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news
Kim Briggs (picture via Metropolitan Police Service).PNGKim Briggs widower calls for courier firms to check staff aren't using illegal bikes
The widower of a woman killed by a cyclist on a fixed wheel track bike has called on courier firms to check all their employees and ensure their bikes are road legal.
Kim Briggs, 44, was killed by former courier Charlie Alliston, 20, last year, when she stepped into the road in front of him.
He had been riding a fixedwheel track cycle which did not have a front brake and so was illegal to use on the road.
He was jailed last week for causing bodily harm through wanton and furious driving but acquitted of manslaughter in relation to the death of Mrs Briggs, who died from head injuries sustained when the pair collided on London’s Old Street in February 2016.
Kim’s widower Matt Briggs wants companies to ensure that their staff use bikes that have front brakes on the handlebars and to issue spot checks to make sure they comply.
Mr Briggs has secured a government review into dangerous cycling with a view to creating a new offence comparable to death by dangerous driving.
He told the Express: “There are two types of fixed-brake bikes or ‘fixies’. There are those that have drill holes so front brakes can be attached and those that are Velodrome-style and don’t.
“The bike that hit Kim was one of the latter and they should simply not be on the road. It’s illegal.
“With the former, a lot of cyclists don’t bother to fit the front brakes so they can get about faster.
“When I come into central London for meetings 90 per cent of the people I see doing this are couriers. That’s why I’d like to sit down with the big courier firms and discuss ways of improving safety and ensuring the cyclists they use have road-legal bikes.
“Ideally, I’d like to see them not employ any rider who uses a bike without front brakes and to issue random spot checks at regular intervals to make sure those that do have brakes on their handlebars don’t just remove them when they think they’re in the clear.”
He also wants retailers like Evans Cycles and State Bicycle Co. to stop using images of bikes without front rakes in their advertising.
He said: “The police have a lot on their hands so I didn’t want to trouble them. I went to the source instead, the retailers.
“They’ve taken my points on board as ‘fixie’ bikes that are sold with front brakes are now shown in photos with the brakes attached. I’m just trying to find a way that’s better and safer for everyone.”
Alliston admitted in court during the trial that the bike, which he had bought second-hand the previous month, had not been fitted with a front brake to make it legal for use on the road and claimed he was unaware that it was required by law.
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68 comments
Looks like someone needs to see his name in the headlines. Even if he clearly has no idea about riding a bike with fixed gear - I mean, saying that cyclists ride brakeless because they want to go faster makes no sense whatsoever.
And I really would love to see him talk to the courier companies in London and tell them to check all the employees. Like they can force them to ride with brakes - if they say NO, what do you want to do? Without couriers those companies will run out of business very, very soon.
I'm going to start campaigning against pedestrians after TWO in less than 150 yards walked off the pavement in front of me this morning. Second one apologised. First one yelled at me because I made him jump.
Wanton and Furious walking or do we need new dangerous walking laws to protect vulnerable road users from distracted pedestrians?
Qhat happened to 'Jay Walking'?
No such thing as jay walking in teh UK... and that is a very good thing.
Alas, we are going to see a huge surge in peds walking out in front of bike as someone (read UK mainstram press) has strongly inferred that cyclists alone are responsible for avoiding pedestrian collisions.
People are idiots.
If this campaign garners any traction, is Mr Briggs going to campaign that Track Day Cars are also banned from being sold in the UK?
All of the retailers selling fixies already have notifications on their websites saying that the bikes are not road legal without fitting a front brake, and more often than not the bikes are sold with a front brake that needs to be mounted what more can they do?
Why doesn't he also campaign for all cars to be fitted with GPS speed limiters, which automatically restrict the speed of cars to the maximum speed limit for the road they are travelling on. With technology available in the world at the current time it is an entirely feasible option, as many Sat Nav devices automatically advise you of the speed limit for any given road. And they could be fitted in such a way that if the vehicle owner attempts to disable the device the engine is immobilized.
Because he isn't actually campaigning to improve road safety, only to remove ( front brakeless ) fixed wheel bikes. Three easy predictions - the sales of fixed wheel bikes will fall (probably regardless of brake status), the number of fixed wheel bikes on the roads will fall, the change in pedestrian KSIs will be lost in the random noise.
At best, his campaign is an exercise in misplaced zeal, intended to relieve his grief. At worst it is a cynical act of vengeance seeking. I suspect the truth is in between, and he probably doesn't really know himself. The likeliest result is a fall in rates of cycling, and a corresponding reduction in public health.
But really the blame lies not with one grieing guy, but with the lawyers, journalists and politicians, who should have sympathised, and then asked him to shut up and ignored his twitterings.
At the risk of appearing callous, just because Mrs Briggs was killed after a collision with a cyclist doesn't mean Mr Briggs is an instant expert. Anecdote isn't data. I have a lot of ill informed views on a whole range of things I don't know all that much about but no one pays me any mind. I wish the same was true of the Mail/Express and Mr Briggs.
I'm pretty wary over this..... it seems Mr Briggs is being assisted by others with an interest....but who... several of us in the Bike world and beyond have questioned the motives and who is behind this chap.... I know he lost his wife and that is very sad but the event was a sad accident and it doesn't matter how you apportion blame from whichever side of the argument you sit, a pedestrian stepped out onto a 30 mph road, in front of a cyclist who was doing an alleged 18mph on a bicycle which had a fixed wheel drive train and no front brake.
That might sound simplistic but that is as it was...... why she stepped out, why he had no front brake etc. are questions of which some will never be answered. The no front brake is an issue too with the construction and use regs/Sale of bikes....but there are loopholes too..... one thing to also remember the dutch/belgians have cyclists who only have one rear coaster brake on their bikes and millions of them cycle every day without incident.
The UK government have been promising a review on road safety and laws since 2015 and one is yet to get underway. Mobile phone use in vehicle penalties were increased earlier this year, but whenever I am out there seems to be little impact on the need for drivers to use their devices at the wheel. Enforcement of current road laws is needed and if cyclists jump red lights, are not lit up at night or ride in a dangerous manner these need to be punished with the relevant fines and warnings. The same applies to the car drivers who speed, jump lights etc. but the issue is since the government cuts of funding to public services, the Traffic policeman is always the first target on the hit list for expenditure cuts.
So we are left with the condundrum of what to do?..... for me if it comes to pass that the government leaves the problem (as they seem to these days) to local authorities (also with no government cash from the next financial year) then nothing will happen and the conflict between pedestrians and cyclists on these pathetic shared cycleway facilites will continue, as will the conflict between drivers and cyclists. Cycling provides an answer to congestion, obesity and air pollution but needs the barriers to its adoption as a civilised and accepted transport option in the UK and not looked at as you are a pauper because you cycle, when those who already cycle to work and back or cycle locally instead of using their car have already woken up to the benefits of using a bike.
Lets hope if there is any review on cycling safety and road laws that the conversation is wide ranging, adult and not just a knee jerk campaign with a failed and poor law change like the 1991 dangerous dogs act.
I just wish pedestrians wouldn't step into the roads in front of me (2/3 on mobiles to their ears or looking down at) as my Cortina Milo dutch transport bike is a heavy beast without being loaded and if I hit one.... it's going to hurt
I'd guess it went something like this:
- Bloke going through unimaginable grief chooses the easy target in the pointless and avoidable event that killed his wife. Finds a cause; runs with it. From the number of people who seem to latch onto a campaign, or create one, when they suffer something similar, I'd say this is Perfectly Normal Behaviour.
- The usual shitrags, safely in the car lobbyists' pockets, have happily stepped in and provided a platform. MPs who have to be seen to be doing something, and are scared of being seen as callous, give him representation. Broadcasters that should know better predictably lack balance when covering the story.
This latter aspect is sinister: outlets with some sort of authority or voice aren't tempering the lack of logic in his campaign the way they should be. The momentum isn't being used to make roads safer for all: it's potentially being used to restrict one of the most vulnerable sections of users. These are the largely unadulterated wailings of a bereaved husband, and instead of being given a cup of tea and a pat on the head, he's being given a megaphone and representation in parliament.
Those providing this platform, without any modification to the message, deserve contempt.
At the risk of being very unfair to the deceased and her widower: Allison claimed that he called out twice loudly to warn the deceased. I'm wondering whether the deceased and her family were already part of the "bloody cyclists" mindset and she took it so far as to play chicken.
Speculation, based on nothing, but stimulated by Mr.Briggs' interventions.
knowing that stretch of road, it seems more likely that the motor traffic just kept going, thereby squeezing the space for her crossing and the cyclist to a space of a metre or two in the middle of the road - and of course nobody really noticed that or even thought to mention it, it just goes unquestioned and unchallenged.
I wouldn't speculate too much. I just think his grief has clouded his judgement and the rest of the media has reported what he said without constructive criticism.
According to the judge, shouting at pedestrians who jump in front of a cyclist is illegal. So now cyclists will have to stay quiet and brake really hard.
Indeed.
Mr Briggs needs to close his twitter account, take a deep breath, and spend sometime with his family.
His continued persuction of cyclists is not the answer to his grief.
This is exactly the style of campaigning that went through NZ in the 80's and ended up with our mandatory helmet laws.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4031829/Aarons-tragedy-spurred-Helmet-La...
Frankly I think it will be a bloody miracle if mandatory helmet laws are the worst thing we end up with.
And their head injury rates went up post helmet laws, it didn't do dick except push people off bikes and allow motorists to continue to drive like cunts.
The slight drop in adult head injuries despite the 90% use (from circa 40%) doesn't tell the tale of those that simply gave up cycling altogether,. They also shouted about how great it was for kids now that the numbers of injuries as a total dropped, again ignoring the fact that kids simply stopped cycling in massive numbers, something that NZ has never recovered, same as Aus.
NZ head injuries post helmet law.JPG
And the unintended consequences were massive and entirely negative, with fewer people getting regular exercise, resulting in getting sick with chronic, avoidable illness and shortening their lives and costing billions in health care. There have been examinations of the economic effects of helmet laws, and they cost a hell of a lot more than they save.
Can see on that chart how the decline in head injuies to cyclists simply carried on along the same trend. Really did make no difference
In the interests of fairness and equality, is Mr Briggs going to campaign for the "green cross code" TV adverts to be broadcast again. He is very sure of what needs to be done to cyclists. Hopefully,he will also give attention to making pedestrians more aware and, hence safe, when they cross the road.
You are not meant to just respect laws you are meant to obey/abide by them. Franta, your use of words is quite telling.
I thought the Daily Mail did their own research and found out that he was a courier for about a month? You can hardly call him an ex courier with so little experience.
He was stupid and is paying for it right now but the chances of such an accident reoccurring are quite rare. The chances of a pedestrian not looking and wandering into the street in front of a vehicle? A hell of a lot higher with many people distracted and not paying much attention before crossing streets in London.
A focus/campaign on this aspect would save a lot more lives.
Anyway all of this pretty pointless if there is no police to enforce the laws whether you're on foot, cycling or driving. In Nottingham I see everyday cars going through red lights but I have not yet seen police taking action.
Pretty sure every news story referred to Mrs Briggs as a mother, wonder what their father is up to...
Someone just posted a reply on the express site pointing out that the bike cited as being sold by Evans without brakes is explicitly listed as being for use on a velodrome only!
You couldn't make it up
Edit - it's disappeared!
Yep. Briggs is contacting every retailer whose site pictures a cycle without brakes and asking them to remove it, regardless of the description *rolls eyes*
I'm bored of this.
Next story please.
No jail time, there’s a suprise.
You’ve done well to find cases which have been reported by national press rather than just the local papers. I was over the view than generally a motorists need to kill multiple people to make them nastional press, like those lorry drivers who managed to conspire to kill 8 people in one go.
Though in fairness, the great irony is the Mail is more likely to report such stories than other national papers, because their general outrage about law-and-order stories spills over into car-related deaths and even into racist violence (though the comments by their readers usually show a far more selective outrage).
We all understand his grief and pain, but he needs to understand that his campaign is misplaced and is just making things more dangerous for the other vulnerable road users, cyclists, which I hope is not his intention; it is however, the effect.
Why would someone who has just suffered a tragedy due to a bike, however much a freak accident this was, want to campaign about something else even if related
Surely it is up to the politicians to decide where priorities lie and in that I would agree that this is next to insignificant. Blame them for jumping on the bandwagon not him for putting it there.
If he was really interested in preventing pedestrians dying, he'd be campaigning about motors, not cyclists.
True and if you were interested in saving lives you would ignore road safety and campaign for a cure for heart disease and cancer. Just because there are bigger issues does not mean there is not something to gain in his campaign.
I think there is already significant effortbin those two fields, neither of which will be solved by legislation.
Ironically both could be significantly reduced by more people taking up cycling.
Maybe legislation that every prospective driver must cycle for two years before being allowed to use a powered vehicle.
These will have many benefits 1) the biggest obstacle to bike use is the view that it is somehow difficult to get around d. 2) every driver will have seen the other side of the fence, so should have a better understanding of passing cyclists. 3) health benefits 4) pollution and congestion reduction.
There is a cure, or even better, prevention of heart disease and cancer; cycling. His campaign is not helping anyone, and it is actually making things worse.
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