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Emma Burke Newman (Pedal on Parliament)"Society has accepted death as a cost of getting from A to B": Parents of young cyclist killed in collision call for change
The parents of a "strong and experienced" cyclist, killed in a collision with a vehicle being driven at a "deadly" Glasgow junction, have called for all political parties to support the adoption of "best-practice infrastructure" as well as other safety measures to better protect cyclists.
Emma Burke Newman, a 22-year-old student, was killed while cycling in the Scottish city earlier this year, with the investigation into her death still ongoing. Now, in "our first political action", her parents Rose Marie and John have offered support to Pedal on Parliament, a campaign that organises a ride to the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood to call for proper funding and infrastructure to make cycling accessible for all.
Ultimately aiming "to make Scotland a cycle-friendly country", Pedal on Parliament's 2023 event takes place this Saturday with the ride in Glasgow and other parts of the country.
Writing in a blog post published through Pedal on Parliament, Emma's parents said the symbolism of their daughter's death, a young rider "devoted to making cities safer and more beautiful for all", is "terribly searing".
"She cycled everywhere in the much bigger cities of Paris, London, and Berlin. But, only three months into living in Scotland, she was roadkill at that deadly junction, as if the world were saying, no, you cannot. Not now.
"Instead, we must. We, her parents, feel compelled to push Scotland ahead, to make roads safer for everyone. It seems that society has accepted death and serious injury as a cost of getting from point A to B? We don't accept that. Had Emma lived, she would have made safer travel her life's work. Since she has not, we are taking on the mantle. It will help us of our grief, to ensure that her death was not in vain.
"Although we are still in mourning, we have decided to support Pedal on Parliament as our first political action. We are demanding 'No Backpedalling.' Scotland has great plans and the budget for active travel. Now it must deliver, without stalling. Given that the country is a decade or more behind, there is no time to lose – only more lives to be lost.
"We urge all parties to support and adopt best-practice infrastructure, identification and remediation of dangerous hotspots, enforcement of current rules and regulations (using dash-cam video to catch lawbreakers) and improved safety standards for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). Not to mention education and a shift in attitudes.
> Round-the-world cyclist Mark Beaumont leads Pedal on Parliament protest ride
"Actually, Scotland's needs for active travel have been well articulated for years. The foot-dragging needs to stop, right now. In Glasgow, we are heartened that politicians and stakeholders will meet soon to discuss road safety and hope that they can go further to develop an action plan."
While noting the investigation into the collision of January 27 is "still ongoing", Emma's parents insist "our daughter would be alive today" if "the proper infrastructure existed to separate cycles from HGVs and buses".
"There is more than enough space at the intersection where Emma died to accommodate every traveller. There is more than enough space, we just have to commit to making it safe for all who use it," they continued.
"What happened at this junction, we realise, is one case, but also an object lesson pointing to the need for long overdue progress to improve the safety of Scottish roads."
More information and full details of this weekend's event can be found on Pedal on Parliament's website...
Dan is the road.cc news editor and has spent the past four years writing stories and features, as well as (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. Having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for the Non-League Paper, Dan joined road.cc in 2020. Come the weekend you'll find him labouring up a hill, probably with a mouth full of jelly babies, or making a bonk-induced trip to a south of England petrol station... in search of more jelly babies.
Latest Comments
- Rendel Harris 2 sec ago
Not the same petitions as the ones you link to were delivered in December and March and claimed 170 signatories, the one in the BBC report claims...
- hawkinspeter 4 min 24 sec ago
The obvious reason why drivers don't do that is that there'll be cars in their way, whereas there's almost always space for a cyclist to squeeze...
- chrisonabike 6 min 15 sec ago
A little more (not much deeper) in comments over on:...
- john_smith 24 min 46 sec ago
In South Holland there might not be many hills but there is plenty of wind to make up for it.
- Secret_squirrel 38 min 32 sec ago
Soo... a bit misleading then. Full size bikes are banned at peak but folders arent....
- jaymack 44 min 2 sec ago
Did you pay on a credit card? If you did you may be able to take advantage of s. 75 refund
- The_Ewan 1 hour 2 min ago
I think it's reasonable to say that everyone on the UK roads has extensive experience with traffic doing circa 30mph.
- chrisonabike 2 hours 6 min ago
Compromise - in favour of the status quo e.g. the vast numbers with cars - will no doubt occur....
- chrisonabike 2 hours 17 min ago
Well the problem there is having motorists in the tall grass verges!...
- squidgy 2 hours 56 min ago
You might also argue that that the group as a whole were in part responsible.
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70 comments
More people wouldn't fly - plenty don't as it is - if air travel seemed unsafe for them. You're helpless if there is a mid air calamity - maybe the element of control (and being on the ground) with a car makes a difference to people's perceptions of risk.
I don't leave the house worrying that a 'plane will fall on me, but I do worry - don't we all to some extent - about being killed or injured by a driver. I worry even more when the ambulances, junior doctors or nurses are on strike or when the hospitals were full of Covid. I carry one of those foil survival bags.
All of us are conditioned to live with and internalise that ever-present threat from drivers - e.g. the parents of the small children in my little road on their little balance bikes always ready to whisk them out of the way of the neighbours who - despite knowing that these or local cats still are probably around - drive too fast.
It comes down to this: those notices on lorries "if you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you" - thanks, but this is my problem how?
Check out this document that puts it all in perspective,
https://www.pacts.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/PACTS-What-kills-most-on-the...
What Kills most on the roads report from PACTS.
Drivers should have a box of tissues ready for when they see how Road death statistics look now
Also
All true but of course we're also interested in rates - eg. those charts corrected by something like number of that mode. What's the risk to cyclists from cars per car? Or better broken down by the type of road (motorway, urban A road vs. rural A road etc). That's to help better direct efforts to change things and predict what to address as things change.
The latter is not simple though because for eg. increasing the modal share of cycling something dramatic has to change - and the only places this *has* happened (outside of "the fuel ran out") its come about through a substantial transformation of the infrastructure and indeed law. So while the previous stats are the best you've got the situation is now different.
Fortunately we have some other places who've trialled this already we can study...
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak - who pledged to ban smart motorways during his leadership campaign - said "all drivers deserve to have confidence in the roads they use to get around the country".
A cyclist, you say? Sorry, only drivers deserve such consideration, according to the man at the top.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65288852
I don't disagree about the overall attitude, but when he's talking specifically about motorways "drivers" is a reasonable word to describe the people using them. Selective and out-of-context quotations are enough of a problem without "our" side resorting to them too.
Except I did not quote "out of context". I did consider the context, and did not disguise it in the quote, leaving the context apparent. However I judged his meaning in "the roads they use to get around the country" to be broader in application than just the motorway network. I felt he was taking the smart motorway issue as a particular example within the general context of unacceptable transport infrastructure, whilst ignoring the perspective of non-motorised transport using the same infrastructure.
I don't think he was deliberate in his exclusion of cyclists' peril - it is just symptomatic of the blindness towards the needs of non-motorised transport by those who set the general direction of things.
the whole issue with smart motorways being the lack of smarts of most of the drivers using them.
that people blindly drive into stationary vehicles and insist its the road thats causing the problem, tells you all you need to know about the UKs attitude towards driving.
Yes. The difficulty about "attitude" here though is that while most would agree that "humans are fallible" we both overestimate our own abilities (driving / cycling) and also overestimate our abilities to judge the abilities (or not) of others. And we (mostly) all get treated as competent adults for voting purposes and once we've passed the driving test.
Sadly it goes beyond just "no-one cares about cyclists". Everything beyond the car is a non-issue for many. I was surprised to find some parents objecting to making the street outside a school a no-through road (during Covid-era times). (They lived on that street - but maybe their children didn't go to that school.)
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