investment in cycleways so that there are more segregated routes for walking and cycling.”
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43 comments
I agree, it should have said reaction time BUT it is still a bit strange - that 0.26s from spotting the hazard to reacting while travelling at 48mph means he had already hit the cyclist before he touched the brakes if you believe the other bit of the article that says the cyclist would first have been visible <5m before the point of impact. Something doesn't add up.
I noticed that and was just going to make the same post.
Highway code gives a braking distance of 125 feet at 50mph which comes out at about 3.4 seconds (zero reaction time!!).
There are so many things wrong with this story that I had to leave it and come back.
"Gwent Police’s forensic collision investigator Richard Wyatt telling the court that his “main concern is that Joshua didn’t have a helmet on”."
I'm afraid Mr Wyatt needs to find another job, as he is utterly useless at this one. A cycle helmet hit at 48mph does the square root of FA.
Wyatt again:
"PC Wyatt told the court that the motorist had managed to stop within 0.26 seconds, a reaction time described by the forensic collision investigator as “really quick and almost instinctive”."
PC Wyatt is completely out of his depth: nobody could stop a car travelling at 48mph in 0.26s. The braking distance takes longer than that, let alone the reaction time.
And when the coroner points out that if the driver had been travelling at the speed limit, the collision would not have occurred, Wyatt digs deeper:
"PC Wyatt responded: “Yes, but that is purely hypothetical.”" No it isn't, it's a fact.
The coroner also makes some unproven assumptions about Joshua being distracted by the headphones, but there is no evidence whatsoever supporting that view.
But she did at least get this right, which is more than the clearly incompetent forensic investigator did “On the balance of probabilities the excess speed at the time Mr Davies was driving has more than minimally contributed to Joshua’s death.
Neither the coroner nor the forensic investigator appear to have mentioned the the road layout, despite it having a history of collisions.
I'm more than beginning to despair of this country when so many people are not competent for the job they are doing. Has forensic collision investigator Richard Wyatt had any training at all?
Well said
Even sticking to the speed limit was not driving to the conditions, if traffic was so close the cyclist went completely unseen until a quarter of a second before the impact then they were driving too fast, equivalent to speeding down a narrow single lane street with cars parked either side.
I don't know whether the article has since been edited but PC Wyatt is reported to have stated that the driver reacted in 0.26 seconds - which he acknowledged was a very quick reaction time (and which some have already suggested that it may have been because his foot was over the brake pedal already, i.e. he was slowing from an even higher speed).
I would dearly love to know where you can get these new fangled cycle helmets from that can save you getting a head injury when hit by a ton plus of metal doing close on 50 mph!.
If PC Wyatt is being quoted correctly here - "My main concern is that Joshua didn’t have a helmet on" - he really needs to be sent back to school to learn what bicycle helmets are designed to do. They are not designed to save anyone in a 48mph crash. As for any "hypotheticals,'' it is interesting that PC Wyatt only commented on that involving the driver's speeding. The young cyclist "distracted?" Hypothetical. The driver not having time to react? Hypothetical. Did the driver even attempt to swerve? Unreported.
Online calculator with 0.26 seconds reaction gives 39m stopping distance at 48 mph and 27.96m at 40mph
But 48mph hypothetical.
At rough average of 1.8T he was carrying an extra 126000 J of kinetic energy into the collision.
But helmets.
I'm not a fan of headphones and cycling or even whilst walking for this very reason of losing awareness and distraction from dangers.
However, crossing the road without being able to hear, regardless of how hearing impairment comes about is not illegal, not even a little bit naughty, certainly not a mitigation for someone who kills you whilst themselves engaged in an illegal act. The criminal act of speeding and causing death whilst speeding should be the sole consideration of finding guilt. The idea that a cycle helmet is going to provide any meaningful protection from being struck by a car at almost 50mph would be utterly laughable if it wasn't so sickening.
So we have a speeding driver, and abysmally crap infrastructure, but we focus on the fact that the cyclist in question was listening to music and didn't have a helmet on?
Bit strange that the coroner thought that the effects of driving at the speed other road users expect you to be driving at, the legal limit, are purely hypothetical; yet the effect of a plastic hat, rated to protect you from falling off your stationary bike, is known with certainty to protect you from a collision with a 1t+ vehicle moving at 48mph..
unsurpisingly it was plod that described the effects of driving at 48mph as 'hypothetical'
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