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Police appeal for witnesses after cyclist killed in south-west London

25-year-old man involved in collision with Silver Honda Accord

The Metropolitan Police is appealing for witnesses after a cyclist died following a collision with a car in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The 25-year-old-man, who has not yet been named, was involved in a collision with a silver Honda Accord on Kingston Road, Merton, London SW20. Police were called to the scene at 00:45 on Saturday, July 19.

The rider was taken by London Ambulance Service to hospital, but died at 09:45.

The driver, a 32-year-old male, stopped at the scene and was arrested on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Serious Collision Investigation Unit on 020 8543 5157.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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bikebot | 9 years ago
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The cyclist has now been named as Laurent Patrick Cullinan

Details via the Evening Standard - http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/a-chunk-of-us-has-died-with-our-so...

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bikebot | 9 years ago
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@cyclingDMlondon

You may have seen this before, it's worth a read if not - https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/metropolitan_police_road_safe_lo

Upgrading roadsafe to deal more robustly with complaints and video evidence would have a significant impact in improving road safety, and at very low cost to the Police. There are politicians interested in the idea.

Like many I ride with a camera for safety first, and also because sometimes it's just nice to record a journey through a beautiful country. I know from incidents that happened to me years ago, that video evidence would have made a difference.

I haven't been to Greenwich for sometime, but I remember that central square as a bit of a racetrack.

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bikebot | 9 years ago
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We should be very careful about speculating, the driver was arrested, so there is a good possibility of a prosecution. He would have been breathalysed at the scene.

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unsliced | 9 years ago
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The junction is, as @bikebot says, utterly unremarkable. I suspect though that accident occurring at 0045 is probably more pertinent: darkness and alcohol almost certainly contributing factors.

Kingston Road is exactly the sort of suburban road that sums up a problem in desperate need of solution - a very busy single carriageway road with few alternatives given the amount of traffic who try to use it (it is bounded by various railway lines which limit the parallel options). It is narrow enough in places to constrict pavements, let alone separate cycling infrastructure.

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bikebot | 9 years ago
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This accident happened just a few 100 metres from my home. It's a junction I will either walk, ride or drive through every single day. There's little about it that makes it especially more dangerous than any other similar junction in London, though I'm sure campaigners will now voice some concern about it.

On Saturday, after hearing the news I wandered down there, I had somewhere I needed to be, but I still took a longer route so that I could pass the spot. The only clue that something had happened was a tiny bit of Police tape that hadn't been removed.

The road was busier than any day I've seen it this year. The traffic was crawling, cars gridlocked and moving a fraction of my walking speed. Looking down the road, the exhaust pollution was easily visible.

Oddly, I didn't see a single cyclist. On a typical working day it will have a good number of long distance commuters heading towards the start of CS7. On that day, the absence just reminded me how far we still have to go.

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