Hackney North MP Diane Abbott has tabled an Early Day Motion before Parliament calling on London Mayor Boris Johnson to reinstate for the Commercial Vehicle Education Unit following the deaths of ten cyclists on London’s roads this year, eight of them killed in accidents involving heavy goods vehicles.
Ms Abbott’s initiative came just days after the Mayor had announced that he was disbanding the CVEU, which is staffed and run by the Metropolitan Police and is the only such unit on the country, as part of a cost-cutting drive, as reported on road.cc last week.
Early Day Motions are used by MPs as a means of raising awareness of a specific issue on subjects ranging from the trivial to the serious, but they are seldom actually debated in Parliament. Instead, MPs can add their signature to show their support, with the motion remaining open for signature for the remainder of the current parliamentary session.
The motion currently has the backing of 25 other MPs from across the political spectrum, but only seven of those – eight including Abott – represent voters in the capital, which has a total of 74 MPs. Even allowing for the influence of party politics, once the city’s 21 Tory MPs are excluded, that leaves 45 London MPs who are yet to show their support for it.
A list of the MPs who have thus far signed the motion, together with the full text, can be found here. If your MP isn’t on the list, irrespective of whether you live in London or not, you can urge them to do so through following this link and ask them if they could spare five minutes from filling out their expenses forms to sign “EDM 2144 (Cyclist’s safety in London).”
Cycling infrastructure does not force drivers to break the law, drivers are the reason they break the law, no one else.
Ah but taking pictures of things to defy the man (avoid a fine) is righteous. Taking pictures of people to grass on them to the cops (perhaps...
But getting paid for it is the very definition of professional....
Never had a Shimano QR fail on me. They just work. And the top end ones look good too....
If you're only looking at the guy in front of you then you're going to crash whatever brakes you have, you need to look beyond them to anticipate...
As a woman, this works great for me! My chain broke once, and a kind guy stopped with a chain breaker and sorted it all out for me. We stopped at a...
Same. I also have gone through a bunch of their tyres, and only the extralight disappointed (torn sidewall) but the standards are fantastic....
thanks for the ideas....
Indeed - but it's no more inconsistent than our current road design - very often UK high streets are "for shopping" and also a busy through route....
If you ask the world's leading economic commentators how many people have been rescued from abject poverty by capitalism the average answer would...