TV star Billie Piper is under investigation by police after the car she was driving was involved in a collision with a 16-year-old cyclist last week.
The 31-year-old, known for her TV roles as Rose Tyler in Doctor Who and Hannah Baxter in The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, was making a U-turn in Goods Way, Kings Cross when she apparently drove into the path of a cyclist.
According to the Daily Mail, the rider was coming downhill at speed. It seems he was therefore unable to avoid a collision with Piper's car.
An eyewitness called emergency services to the scene of the crash, which occurred on the afternoon of Tuesday July 29. Medics from London Ambulance Service treated the rider at the scene for a severe shoulder injury and he was then taken to University College Hospital for treatment.
Piper subsequently pulled out of that evening's performance of the play Great Britain in which she plays a newspaper editor.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Police were called to Goods Way, King’s Cross, by the London Ambulance Service at 15.56hrs on Tuesday, July 29 to reports of a road traffic collision between a motor vehicle and a cyclist. The driver of the vehicle was female. Enquiries continue. No further details at this stage."
Charlie Lloyd of the London Cycling Campaign said: "When doing a U-turn you are expected to give way to everyone. Every crash highlights the need for all road users to take care."
The Daily Mail claimed there had been calls after the incident for "cyclists to take greater responsibility for their actions and to ensure they wear helmets", because of course, helmets are known to be highly effective in preventing shoulder injuries. However, the paper didn't say who, aside from the Daily Mail's editorial staff, was making those calls.
But as Charlie Lloyd's comments demonstrate there have been calls by actual named people for drivers to pay attention to what they are doing when making U-turns and not drive into the path of oncoming cyclists who are behaving legally. In addition there have been calls for mass media outlets to refrain from blaming victims, even if their entire revenue model is based on that practice.
56 thoughts on “Billie Piper questioned by police after collision hospitalises cyclist”
I’m surprised the Daily Mail
I’m surprised the Daily Mail didn’t also claim that the cyclist was a lesbian on her way to a lesbian sperm bank for lesbians.
Peowpeowpeowlasers wrote:I’m
was this sperm bank for lesbians, that was used by lesbian cyclists, also owned and run by lesbians and was it also a cause for cancer… I wouldn’t want to mistake it for another perfectly innocent sperm bank would I and these are important facts 😐
Car executes u-turn in road,
Car executes u-turn in road, and cyclist collides with it. Cyclist in hospital with serious injuries, car driver misses an evening on stage.
According to the Mail, the driver is “understood to have been driving at under five miles per hour as she crossed Goods Way into the PATH of the teenage cyclist who was travelling downhill at a significant speed.” <<< setting up the inference that the cyclist was at fault for riding to fast, given that the car was only doing 5mph. The Mail on Sunday understands that the cyclist was not wearing a helmet. <<< seemingly irrelevant to the injuries sustained by the cyclist, but sets up the line >>> “…there were also calls last night for cyclists to take greater responsibility for their actions and to ensure they wear helmets.” <<< which unambiguously seeks to infer blame on the victim, not the driver. ~X( I suppose some people by the Mail, I'm not one of them though.
I guess It is no worse than
I guess It is no worse than saying she was at the pub and wearing a short skirt so got raped, or he was walking down the street and had brown skin so only has himself to blame for getting beaten up….
He should have worn that
He should have worn that helmet on his shoulder. Or perhaps left it at the point that a car might turn across you.
Helmets, they ward off all sorts of things. Wear one. Helmets are magical.
Is there enough width in
Is there enough width in Goodsway for a typical car to do a U turn certainly not at the East end or as far as the pedestrian crossing, mid-way
Quote:However, the paper
Didn’t you know that the Daily Mail speaks for everyman? (yes, sarcasm)
truffy wrote:Quote:However,
The story was published at 22:01 and then updated at 23:08. I could hazard a guess as to where those calls were heard, hic… 😉
She is understood to have
I doubt this very much, seriously, who can’t avoid a collision with a vehicle going at a fast walking pace. No source mentioned by The Mail.
kie7077 wrote:
She is
Likely she was. 5 mph is a reasonable u-turn speed, but is a slow jog speed so not as slow as you’d think. The rider, though, would have seen the car the other side of the road, then would have seen it pull directly into his path… If he’d been doing close to 30 mph then he’d have had no chance with a car broadside in front of him, a kerb to the right and oncoming traffic to the left.
Having read that article, it
Having read that article, it highlights what is wrong with some parts of society. It is a piece of victim blaming, but what I am not sure is how the helmet will either prevent the accident from occuring in the first place or protect your shoulder from injury?
Maybe some neurosergeon will be able to explain that one away…
So victim is attacked and there have been calls for victims to take greater responsibility for their actions…
Way to highlight in one article what is wrong with privilige
Why did Billie pull a f@cking
Why did Billie pull a f@cking stupid move?
Cause she wants to cause she wants to…
geargrinderbeard wrote:Why
=)) nice one…..
As she is sort of a celebrity
As she is sort of a celebrity how can it be her fault? I mean what famous person has ever done anything wrong? Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, Idi Amin or Adolf Hitler not a thing wrong er now hang on a minute :/
The Daily Mail is a
The Daily Mail is a disgusting rag.
I wouldn’t say that Hitler or
I wouldn’t say that Hitler or Amin were ‘celebrities’ as such. But I’m sure someone will be along with a dictionary any moment now.
Straight to Godwin’s Law in
Straight to Godwin’s Law in 10, a new record by any standards….
fatsimonstan wrote:Straight
Not really. Godwin’s law refers to people being accused of Hitler/Nazi rhetoric. We were merely referring to his possible ‘celebrity’ status.
Hard work out how some people
Hard work out how some people think, a guy out with our club fell off on a rough stuff track and ended up in hospital with a badly broken femur, I was chided (by a fellow member) for not wearing a helmet as the unfortunate man also dented his helmet!!
Must have been a real dilemma
Must have been a real dilemma for the Daily Mail editorial team. do we go for incompetent woman driver or cyclist not wearing a helmet. Tough call! 😕 8|
If Billy Piper did a U turn
If Billy Piper did a U turn in front of me I’d be tempted to collide. “Could we exchange information now? And your address is…?”
Typical Daily Mail reporting. I wonder if we can post anything on their reporting of the incident.
Lawyered!!!!
=)) =)) =)) =)) Lawyered!!!!
Have taken calls from a fair
Have taken calls from a fair number of drivers who have done the exact same thing as Ms Piper, mostly involving proceeding cars, and with varying degrees of outrage from the caller when I said we would be conceding fault.
If it were a Monopoly game, it would be straight to Fault Claim for the driver, do not pass Go, do not collect year of NCD, pays increased rents for the next ten turns. Cyclist misses the next five turns, gets a Part 36 Offer card from the Community Chest.
The Daily Mail. Meh. I’ll decline that particular click, tyvm.
Didn’t realise so many roadcc
Didn’t realise so many roadcc posters were left wing liberals?!
gb901 wrote:Didn’t realise so
I didn’t realise roadcc attracted so many tea party members
Left wing and liberal are two
Left wing and liberal are two very different things!
And I’d hate to be called a
And I’d hate to be called a Liberal.
Socialist – fine
Left wing – fine
Human being – fine
But Liberal ……..
Not only are “liberal” and
Not only are “liberal” and “left wing” different things they are antithetical concepts.
The event daily mail…. does
The event daily mail…. does not even make acceptable emergency toilet paper. Does any one actually read it? And believe it!?!
I’m sorry John, but you’ve
I’m sorry John, but you’ve let yourself down with this:
“In addition there have been calls for mass media outlets to refrain from blaming victims, even if their entire revenue model is based on that practice.”
Please try and rise above the ignorance of others and trust your readers to make these sort of subjective calls themselves. The article is filed under News, yet this sentence reads as opinion. Surely you can write an opinion piece or blog post to vent your frustration.
I am not defending the Daily Mail or the content of their article, but I expect better from Road.cc.
duncbell wrote:I’m sorry
Road.cc eh? I suspect they’re standing up for cyclists.
I once brought the Daily Mail
I once brought the Daily Mail into my home by mistake.
I needed some newspaper to line our compost / kitchen waste bin.
So I picked one up from the communal recycling. Took it upstairs, lined the bin, only to realize what I’d just done. “ONE IN THREE HOUSEHOLDS ON BENEFITS” or some other nonsense, staring up at me.
I couldn’t stick it, had to put it out for recycling again.
So, at least round here, Daily Fail is officially not even fit to line a box full of rotting vegetable matter.
PJ McNally wrote:I once
I saw that headline. Neither of my neighbours on either side are claiming benefits which means that I must be on benefits! Who the hell is taking my benefit money?!? 😀
My dad was inhospital last Christmas and asked me to get him a copy of the DM. I can only put it down to the morphine he was on. I felt really dirty buying it and was tempted to get him a copy of Razzle instead.
Beatnik69 wrote:… was
You’d probably have got fewer dirty looks with a top shelf mag!
Ok she made a mistake and
Ok she made a mistake and someone got hurt. Let the law do it’s job.
However there seem to be comments that scoff at wearing a helmet while cycling. Fair enough most cycling injuries are to the shoulders and hips but please don’t go out without your lid on.
I cycle a bit. I also see cyclists after they fall off. Being a paramedic I see what can happen and how ‘lucky’ some injured cyclists are. It’s not luck. It was their lid that saved them.
If a truck hits you head on that helmet will … do bugger all but smash to bits.
If however you get knocked off or just lose it and fall off then any head impact will be absorbed by the lid.
Incident. Real. A guy (no helmet) goes under the back wheels of a truck the other day and squashed his foot and bust his leg. Should have been the end of it but as the wheel went over him it locked up and it spun him against the floor (think rolling a sausage of Play-do kind of thing) so his head hit the floor a few times. Just his head against the floor. No neck injuries so the force wasn’t so very great really and it’s just the weight of his head. The helmet would have prevented or at least massively reduced the gross brain injuries the poor chap now has.
Don’t scoff at the helmet wearers and don’t ever think you are going to protect yourself properly without one if you do have a spill. And if you think it won’t happen to you … it probably will.
We all have to use the roads together, play nice people.
parapaul wrote:
However there
Do you ever see, in the course of your work, head injuries suffered by people in cars? Or pedestrians who have suffered brain trauma in accidents, on the road or elsewhere? I am pretty sure you do, and probably more of these than cyclists.
So, I ask, do you recommend foam hats for car users, pedestrians, or alcohol drinkers? If not, why not?
You seem sure that the lid saved the cyclists who were lucky, do you have any basis for this belief, besides your personal conviction?
@ Parapaul
The vast majority
@ Parapaul
The vast majority of people who are against helmet compulsion are not against people wearing helmets, many of the people against helmet compulsion laws wear helmets regularly.
The problem of helmet promotion and compulsion is that it scares people off of cycling. This outweighs the benefits of helmets to the countries health by dozens to one.
Rather than insisting people wear helmets, would it not be better to try and prevent them from ending up underneath lorries in the first place.
And last but not least, are you advocating that car occupants and pedestrians wear helmets? No? why not? that would save far more lives.
To be fair… if I was a
To be fair… if I was a paramedic, I’d wear a helmet all the time… because I would see it, I’d see what could happen out there.
In our parenting network, there are a couple of detectives who work in and around child abuse… guess what, their fear of their kids getting stolen and abused is far higher than anyone else’s.
In both situations, the truth is that it is really unlikely to happen. Most of us never get abducted, never get dragged under a lorry and turned over like a piece of meat.
Mitigate against the risks by all means if that’s what you want… but you have to moderate against real life and statistics.
You don’t need to keep your kids locked away in a room to keep them safe, and you don’t need to wear a helmet to necessarily stay alive.
I get very frustrated by the ‘fear factor’ spread by so many out there… cycling is unbelievably safe, get out there and enjoy it.
Jimmy Ray Will wrote:To be
I think you’ll find that the science on helmets and paramedics is inconclusive at best and, if anything, a bit of a red herring liberal plot to deflect road.cc commentators from dealing with little discussed important issues like should lance get his shirts back and are carbon frames safe and shouldn’t we all run headless to the nearest bike shop demanding they take our money for a brand new 29er or maybe disc brakes on road bikes and things like that.
Jimmy Ray Will wrote:To be
All the time? In bed? In the shower? In the ambulance? Probably just as useful in these situations as on the bike…
andyp wrote:Jimmy Ray Will
A rabbits foot in your saddle bag weighs less and has roughly the same protective qualities as a cycle helmet for and adult cyclist. As kid I had a St Christopher medal and a double splash of holy water. Which is even less bother. Cycle helmets might be useful for kiddies that don’t weigh very much and aren’t travelling fast. They give 50J of impact protection. The impact force calculation is Mass times velocity (M/s) squared over two.
I am 70kg. I travel at around 15mph commuting which is 6.7 m/s. So that’s 70 x 45 which equals 3150. We then divide that in half so around 1500 odd Joules of impact.
Ain’t physics a bastard when it comes to debunking superstitions like the protection you get from rabbits feet, cycle helmets and holy water.
Oh and before someone says 50J is better than nowt, well yeah OK that’s fair and logical as a proposition but about as much use a plastic halloween mask is before being hit in the by fast a cricket ball.
You really won’t notice the difference.
oozaveared wrote:andyp
A rabbits foot in your saddle bag weighs less and has roughly the same protective qualities as a cycle helmet for and adult cyclist.— Jimmy Ray Will
Really ? Will a helmet change the outcome for a head-on collision with a motor vehicle at typical velocities ?.. no, almost certainly not. Will one possibly help prevent or mitigate a range of injuries in other circumstances at the speeds you’re talking about ?… yes, there is often quite a good chance it will.
If you want to discuss something approaching real impact dynamics then lets do that but I don’t personally see that trotting out variations on the same dodgy calculations, then announcing that you’ve proven helmets don’t help, is helping anyone – for or against their use.
fukawitribe wrote:oozaveared
A rabbits foot in your saddle bag weighs less and has roughly the same protective qualities as a cycle helmet for and adult cyclist.— andyp
Really ? Will a helmet change the outcome for a head-on collision with a motor vehicle at typical velocities ?.. no, almost certainly not. Will one possibly help prevent or mitigate a range of injuries in other circumstances at the speeds you’re talking about ?… yes, there is often quite a good chance it will.
If you want to discuss something approaching real impact dynamics then lets do that but I don’t personally see that trotting out variations on the same dodgy calculations, then announcing that you’ve proven helmets don’t help, is helping anyone – for or against their use.— Jimmy Ray Will
OK well British Euro and US Standards for impact protection from a cycle helmet are 50J.
The impact force calculation is a scientific formula.
Just tell me which is wrong?
They provide 50J of protection at best when new and properly fitted and when the impact is oblique. If it is a rotational impact then virtually nothing.
The impact force of an adult travelling at even very moderate speeds far exceeds the impact protection from the helmet. In the calculation I gave you the helmet was only able to mitigate up to 3% of the impact force. Under ideal circumstances.
Wear one if you prefer and it makes you feel safe. Other people prefer rabbits feet and such like to give them that boost. All equally valid. I don’t want anyone forced to wear a St Christopher medal or have a rabbits foot when cycling that’s all. oh or a helmet. But I don’t mind if they have those items with them either. It makes no difference either way.
Very well put.
I remain
Very well put.
I remain convinced that many drivers and cyclists put much more faith in the protective nature of cycle helmets than the helmets actually deserve.
Wear one by all means but don’t take even the slightest extra chances (for example going a little quicker down hills)’while doing so and don’t let the drivers around you come closer than they might if they did not think you were protected (tricky to control aren’t they?)
Of course you can go for the higher rated SNELL rated ones and get up to 90j of protection.
Finally – Whichever standard you go for make sure you always crash correctly so as to get the maximum (albeit tiny) benefit from your helmet.
Perhaps I now need to don my helmet to deal with the flak from this posting!
oozaveared wrote:fukawitribe
A rabbits foot in your saddle bag weighs less and has roughly the same protective qualities as a cycle helmet for and adult cyclist.— oozaveared
Really ? Will a helmet change the outcome for a head-on collision with a motor vehicle at typical velocities ?.. no, almost certainly not. Will one possibly help prevent or mitigate a range of injuries in other circumstances at the speeds you’re talking about ?… yes, there is often quite a good chance it will.
If you want to discuss something approaching real impact dynamics then lets do that but I don’t personally see that trotting out variations on the same dodgy calculations, then announcing that you’ve proven helmets don’t help, is helping anyone – for or against their use.— andyp
OK well British Euro and US Standards for impact protection from a cycle helmet are 50J.
The impact force calculation is a scientific formula.
Just tell me which is wrong?— Jimmy Ray Will
Neither – what is wrong is your model of a particular type of impact (your full weight effectively stopping on a dime directly on the helmet) that does not take into account other types of impact being used to make sweeping statements and general conclusions.
The calculation is for one particular type of impact which would put the maximum stress into the helmet (full body mass applied at the velocity of the bike). If I hit a wall directly on my helmet at those speeds and stopped completely, I wouldn’t expect a cycling helmet to fully protect me – but that circumstance is not the only reason for wearing one.
If you honestly believe that a rabbits foot is equally capable of preventing cycling injuries as a helmet, i’d suggest you do not understand the range of injuries that cyclists face or the effect of slowing down the head during impact – even when the helmet structurally fails. Even if we restrict our discussion to skull impacts, rather than e.g. lacerations and bruising, then a helmet which breaks during an impact has not necessarily magically failed to effect the impact dynamics.
Personally, I think the
Personally, I think the immigrants are somehow to blame.
I relation to the Play Do
I relation to the Play Do sausage chap…if he had a helmet on would the extra size that his head would have become and the exaggerated odd oval with peak of a helmet have made this injuries worse? Would he then have been wedged by head and caused neck trauma? What about the chin strap….we simply don’t know do we?
I hate the Daily Mail. Teaandkittens is my saviour.
While I am anti-compulsion on
While I am anti-compulsion on helmets, I do wear one. That said, I think asking parapaul for empirical evidence is missing the point. Yes, I get that by definition, he sees the injured people not the thousands of uninjured ones, but the story of the guy being sausage-rolled by the truck is a sad and interesting one, and is the kind of thing that crash tests, with or without a helmet, would not replicate. He’s in possession of no more scientific data than the rest of us, but I see things at work every day that could be improved or minimised by doing x or y. I don’t have any data for that, but guess what? I happen to be reasonably good at my job. Parapaul isn’t calling for compulsion, he’s relating experience from an increased level of exposure to crashes.
[I’ve broken my own rule and gotten into a helmet debate darn it, going to be quiet now…]
Oh no, I wasn’t asking
Oh no, I wasn’t asking parapaul for anything I was simply musing like a muttering and mumbling fool nursing a pint whilst sat at the corner table in the snug….
I think, occasionally, that all this talking and thinking just leads you [not you, me] to dwelling too much on the what could and what might and all that….
All this discussion of the
All this discussion of the effectiveness of helmets has failed to answer the question I asked of Parapaul ( and he has not come back to answer it either).
Cycling is about as dangerous as motoring or walking. Parapaul must know this, he must see more head injuries produced by use of shoes or four wheels. Why then does he single out cyclists as targets for his preaching?
Whether he is calling for compulsion or merely giving advice, he needs evidence, not just understandable emotion.
Here is a snippet from the New York Times.
”
A Bicycling Mystery: Head Injuries Piling Up
By JULIAN E. BARNES
Published: July 29, 2001
“Millions of parents take it as an article of faith that putting a bicycle helmet on their children, or themselves, will help keep them out of harm’s way.
But new data on bicycle accidents raises questions about that. The number of head injuries has increased 10 percent since 1991, even as bicycle helmet use has risen sharply, according to figures compiled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. But given that ridership has declined over the same period, the rate of head injuries per active cyclist has increased 51 percent just as bicycle helmets have become widespread.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/business/a-bicycling-mystery-head-injuries-piling-up.html
I could bore you all by giving evidence from every jurisdiction where helmets are compulsory. The story is the same everywhere. Increasing helmet wearing has failed to make cycling safer.
I’m afraid that sort of
I’m afraid that sort of ‘evidence’ is simply not robust enough to conclude that making helmet use compulsory increases head injuries. And likewise, if head injuries had fallen, it would not prove the opposite.
Kadenz wrote:I’m afraid that
If someone wants to force us to wear helmets, or to persuade cyclists to wear them, it is up to the helmet partisans to show that helmets actually cut head injuries. It is not up to me to show that they don’t.
There is no country where helmet compusion has cut rates of head injury.
The evidence is nowhere near good enough to justify compulsion.
I do not think that helmets necessarily increase head injuries, and did not claim so, but the figures from real life helmet use certainly seem to show that something is going on which is not allowed for in the idea that a bit of expanded polystyrene will make cycling safer. Real life is a bit more complex.
Since we are debating helmets
Since we are debating helmets again (how did that happen?) I used mine today to deflect a low hanging branch on a cyclepath (I know, I should have been on the road) and it was surprisingly effective. Saved my head from a scalping I feel.
bloody hell – some people
bloody hell – some people have all the luck , fancy getting tossed off your bike by billy piper – :))
…brilliant!
…brilliant!
Oooh the irony! ……. The
Oooh the irony! ……. The cyclist needs a Doctor, Billy Piper needs a Time Lord to go back in time to avoid the collision she caused.
I should imagine she genuinely didn’t see the cyclist and I am sure she was worried about the condition of the injured cyclist and is now pretty contrite. I hope the incident has a proportionate outcome.
It is important to distinguish between genuine accidents caused by normal people like you, I and BP and those that are caused by psychotic maniacs whose driving is homicidal and who should be removed from the roads for a long long time and even from the wider population.
Maybe BP is sent on a driver awareness course which for other participants might be worth it ………………..