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The scene of the crash (©Gary Jones via Instagram)Update: Arrest made following death of cyclist killed by A13 'street-racing' driver
Police have a arrested a man following the death of a 32-year-old cyclist after a hit-and-run crash on Monday night in East London involving a suspected joyrider racing along a major road
The 21 year old man was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and for and failing to stop at the scene of a collision - police confirmed that he was the driver of the car they believe was involved in the incident. He has been interviewed by police officers and bailed to a date in mid-January.
According to the police the driver of another car, who witnessed the collision, has also provided them with a detailed statement.
The male rider was hit near the junction of Commercial Road (the A13) and Cavell Street at about 10pm on Monday November 24.
He was taken to an east London hospital, but later died of his injuries.
The Evening Standard reports that the victim has been named locally as Asaad Ahmed, a primary school teacher and father of two.
Mr Ahmed was making his way home when he was hit by what is believed to be a white VW Golf. The driver then sped off.
Police are still hunting the driver of the car, who was seen racing another driver along the A13 moments before the collision.
A resident of the area told the Standard: “You get people racing each other all the time along here. It’s a really dangerous road at night.
“It was inevitable that something like this would happen.”
Nasher Ahmed, 52, a taxi driver, who lives nearby, saw the incident unfold.
He said: “He was trying to cross the road on his bike when he was hit by the car that was racing the other.
“He was a real nice guy and had two young children, it’s very sad. He was just on his way home.
“His wife and brother went to hospital with him in the ambulance.
“As soon as the driver hit the cyclist he just did a U-turn and drove away. He didn’t even stop.”
A Metropolitan police spokesman said: "A car that was suspected of being involved in the collision has been located but officers would still like to hear from any witnesses to the incident."
Anyone with information about the crash is asked to call the Serious Collision Investigation Unit at Chadwell Heath on 0208 597 4874 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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76 comments
Witness Sally Dunstone tweeted: “Terrible accident involving a cyclist on Commercial Road. If you cycle in London always wear a helmet.”
What a stupid F***ing tweet. Like wearing a helmet protects you from being killed by being hit by a speeding car. I suppose this idiot thinks that you can be whacked by racing cars and huge lorries but as long as you have your helmet on then it's gonna be alright.
Ok, here is one area where my home country kinda gets this right. NZ. Smallllllll country, the main highway is basically a B road. LOTS of drunk driving in the 70s, lots of speeding, massive holidays tolls.
Basically here's what they did/do.
Traffic cops (not police - and this has changed, but into the 80s, cops in cars on motorways)
Mobile radars - cops with speed guns in awkward areas at any time (not fecking big yellow boxes)
Holiday specials on fines - last Xmas when I was back 10kph over the 100k limit got you something like the equivalent of 3 points and a massive fine, NO ONE was speeding
Just about zero alcohol tolerance - and traffic cops and cops running 'gates' where everyone is breathalyzed
Targeted cop runs on known boy-racer patches (plus trying to get them into legitimate racing, a bit doomed I think)
Of course this all takes money and time, but it worked and it continues to work. It is noticeably slower and more cautious on motorways and the arterials - which is just as well because NZ drivers are fecking terrible (another day for why).
In my 13 years in the UK I am not sure I have seen a cop actually doing anything related to traffic beyond stopping and searching vans... I guess the priority is terrorism, because that kills hundreds a year, right?
The reporting over at the Evening Standard includes possibly the most inappropriate comment from a witness you could imagine following such an incident.
A tragic and sadly not uncommon event. I posted on here just the other week about how common street racing is becoming in London, there have been a number of high profile crashes and deaths in the last year.
For me it raises the question of speed limiters. Not necessarily sophisticated GPS based system, but the simple matter of why are todays cars capable of speeds way above the national speed limit. Preventing this would require nothing more than a small software change to the engine management systems, it's a zero cost option.
Not sure it is that easy, in theory the engine management could be designed to prevent the car doing more than 130kmph which I believe would cover most of Europe, the issue would be how to prevent the software being amended to remove the speed limiter. If the solution is legal, well who currently enforces the rules???
I believe that London also has an issue with uninsured drivers, again it is illegal but it doesn't stop it happening. We really need more traffic police tasked with zero tolerance to driving offences, and then to back them up with an adequate legal system. However going by evidence, whether it is workload or attitude, a lot of police don't really seem bothered by traffic offences today??
I completely agree, but I consider enforcement as a separate matter. Modifying the engine management software so as to bypass the speed limit should be illegal. Make it a notifiable offence if it's detected during an MOT or service. If someone is caught speeding or involved in an accident and the car has been illegally modified, that should be reflected in the punishment.
As with all enforcement, you can't 100% prevent, but you can discourage.
well for a start, your insurance would be void same as if you are involved in a crash and the assessor comes round and finds a defect with one of your tyres
Really? Your first comment is that vehicle speeds should be limited? Not all car drivers drive like idiots and ignoring the fact that limiters can be removed, you'd limit vehicles to 70mph - would that have done anything for the poor cyclist in this case? Absolutely not! Think before you post inane rubbish.
Wrong place, wrong time. RIP
And your first thought was to attack me, well done you. Have a golf clap
There have been multiple deaths on London's roads in the last year due to people racing cars late at night. These aren't people driving too fast, these are people holding races. Here are some of the incidents.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/north-circular-crash-three-young-m...
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/east-london-bus-crash-one-dead-and...
I've made this point multiple times, this is just the latest incident. You cannot race cars on the public road at such high speed if they are speed limited. If the owners illegally modify them for the purposes of racing, that offers the Police the opportunity to impound the cars and prosecute the drivers before they kill someone.
You don't work for ubisoft do you?
No, it isn't zero cost at all. Yes, it would certainly harm people who have legitimate reasons you clearly haven't thought of to go faster than 70mph.
Yes, it is fundamentally trivial to bypass any protection on a computer you own and always will be - and you've just given a whole load of people a good reason (aforementioned good reasons to exceed 70) to do so. Google "the coming war on general purpose computation", preferably before you suggest any law related to computers again.
going OT, so when is is legitimate to break the law?
No, I don't work for ubisoft.
I do work as a software engineer and systems architect, and that includes many years building security systems, including some DRM technologies that have ended up in the consumer market. There's a good chance you've used something I've designed.
It is a zero cost option, it's a configuration change at the point of manufacturer and is already adopted for all cars sold in Japan. It is not fundamentally trivial to bypass a protection system, the task can be made very difficult. It is however fundamentally impossible to prevent it, which I believe is the point you were trying to make. It is also fundamentally impossible to prevent the detection of such a change, which is where the role of enforcement comes into play.
The system would need to be hooked up to GPS to limit the cars to the local speed limit though. 70mph would not be sufficient on this road, and going back to my original point; there's a massive legacy issue of retrofit.
Bit of a mute point really?
Lets not try and improve anything ever then?
And insurance premiums help with the legacy issue.
The MOT already considers this for other safety sub-systems: e.g. if you have ABS fitted on your car then it needs to be working to pass the MOT; but if your car is old enough to not have ABS fitted then that's just fine.
Yup... you can include indicators in that as well. They only need to work if they are fitted.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big technology advocate, but I'm being pragmatic. We are pushing on open doors when it comes to wanting better for our fellow cyclists, but outside of this website there are a multitude of issues and opinions which make this a difficult thing to resolve. Just try jumping to PistonHeads.com and suggesting automated speed limiters and you will have a tsunami of vitriol in your inbox within minutes. I originally said this is not possible in the short to medium term. I do, however believe we will have this standardised in 20 years along with optional self drive cars.
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