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news
Celia Ward falls into path of car after being confronted by Auriol Grey (via Cambridgeshire Constabulary and BBC News)Remove conflict between cyclists and pedestrians, urge campaigners in wake of manslaughter case
Cycling and disability rights campaign groups have urged for highways authorities to remove conflict between cyclists and pedestrians in the wake of a court case that yesterday saw 49-year-old Auriol Grey jailed for three years for manslaughter after causing cyclist Celia Ward, 77, to fall off her bike into the path of a car, sustaining fatal injuries.
> Three years in jail for pedestrian convicted of manslaughter after cyclist’s death
CCTV footage of the incident in Huntingdon in October 2020 showed Ms Grey telling Mrs Ward to “get off the f*ck*ng pavement” and gesturing towards the cyclist. While it is impossible to tell from the video whether contact was made, the pedestrian’s hostile demeanour caused Mrs Ward to swerve and lose control of her bike.
In a statement released following the sentencing, Camcycle, the cycling campaign group for Cambridgeshire, said that action was urgently needed in locations where there is “unnecessary conflict” between cyclists and pedestrians if Vision Zero targets are to be met, citing road traffic casualty data compiled ahead of a meeting of the county council’s Highways and Transport Committee next week.
Camcycle, which is the UK’s largest cycling campaign group outside London, said: “All deaths on our roads are avoidable tragedies and this case is particularly heartbreaking.
“It highlights a situation in which people walking and cycling were placed in unnecessary conflict next to a busy road of fast-moving motor vehicles. Cambridgeshire County Council has committed to reducing the number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads to zero by 2040, but reports published this week show that it is not currently on target to meet this goal.
Highlighting that “318 people were killed or seriously injured within the last year, leaving too many families suffering,” the group said that “no-one should be hurt on their way to school, work, the shops or to see loved ones.
“It's time to turn positive words and policies on safe routes for walking, cycling and wheeling into action on streets across the county,” it added.
Grey, who plans to appeal against her sentence, has cerebral palsy and is partially sighted, but sentencing her yesterday at Peterborough Crown Court, Judge Sean Enright insisted that her actions “are not explained by disability.”
Despite that, much of the mainstream media coverage of the sentencing has focused on her disabilities.
Fazilet Hadi, Head of Policy at Disability Rights UK, told MailOnline that the sentence appeared “extremely harsh,” but echoed Camcycle’s call for highways authorities properly segregate road users to provide safety for all.
Ms Hadi, who is also a non-executive director of Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust, told Mail Online: “This was a really tragic incident, where Celia lost her life, and I feel sadness and sympathy for all involved. The sentence given to Auriol does seem extremely harsh.
“With the number of cyclists increasing, we need proper separation of pedestrians, cyclists and cars, so that we can all keep each other safe. Government and councils need to review guidance, to ensure safe streets.”
While the hierarchy of road users introduced to the Highway Code in January last year makes clear that road users who can do the greatest harm have the greatest responsibility to reduce the danger or threat they pose to other road users – so, a cyclist would bear that responsibility towards a pedestrian – in this case, which in any event predates that change to the rules of the road, what the prosecution described as the “hostile and aggressive” manner in which Grey confronted Mrs Ward was clearly a factor.
It is unclear whether the location where the incident happened is a shared use path – both Cambridgeshire Constabulary and Cambridgeshire County Council have said they are unable to determine the status of the footway either way, while the judge in his sentencing remarks yesterday was clear that he believed it was designed for people both on foot and on bikes.
While cycling on the footway where it is not a shared use path may be punishable by a fine, Home Office guidance first laid out by former Labour minister Paul Boateng in 1999, and backed by the Association of Chief Police Officers (now the National Police Chiefs’ Council) is that police officers and local authority civil enforcement officers should exercise discretion.
> Transport minister: Responsible cyclists CAN ride on the pavement
Boateng’s guidance, subsequently reiterated in 2014 by Conservative former transport minister Robert Goodwill, stated: “The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of traffic and who show consideration to other pavement users when doing so.
“Chief police officers, who are responsible for enforcement, acknowledge that many cyclists, particularly children and young people, are afraid to cycle on the road, sensitivity and careful use of police discretion is required.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- froze 2 hours 39 min ago
Spending $500 on a used bike might get you more bang for your buck. You could find a higher quality bike that's been gently used, as opposed to a...
- antigee 3 hours 3 min ago
That's how I read the video...deliberate undertake of right turning car using the low kerbed path....so should have gone to a higher court and...
- Sam3 4 hours 27 min ago
Those were on the top side of the tube....
- kingleo 4 hours 28 min ago
A lot of car drivers are like the cowboys of the old Wild West in America who carried two guns - any slight provocation and they had no qualms in...
- grOg 5 hours 19 min ago
At first I thought your comment was clever sarcasm but then I realised, no, just another Guardian reading woke lefty..
- Robert Hardy 7 hours 57 min ago
As I used to understand it, if the intention was to cause grievous bodily harm and the person died in consequence, then the crime was murder,...
- AidanR 7 hours 57 min ago
I'd call this collective punishment of cyclists, but actually it's punishing cyclists for the actions of people riding illegal electric motorbikes.
- David9694 8 hours 1 min ago
I think I lose half a point as it isn't shown fully flipped, it's only on its side. That would mean 0.75 of a point for the Festival Way one in...
- wtjs 10 hours 13 min ago
I'm very pleased with my Prestacycle ratchet bit driver, which I take on all my long distance trips
- mdavidford 10 hours 17 min ago
Au contraire - there was plenty of beer available. Although, OK, it was probably pubs rather than bars.
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56 comments
Rot. With a bit of thinking roads can be utilised to incorporate cycling infrastructure. Glasgow for example can reduce lanes dedicated to vehicles, scrap on street parking and monopolise the one way system they have. In doing so they would make it a much more attractive place to go to. The Dutch are now experts in using road space creatively and while it's not the nirvana they do a pretty good job of getting there.
Meanwhile here in the U.K. the councils would sooner narrow pavement, issue compulsory purchase orders and flatten properties in order to widen a road to put even more vehicles on.
Shared paths should be strictly recreational cycling; using a shared path for commuting at speeds higher than jogging pace is dangerously stupid.
Nope. You ride according to the conditions. When I lived in Woodstock, a few miles north of Oxford, I'd regularly ride on the shared path towards the city, and maybe encounter three or four pedestrians on the path in the course of five miles. Obviously, I'd slow down, let them know I was there, then once past them I'd pick up speed again.
Not quite. It depends on the frequency of use and the mode using it.
Note that between towns in the countryside - and other places where there are few people using the infra - the Dutch build cycle paths *but no footways*. It's legal to walk on the cycle path, so the few cyclists can safely pass the rare person walking.
Where there are more people they make clearly separate areas for each.
Although we can and should do better, in the UK they keep transport cycling (and indeed walking) struggling on.
I use some shared paths, totally separate from motor traffic, on a daily basis. They're pretty important to my lifestyle. And I cycle more towards the 15mph end of the scale than 8mph.
They work for me because they and some quiet roads make up a mini-network - making it so much quicker and more pleasant to reach a range of my common destinations.
The paths are imperfect - they're mostly narrower than the better Dutch 2-way cycle paths, but for cyclists AND walkers. But they work for now. That's because mostly they're not busy. At certain times there are lots of people walking - you learn when / where to avoid if you want to make progress cycling. Equally walking isn't quite so relaxed during morning commute times.
I could cycle more towards the 15mph end, but the quality of the shared paths mean I top out at no more than 12mph, and the pedestrians, dog walkers, mums with prams still think thats too fast. or an inconveniance to them as theyve mentally switched off as there are no cars around, and dont realise they cant let doggo on extendo lead, assuming its even on a lead, roam where it or they want to.
its kind of why I dont think even segregated infra will work, Ive ridden segregated cycle paths, seperated from pavements even by little fences, very clear demarkation and the pedestrians still managed to find themselves walking along the cycle bit, even though it meant walking through more puddles/mud/leaf debris as they didnt clean the cycle path bit..
so its an attitude change as much as an infra problem.
Yes - it is an attitude issue. But for any major change "we can't there from here" - but somehow we did! That's little comfort in the present moment of course and hindsight glosses over a lot of the painful bits.
Even the Dutch had fights over their infra (riots, cars set on fire, cycle paths dug up at night). They started turning the ship around when they *still had mass cycling*, and it was almost 50 years ago...
Even with a handful of models to observe (and our own history!)it's not easy. It won't all change overnight, or next year.
The infra in NL seems to work about as well as most systems do, where there aren't police on every corner. Like with cars and roads it's self- enforcing.
With enough cyclists, walking on the cycle path feels less pleasant than on the footway. That's reinforced by convention and the fact that most people cycle at some point. So people naturally move on to their own area.
BTW This is another failing of UK designs - first not enough space (often for either mode, never mind both) but second *if* there are separate areas they don't mark them clearly, *in a standard way*.
I saw a YouTube clip once of a junction in either Utrecht or Amsterdam that when the green phase was used for the cyclists every lane went live and the cyclists then naturally negotiated the junction without colliding with each other and worked with each other.
"Cycle scramble junction", "simultaneous green" or "all-ways green" ("always green" would be perfect...)
They work for cycling uniquely because cycles are speedy AND small, they can bunch up compactly. Cars take up too much space, pedestrians are a bit slow. Also this can scale to cover a wide range of junction sizes and shapes and is cheaper than other safe designs.
I haven't ridden it but apparently the UK has one (or possibly a lookalike)!
https://betterstreets.co.uk/people-friendly-junction-unveiled/
Article with a proposed UK legal design from Ranty Highwayman:
https://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com/2014/07/traffic-signal-pie-third...
Old debate about whether the design is UK "street legal":
https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/node/3178
Thanks for the links. They make interesting reading.
Renfrewshire has actually established some great infra through the new airport development. It should join up with a section that pretty much takes you from just outside Bishopton to Sneddon Street in Paisley. Once you are there, there is nothing to get you through the town and get you to the NCR on the other side of the town.
it just feels weve been having these same debates in the UK for at least 20 years now,and not alot has changed, some pockets of good stuff as always, but do I see 20 years or 30 years from now its going to be radically different landscape for pedestrians and cyclists
the answer sadly is I suspect no.
Yes, I wonder what I'll see by the time I die. Some of the language and attitudes are extremely demotivating. Cycling UK noted being back at the start on the 25th anniversary of the National Cycling Strategy:
https://www.cyclinguk.org/blog/national-cycling-strategys-25th-anniversa...
However I have some hope things may change, because:
- we don't have to just believe it is possible - you can visit places (virtually now too) which have made change happen and see.
- cycling has so many positives and potential for "virtuous circle" feedback loops.
- It is also cheap and overall pays for itself, as opposed to motoring which is a net cost to the taxpayer if you count all the negatives.
Against that - it's cheap and decentralised. So there is much less potential for *some* people to earn massive sums. Or the huge well-funded lobbying activities which are part of the reason politicians have been enthusiastic about pushing mass motoring.
For selling to the masses cycling doesn't promise you *no* effort, just less effort. It doesn't insulate you from the world or hide the process of travelling from you. But it can make it more pleasant.
I see those as positives, but the opposite is popular...
Edinburgh at least is getting to the point where new cycle infra - which would be recognisable to the Dutch in parts - is now happening more than once per decade. (Still cack-handed design and execution though and planning to building is still some years longer than eg. car infra). And this is in prominent locations and retrofit - which is a much more difficult operation.
What I don't see enough of is:
- concentrating on making a cycling *network*
- any thought that cycling is a social activity and people might want to ride side-by-side
- fixing junctions - cycle traffic lights for early release of bikes are appearing but we're still in "bike box" (ASL) land. Look at the alien technology which is *standard* elsewhere:
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/cycling-past-red-lights-it...
- restricting motoring and parking. For that we'd need to change the underlying goal we have - the maximum capacity / throughput of *motor traaffic* consistent with safety.
Personally I've got really used to my path mini network in North Edinburgh. Much of the time I find I *can* make brisk progress. Possibly the parts I use most are less "pedestrian friendly" eg. longer distances between entry / exit points, away from the town centre / amenities. Certain times of day I do go mentally prepared to slow, wait, have a bit of banter. I don't use the more "recreational" paths (canal, water of Leith) even though they're marked as "routes".
But I know I'm in a really good spot for the UK.
Also as a UK urban cyclist I'm used to starting and stopping - if I take the road for some routes I'll be queuing with cars, at a standstill for minute, before sprinting to the next lights for another minutes' wait.
Usually the tortoise beats the hare.
Then where do the fast commuters go? Because the motorists don't want to share "their" roads with them...
What about roads with no footway alongside? Are they restricted to 8mph too, just in case there's a pedestrian walking in the road (as they are legally entitled to do)?
You ride to the conditions. If the path is busy you scrub your speed. If it's empty at 5am then by all means tank it.
The only way this would work would be to start taking road space away from motor vehicles.
As it stands, we will do everything - up to and including demolition of buildings and destruction of sites of scientific or natural interest - to keep adding more road space for motor vehicles, but everyone not in a car is forced onto the narrow edges.
Are they not still building that road tunnel under Stonehenge?
Edit: oops missed the 'including' bit
I'm all for improved cycling infrastructure, but the conflict in this situation was caused solely by the pedestrian.
How would they have dealt with a parent jogging along pushing a toddler in one of those running pushchairs? That would probably take up more of the pavement and would seem to be a similar speed.
If they had just kept to one side, as they would do passing any other path user, then there would have been no problem at all.
Let's be clear; the main reason the cyclist fell into the roadway was due to her advanced age of 77; if a middle aged disabled woman yelled and gesticulated at me while I cycled past her, I would have laughed, not fallen over in surprise..
Ageist tripe.
He did this elsewhere, callng her "the old dear". He's also ignoring the pretty compelling evidence (defendant's own admission that there "may have been" contact, police officer statement that if we saw the whole video as shown to the jury there would be no more argument about blame) that Mrs Ward was pushed into the traffic. Why some people are so consumed by their own prejudice and hate that they want to blame an innocent 77-year-old woman for her own homicide is beyond me and, I would suggest, any person with a shred of common decency.
Exactly, she was pushed, the killer goes to prison, end of story.
Now how do we go about something like this doesn't happen again?
Seriously? If I had someone flailing there arms and swearing at me I would swerve out of their way using my momentum to aid me and I'm a middle aged man.
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