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Updated: 16-year-old girl killed in Cambridge named as Beth McDermott

Young cyclist killed in two-car collision
by John Stevenson
Fri, Dec 13, 2013 09:54
47

Cambridgeshire police have named the young cyclist killed in a collision with two cars on Wednesday night as Elizabeth Helen Byrne-McDermott.

Cambridge News reports that her college principal, Christine Sherwin, described her as “a very creative young person with brilliant ideas”.

Beth McDermott was attended by ambulance crews and taken to Addenbrooke’s hospital after the crash between Milton Road and Birch Close, Cambridge just before 7pm.

She died of her injuries during the night.

Ms Sherwin said that Beth's classmates and college staff were struggling to come to terms with what had happened. 

She said: “She was a very creative young person with brilliant ideas and was able to demonstrate an independent approach to her studies very early on in the courses.

“She was committed to her studies and always willing to put in the extra effort to achieve her very best.

“She was a popular student who got on really well with everyone in lessons.

“Staff and students at the college were very upset and are still coming to terms with this devastating news and our sympathies go out to her parents and all those who knew her.”

 

Witnesses reported a bobble hat circled with chalk in the middle of the road outside the Milton Arms pub. On the adjacent grass verge was bike with a front wicker basket, bent back on itself.

The cars involved are reported to be a yellow Peugeot 307 and a grey Audi A3 TDI. Nobody from the cars was injured. The Peugeot had a smashed windscreen.

Police have asked that anyone who saw the crash should call 101.

cyclist fatality
Cambridgeshire Police
Cambridge
Beth McDermott
John Stevenson

Acknowledged by the Telegraph as a leading cycling journalist, John Stevenson 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 editor Tony Farelly, 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 and these days he lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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