Coroner concludes Venera Minakhmetova died after riding through red light at Bow Roundabout

The Police suggestion that Venera ran the red light and cycled up the nearside of Mr Stoker's truck does not stack up by virtue of the Police's other evidence and some basic dynamics.

1) Venera's bike was hit from the read by the front nearside valance of the truck, so in order to get there she would have had to come up the nearside at speed and get in front of the truck. Typically a fast cyclist will be doing 15-20mph so why ...

2) The fully loaded truck was very slow in accelerating and according to the Tachograph and GPS beacon, was travelling at 13mph some 40 metres after it had started moving from a position 12 metres behind the stop-line. A fast moving cyclist would not have been hit in the rear by a slower moving truck. The Tachograph and GPS I understand were cross checked with the recorded times for the traffic signals

3) The Police tested and found both the nearside proximity alarm and the left turn annunciator were working in perfect order - so it seems very odd that a cyclist well concerned about the dangers cycled past a truck announcing 'Turning left' and her presence in the area covered by the side sensors not triggering the alarm in the driving cab.

It does not stack up.

Venera's family protested that she would ave been held back by traffic on the roundabout preventing her from moving off, but the Police dismissed this suggesting that any STATIONARY traffic stopping her would have also stopped the motor vehicles from moving off. Wtch many of the videos posted and you can clearly see the it is MOVING traffic - vehicles running the red lights on the roundabout which typically stop the cyclists from moving off for 3 seconds, effectively wiping out the 2 second advance green light but leaving the road clear fro the motor traffic now practically alongside the cyclists.

There was at least one other vehicle in front of Mr Stoker's truck which would have moved off substantially faster, and the lack of any Police explanation about what interaction that vehicle might have had with Venera provides a clue as to the true sequence of events. Some clues may be seen from study of other videos when a) vehicles trapped in the 'box' with cycles b) vehicles moving off from the rear stop line and overtaking cyclists who have not been able to set off from the advanced stop line.

Tony knows where to find me if you want to post any video links.

The flawed design will deliver further fatalities, of that I am certain.

The solution is to send cycle traffic over the flyover. It would be possible to build a temporary arrangement to test this out in the same way that New York has very successfully delivered its first bike lanes. I'm thinking out some possible ways (petitions, private TRO etc) to press this forward even if TfL sits on its hands, claiming the current system is fit for purpose.

It's just horrible. And one of the worst things about it is just how easy it is to reduce the confusion and prevent this happening again (here and at many other junctions). We have the answers already.

I am glad you have quoted Martin Porters' blog post. There are due to be a rash of Coroner's court judgements in the next few weeks with regard to the six cyclists killed in London in a two week period last year, of which this is the first. So be warned about what to expect in terms of anything genuinely helpful.

Re- the specific case of Bow roundabout: Most cyclists go straight over the flyover. As with other big gyratories (such as Staples Corner) there is an issue about being left hooked as yu go across the slip road. To my knowledge nothing has been planned to remedy this issue.

Mr Stoker said: “I was three-quarters of the way round and then I just heard a metal noise and stopped straight away and realised what had happened.”

What he didn't say is "I heard a noise and stopped to see what is was"

Why is that? Sounds like a potential admission of guilt to me. If he knew there was a risk of running a cyclist over then perhaps he should have waited.

It seems to me that the police are completely incompetent at questioning drivers after an accident. The drivers come up with stories with massive holes in and yet they don't seem to get pressed on those unlikely tales.

Victim riding cycle. No evidence to exonerate victim (No evidence to blame them either). Victim must be at fault.

Anything I may have missed?

I've had cause to go through Bow roundabout precisely once, ever, long before the current set-up, and I think got off and walked!

So I have struggled to understand, theoretically, how the odd-ball system they now have works. Apparently it has multiple sets of lights in a row?

I note this description was written some time before the tragic event involving Ms Minakhmetova.

http://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/bow-roundabout/

The following paragraph particularly leaps out:

"A cyclist ignores the initial ‘ASL’ red light, joining the flow of vehicles, and is promptly in a ‘left hook’ conflict with a van turning left.

Similarly, these cyclists have passed through ‘their’ red light (two of them evidently want to turn right at the roundabout, and give up, heading across the pavement). The consequences are again dangerous, and I have to say it’s surely only a matter of time before there’s another serious, and all-too-familiar, accident here."

If its true that the victim jumped the red, does that mean its demonstrating that the system is indeed dangerously confusing?

And if this _is_ the issue being referred to, is it not decidedly disingenuous of the coroner to say "cyclists need to understand what dangerous behaviour contravening a red light is", when in this case the light in question is not actually a traditional one and if it was 'jumped' it was more likely a mistake due to the non-traditional arrangement rather than a 'typical' cyclist RLJ (would anyone really _choose_ to jump a red at that notoriously scary location?)

(Oh, and I note the video on that site also shows motorists getting confused by the arrangement and jumping reds unwittingly - is it not 'dangerous behaviour' when they do it?)

It's not a head start at all and it doesn't work, all it does is put riders in just as much if not more danger than they were before.

It's called tfl's failed "smoothing the (motor) traffic" project which has never worked from the moment they first tried it.

This is hideous.

To suggest, without any real evidence, that the cyclist brought it upon herself is offensively dismissive to the deceased and her family and friends.

For the coroner to then to make the leap, as it seems she has, from "most likely" cycled through a red light, to "she cycled through a red light" beggars belief.

The crash investigator and Hassell both seem to be jumping to conclusions, and someone needs to have a word with both of them about these kind of loose unverified (unverifiable?) comments.

Unless the coronor has ever cycled the coundabout, or more accurately, has cycled it before and after the works, then i doubt the opinion that it is 'safer' for cyclists. This is further cast into doubt by the opinion based on heresay and assumption that the cyclist must have jumped a red light. Given these two points, and the (assumed) lack of experience cycling i don't hold any faith in the opinion expressed by the coronor.
I can't imagine what the family are going through, and hope i (nor my family or friends) never have to find out

Very interesting! no witnesses to give counter evidence, the victim cannot defend herself, and for the met it is easier to blame that who cannot answer. This is wrong and there seems to be no change in the procedure of cyclist accident analysis. What has changed since the deaths of last year to these? Absolutely nothing with the met, and as the ones to report on the accidents there are serious flaws. Regardless of how many junctions get redone there clearly is another issue that needs to be addressed. It is the way that we penalize cyclists for being on the road while giving leeway for bad driver behaviour.

Would this be the confusing red light that only applies to the cycle-lane? Introduced during the last round of "improvements"...

Would this be the confusing red light that only applies to the cycle-lane? Introduced during the last round of "improvements"...

I'm reading it and incredulous also.

How did she go through the red but he didn't?

and if she did, then surely he would have seen her as he pulled up alongside?

flawed, fatally. very sad.

doesnt add up to me.
are they saying she rode though a red up the inside of the left turning truck?

What a load of rubbish, everyone knows this "junction" has deliberately been made worse for anyone not driving.

I've spoke to the police about the procedure they used to analyse the tachograph.

https://twitter.com/geckobike/status/453940138234871808

Personally I'm not convinced by the methodology.

The tachograph gives speed/position/time information of the HGV. If you know the last location of the HGV, which they did, then you can reconstruct it's movements.

*However* In order to compare it to the traffic light (TL) signals you need to have a time reference between the tachograph timeline and the TL timeline. They dont have that, instead it was inferred from the stop & start movements of the HGV.

Inferred, based on some assumptions! Assumptions that the HGV started on green, which was then used to prove he went through green. Anyone not see a problem with that? Assumptions about the traffic stop-start conditions from the tachograph. And the massive assumption that if the HGV went through on green then Verena must have gone through on Red.

That's is an assumption, built on a layer of other assumptions...

"Not sure if this was mentioned in inquest but I spoke to a witness who said bus & HGV were in advanced start box when lights red"
https://twitter.com/doctorrah/status/454170660814999552

The above contradicts the police analysis of the tachograph. That the HGV started behind the first line on green and went through the second on green!

HOWEVER, it is now "proved" that the cyclist went through red and has therefore completely deflected the argument away from the fact that the design of the Bow roundabout is DANGEROUS and needs fixing. Instead it will now be spun as it's safe unless cyclists choose to jump reds...

Nothing to see here:
“[Bow roundabout has] been altered to such an extent that it’s very significantly safer for cyclists”.

#BULLSHIT

This lack of video evidence in this tragic case just emphasises the need for all commercial vehicles to be fitted with cameras linked to a tamper proof "black box".

Doublespeak indeed and not at all helpful for the cycling community.
May Verena rest in peace and may her family get closure.

I don't follow the logic of the police fellow at all.

Regardless of whether this poor woman ran the red light - would the lorry not also have been running the red to have hit her? Or is it a left hand filter at that junction?