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broken bike.jpgCoroner asks whether speed limits should apply to cyclists after pedestrian stepped into road in front of Derbyshire rider
A coroner will file a report asking whether speed limits should include pedal cyclists after a pedestrian died as a result of a collision in Derbyshire. A forensic collision investigator said that Craig Bond had been riding at 38mph in a 30mph zone before he hit 79-year-old John Beach when the latter stepped into the road to cross.
Bond and his friend James Holmes were cycling on Nottingham Road in Ripley at around 5pm on April 16 when the collision took place.
Bond said that Beach stepped out in front of him and that he couldn’t have done anything to prevent the collision.
A witness who had been in a parked car said that Beach, “had his head down and at no point did I see him look.”
PC Lee Simpson, a forensic collision investigator with Derbyshire Constabulary, analysed CCTV footage and calculated that Bond had been travelling at an average speed of 38mph on the 30mph road.
At an earlier hearing, Bond disputed this. "I can't believe that – it's got to be incorrect,” he said. "I can't imagine doing 38mph on my push bike."
Bond's wife said Strava indicated his speed 'at the point of impact was 18mph'.
Coroner Sarah Huntbach adjourned the inquest to allow police to carry out further investigations.
The Derbyshire Times reports that data from Bond’s Garmin bike computer confirmed he was travelling at an average speed of about 38mph prior to the collision but slowed to 29mph before the impact.
Huntbach said Beach’s death was due to ‘a tragic combination of factors’.
“Mr Beach did not see the cyclists and they did not see him until it was too late,” she said.
Speed limits on roads only refer to motor vehicles and Huntbach said she would be filing a report asking whether they should cover cyclists as well.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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67 comments
Had he been driving a car instead of riding a bike, you'd have crucified your hero.
Hypocrites.
If you step out right in front of anything then all bets are off.
Just say, through the wonders of technology, all new bikes could be made with speedo like say, they come with a bell and it worked and was visible in all conditions.....would you chose to ignore it because....cycling, probably won't hurt anyone?
But they don't and won't so it's a silly question.
Let's see what happens with the investigation. IF it is 38mph in a 30 zone then yes it's dangerous riding.
In this new world, how do cyclists get caught for speeding?
Is it only by a speed gun and team of coppers?
Over here, speed signs do apply to cyclists riding on the road (strangely enough, they don't apply when riding on a separate cyclepath, which has to be used when present).
In practice, only the 30 km/h sign is relevant for most cyclists but some towns apply this all over the center. Except for speedelecs, bicycles don't carry registration tags so enforcement only happens if police are physically in the area and can stop you. This is enforced, usually near schools and with police teams riding speedelecs or motorcycles. Not stopping when ordered to is not a good idea.
How the cyclist 'knows' he is hitting 30 km/h is not the problem of the law, it's the problem of the cyclist. What people -including some in this thread- don't seem to understand is that the speed signs indicate a MAXIMUM speed, nobody obliges anyone to ride at that speed. Also, I don't know about the UK but over here, speed sign or not, you have to be able to stop for any obstacle that is not totally unforseeable. Example of case law: residential town center with houses on both side of the street, no high traffic zone, high summer, nice weather, kid runs over the road chasing a football--> not an unforseeable obstacle under those circumstances.
I might have a problem here (if speed limits were to apply to bicycles)
whilst driving any car the speedometer in a car is large and illuminated in darker conditions.
whereas on the bicycle I often struggle to see the speed reading on my Garmin as I cannot it see clearly wihout reading glasses
obviously can't cyclke with reading glasses as thenI could not see the road clearly
Also any bike computer (effective speedometer) is battery powered. Batteries can run down.
So there are many differences between a motor vehicles and a bicycle which makes the blanket imposition of speed limits more complication than many are acknowledging.
I can't bear going anywhere without a speedo (VDO M6) on any of my n bikes. I keep them indoors in winter and if I happen to set off without one I always go back to put one on. Maybe strange but that is the way it is.
I might do a quick survey of the bikes at work, see how many have speedo mounts.
It's a valid point about KpH and MPH. A lot of cyclists in this county do seem to use the former first and I don't know how garmin data is stored but if the police were expecting those figures off their initial calculations and then saw similar figures in the Gamrin data, would they have thought to confirm the units measured?
*SPOILER ALERT*
For those of you who don't have the time to read through it, the answer to the question in the article title is 'No'
HTH
It's funny how 'we' (not including the kitten) probably all have a speedos (not swimwear) but are throwing our hands up and saying how are we supposed to know our speeds!?! How dare they!
Everyone i know who's into cycling has a bike computer of some sort.
Anyway back in the real world if you're catching cars up you're probably going too fast. Unless it's a Prius.
My concern about speed limits being applied to cyclists is that it'll act as another deterrent to getting people to cycle.
I can just imagine the Met setting up a "cycle safety" day and prosecuting all the cyclists that don't have calibrated speedometers if the law was to be changed.
And what about your grandma or teenagers?Or just people trundling to the shops?
You are just generalising from a self selecting group, not looking at the population.
Hence the last bit. If you are catching cars up then slow down. Obviously granny etc aren't going to be doing more than 30.
I still think most people on drop bars will have a speedo. Shopping basket types aren't probably going to crack 15mph anyway so they won't. I'd reckon the majority of readers on here a drop bars boys (sounds like a club, wanna join? beat up the flat bar warriors or basket cases).
You seem to be missing that granny will need a speedo even if she barely touches double figures.
Then she will need to get it checked each year, along with renewing her licence, tax and registration plate.
Here in Bristol there's lots of 20mph speed limits for cars etc, and also the average speed tends to be less than that, so I fail to see why I shouldn't be overtaking them. Do you want me to slow down and doff my helmet to all the drivers?
At certain times of day I regularly catch cars up while walking on the pavement! Am I speeding?
On the other hand, today I noticed a driver zooming past the speed-readout sign near here with a score of 58mph. The sign 'frowns' at anyone exceeding 20mph. It almost never smiles - I worry it must be quite depressed.
Most motorists go past at about 30-40, but not infrequently some will exceed 50 or even 60. Quite puzzled what the point of the sign is supposed to be.
Rubbish. I (like many of my drop bar cycling friends) use my phone for recording rides. It sits in my back pocket for the duration. And anyway, a LAW won't apply to 'most people', it would apply to ALL cyclists. For it to be effective it would mean every single bicycle would have to have a visible, legally calibrated speedometer. Think about how stupid an idea this really is.
Yawn. Most cyclists aren't using computers. We are not most cyclists.
i do have one now but for almost 18 months i used strava via my watch app to turn on and off but had no live speed reading.
There is one downhil section of dual carriageway road on my commute which is 30 but I can and have done almost 40mph on it. I've still had cars pass me then. Using cars to determine speed is a bit blind leading blind.
Do you look at your speedometer all the time when driving or cycling, or, like most people drive to the conditions and glance at the speedometer from time to time and make adjustments as necessary.
Do you have 360 degree vision, are you able to compute/react to an action instantaneously, because this is what the police and justice system seem to think only applies to people on bikes!
We already know from motorvehicle crash investigators that it takes 1.5seconds for someone to react to an unexpected occurence, it takes an additional 0.4-0.5 seconds for the mechanical action of the brakes actually starting to put force to retard speed. In a panic situation the reaction time can extend hugely, you see this in crashes often, in fact people can freeze through fear/confusion. People on bikes are no different.
if you're shoulder checking or glancing at a potential threat not directly in your path which is what happens when you're cycling quite often, then you're not always going to have your eyes straight ahead all the time, this potentially adds another small amount of time to the reaction period.
This is why the Alliston charges were a complete load of BS, the person who stepped out actually made two unusual manoeuvres, Alliston reacted to the first whilst braking (and giving an audible warning as suggested by the HC code) from a slow speed which would have meant no interaction, it was the pedestrians second movement that he had zero chance to avoid and in fact caused the collision. The police re-enactment of what happened was false and should never have been submitted because it misrepresented what actually occurred, gave no reaction time into the equation not to mention using a cycle that was not comparative in any way shape or form.
Are some people on bikes dicks, absolutely, but we must have equity within the law, must have equitable treatment as others with respect to known harm caused otherwise that treatment is unlawfully discriminating.
My comment about speedometers was general and did not mention 'keen' cyclists. You go into any bikes shop and look around, how many bikes are equipped with a speedometer as standard? Yes I have a GPS, so I know my speed, I'm talking about the majority of bicycles in this country that don't have them.
This incident must be like Final Destination, in that the victim happened to step out and be invisible to a cyclist who was travelling at probably the fastest speed a cyclist has been on that section and at a speed highly unusual for the riders typical ability (as highlighted by another commenter). Or, the maths is bollocks.
Speed limits should apply to all road users, but cyclists breaking speed limits must be very rare and incidents of speeding cyclists involved in crashes as a result of that excess speed even rarer. Do DOT approved speedos for bicycles even exist? There are enforced speed restrictions for cyclists, such as Bournemouth promenade, where fines are given out.
Any increased effort to catch speeders should be directed towards vehicles, they kill every day.
and the highway code says'' you SHOULD use cycle lanes, as they can improve your journeys safety'' what it fails to state is that our councils have too much money and dont know how to spend it. They simply cant be arsed to spend it on proper bicycle lanes, where you can cycle as fast as you can on any road, without a side road, junction or pedestrian in your path. So, what if im using a ''shared path'' does that count as a ''cycle lane?'' so do i have to adhere to the ''speed limit'' on these designs? or can i freely pedal as fast as i feel like going? just putting this up, as this is what a typical council seems to think is perfectly acceptable. I know i wouldnt feel safe walking my kid on a space with cyclists going past me at 25 or 30 mph. and this is where cyclists struggle- you either get up to a good speed, use the ''cycle lane'' and kill pedestrians, or you use the road and get ''told off'' by motorists who dont cycle. https://rate-driver.co.uk/HF12GXC https://rate-driver.co.uk/HF12GXC so if a ped steps slightly right here and i hit them, is that my fault for going faster than them? or the councils fault for mixing a vehicle with ten times the speed difference together? 3 mph walker, mixing with a potential 30 mph bicycle..... and they say bus drivers get trained and are professionals. HA!
Where do you live? I'm not aware of any council that has too much money, post austerity.
The speed limit is almost irrelevant apart from being a data point that can be used to apportion blame in a legal sense or create a punishable offence.
Occassionally people riding bicycles have collisions with people being pedestrians. Rarer still are circumstances where the bicyclist exceeding the posted speed limit is a factor.
What is, and always will be a major factor, is that at least one party and often both fail the basic test of situational awareness. Walking into live traffic without looking / failing to observe the presence of pedestrians and predicting their likely path.
One comment that strikes me is the witness who described the cyclists as head down and not being observed to be looking ahead. This may or may not be the case but along with the speed estimated from cctv by someone supposedly an expert in such matters, it does make a picture that I'm sure most of us can relate to.
All road users have a basic duty of care to each other. To my mind the pedestrian could be stark bollock naked, out of their head on Red Stripe, wandering into the road at random and it is still incumbent for other road users to take whatever action is required not to collide with them. The only circumstance where you can get away with the "There was nothing I could do to avoid the collision" defence is if your vehicle was stationary at the point of impact and even then it's marginal. This of course might be different to being held legally to blame, but it is still your duty as a decent human being to avoid being a cause of injury to others.
Urban environment = heads up, sensible speed and looking for hazards, not chasing some stupid Strava section.
it was the unfortunate victim who was described as head down and not looking, not the cyclist.
edit. Just to add the initial reports stated that the witness was in a stationary car and the unfortunate man walked in front of him. If the road is the bit I posted earlier, then I suspect the cars were all queued back from the lights and the cyclists were filtering down the middle. I then suspect Mr Beech thought he could cross as all traffic was stopped which is why there was no looking up when crossing. If the cyclists were doing the reported speeds alongside the queue coming to lights, then I would like to see them charged.
A young girl was cycling on a narrow cycle path with parent, she lost control and went into the carriageway, the motorist who struck her was doing nearly 60mph in a 60 zone with the young girl clearly visible yet only feet away from the live carriageway.
The police report said the driver could do nothing, and yet when similar happens to a cyclist the cyclist is supposed to be not only overtly over cautious and go at a vastly slower speed so that they can stop on a sixpence, but be a mind reader and in fact react instantaneously to any event whatsoever without a split seconds hesitation despite that phsyiologically this is impossible (Again see Alliston's case as a good example)w
The case of the young girl getting mowed down at speed and the police saying the driver couldn't do anything or drivers being let off in so many instances is repeated every single week, if not day there's so many of them.
Why are the rules of the road/road law applied differently to people on bikes virtually every single time either as them as the victim or as a potential criminal?
First - as others have pointed out - it was the pedestrian, not the cyclist described as not having looked.
Second - you're wrong - there is no obligation to take "whatever action is required to not collide" with a pedestrian. You have to take reasonable action. If the alternative is swerving to avoid the idiot is a potential head on collision, or colliding with other pedestrians etc there is zero obligation to take as possible action to avoid crashing with one idiot!
Third - if someone steps out right in front of you and the laws of physics prevent you from being able to stop you aren't "the cause of injury to others" - its a ridiculous suggestion both in fact and in law. Are manufacturers of pencils responsible for causing injury to others if someone falls over while carrying a pencil and stabs themselves? Obviously not but by you're logic, as the only way a pencil manufacturer can be sure his pencil won't cause harm to others is by making them blunt (or not at all) then he shouldn't make a useful sharp pencil!
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