Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Back to news
news
Crime & Legal
Government
Parliamentary inquiry into Cycling and the Justice System opens tomorrow - and will be streamed liveBig Ben © Simon MacMichael

Parliamentary inquiry into Cycling and the Justice System opens tomorrow - and will be streamed live

All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group will hear evidence from Cycling UK, Keith Bontrager and others
by Simon_MacMichael
Mon, Jan 30, 2017 19:22
4

The All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group (APPCG) will open its inquiry into Cycling and the Justice System tomorrow afternoon, with proceedings from the Palace of Westminster streamed live on Periscope. 

The first session will start on Tuesday at 3.30pm in Committee Room 18 of the House of Commons, with Cycling UK, RoadPeace and Martin Porter QC, who blogs as The Cycling Silk, among those giving evidence.

Also appearing will be mountain bike pioneer Keith Bontrager and his partner Julie Dinsdale, who lost a leg when she was crushed by a Tesco delivery lorry when cycling on London's Old Street on a Sunday afternoon in October 2015.

The driver, who had only been working for the supermarket operator for four days and was making his first unsupervised delivery run, was fined £625 last August after pleading guilty to careless driving.

Last week, in a detailed post on Facebook, Bontrager charted his partner's progress in her rehabilitation, including through using prosthetic limbs - one designed specifically for cycling - being funded by Trek, the company he sold his business to and still designs for.

The APPCG will be live-tweeting tomorrow's session on its @allpartycycling Twitter feed, while the live broadcast can be found on www.persicope.tv by searching for APPCG Justice 1.

 

APPCG
Cycling and the Justice System
cycling uk
RoadPeace
Keith Bontrager
Julie Dinsdale
Simon MacMichael

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.

Add new comment

4 comments

Avatar
davel | 7 years ago
0 likes

Anyone know how this is actually going?

Completely understand the cynicism, but I'm following the twitter feed and they seem to make the right noises, and they had a decent cast list to kick off with...

Avatar
severs1966 | 7 years ago
0 likes

It is being run by The All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group. That's all you need to know; they have never done anything for cycling in the UK yet.

What they will produce is a set of "recommendations" which will be filed somewhere in Westminster, and then nothing whatsoever will be done to follow the matter up.

All members of the Group will pat themselves on the back and use the episode as promotional content at the next election.

Nothing will be built; no laws will be passed. Lots of pro-motoring MPs will use the opportunity to point out that all cycling fatalities are bike riders' own fault for not wearing hi-viz and helmets, and any attempt to change anything at all is part of the "war on the motorist". Only this part will appear in the papers to any degree, probably as a hate piece in the Daily Mail.

Avatar
jasecd | 7 years ago
1 like

So what are we going to get this time? The ill-informed, prejudiced, victim blaming debate of the Transport Select Committee of December 2013 or something a bit more progressive and enlightened?

I'm not holding my breath but hope it's the latter.

Avatar
brooksby replied to jasecd | 7 years ago
2 likes

jasecd wrote:

So what are we going to get this time? The ill-informed, prejudiced, victim blaming debate of the Transport Select Committee of December 2013 or something a bit more progressive and enlightened?

I'm not holding my breath but hope it's the latter.

They'll probably take the opportunity to announce a white paper for a new government policy: all cyclists to wear a hi-viz tabard.  This will ensure that they are very definitely seen.  Failure to wear the tabard when cycling will mean that liability in all cases falls on the cyclist.  However, the tabard will have a target on the back.

Latest Comments