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news
Still from CCTV footage of cyclist hitting toddlerPavement cyclist faces charges and media backlash after hitting toddler in incident caught on CCTV
A Blackpool cyclist is due to speak to police following a pavement hit and run involving a three-year-old girl. The incident was captured by a home CCTV camera and has led to the Daily Mail branding him ‘the most callous cyclist in Britain’.
In the video footage, the cyclist can be seen hitting Lucie Wilding and subsequently dragging her along the pavement.
Lucie’s mother, Lauren Howarth, told the Blackpool Gazette that she had been about to put her in the car for the school run when the incident took place.
“Lucie came out of our garden and this cyclist just whacked her. He just came out of nowhere, it happened in the blink of an eye. I hadn’t seen him but I never thought I’d have to look left and right coming from your doorstep.
“He hit her and the bike carried her along the front of our house, about 10 feet, then he fell off and it sort of released her and she was just lying there. For a second I thought he’d killed her. All of a sudden she let out this piercing scream, I’ve never heard a cry like it.”
Lucie’s father, Matt, can then be seen rushing to his injured daughter, but Lauren said that the cyclist quickly left.
“I was expecting him to say ‘I’m so sorry, is everyone okay?’ or something like that but there was nothing. As soon as he got up he started swearing at us, as if it was Lucie’s fault that he had hit her. The next thing we knew he’d gone and we’ve not heard from him since.”
A man in his twenties has since come forward and will be spoken to by Lancashire police. Investigating officer PC Joanna Mills said:
“There are a number of offences that will be discussed with this man – riding on pavements and dangerous cycling. For a three-year-old this isn’t a pleasant experience when you’re just walking from your home to your car. Lucie is lucky she’s escaped with only scrapes and bruises. It could have been a lot worse.”
The horrific nature of the incident and the man’s subsequent behaviour has led to the Daily Mail branding him ‘the most callous cyclist in Britain’. The newspaper has also since run a similar story involving a nine-year-old girl who suffered a broken wrist after being hit by a cyclist who mounted the pavement to overtake a bus.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
Latest Comments
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Um - a box. Which is not the same thing as a wrapper. That's why we have different words for them.
- mdavidford 2 min 56 sec ago
You can be professional at this now? Are they selling NFTs of them or something?
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As a keen cyclist who lives about 10km from where this incident happened, I would never ride on Main South Road at Wattle Flat. There are...
- brooksby 26 min 10 sec ago
We would all refer M'Learned Friend to Replies Made Every Other Time They Make This Snark
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I got the impression that he was thinking of the same jacket as me but possibly not; in any case, it isn't people making a mistake that annoys, it...
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51 comments
Stupid cyclist and stupid parents.
Don't cycle on the pavement!
Especially at high speed!
Put a leash on fast kiddies
start with he is an idiot, now move onto why did 3 year old just walk out? mobility scotter, pavement sweeper etc. plenty of reasons to look before you step out!
Have to say google maps shows the usual high quality infrastructure, paths that come and go, cars parked on pavement, the existence of speed cameras suggests speeding drivers, isn't the criteria for siting to do with accident figures?
And reading the story, why are so many cyclists using the pavement? Have to ask if the speed camera, lots of cyclists using pavement and the crap cycle path are related....
Cyclist should not have been on the pavement!!!!
But:-
He clearly stopped - at least long enough for the concerned mother to get her mobile phone and take a picture of him standing beside his bike.
He says he apologised.
I would not have let my children wander unattended by a busy road aged 3.
Are we sure it was a pavement ? The photo (link below) has what looks like a blue share use sign. So it either is, or just about to become shared use. I know this is splitting hairs and I sure it was a terrible thing to happen to the little girl and her family. But the general anti cycling rhetoric in the general media it totally over the top.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/22/toddler-lucie-wilding-hit-and...
I also feel sorry for the cyclist who has been the victims of being a bit of a twat and also the victim of what appears to be crap cycling infrastructure....as ever.
There appears to be a shared use sign towards the end of that stretch of pavement where there is no longer residences that face onto it, which would make rather more sense. That said, we have absolutely no idea from those photos/videos whether the section of pavement outside the houses is designated shared-use or not, so the conclusion is a bit of stretch at best, no ? If it is shared use then I find that fucking ridiculous - but that's not to say it is or isn't (perhaps local knowledge or Google maps would shed light on it). Still looks to be travelling way too fast for the environment, not stopping doesn't help.
Yes, it is - isn't it ?
I don't think Anybody has defend his actions at all.
My problem with all this is I wish people would get this upset about the 5 people a day that are killed and 60 serious injuries caused by motorists.
It's like getting upset about somebody shooting his nerf gun, whilst over the road motorists are running about with automatic weapons gunning people down, but we just accept that as normal.
I hope that the little girl is OK. The guy on the bike is absolutely in the wrong in the context of what happened but it's a pretty unsurprising event.
There seems to be a great deal of implicit promotion of pavement cycling on the whole. The police have been advised to use discretion when dealing with pavement cyclists and there seem to be shared use pavements or on-pavement cycle lanes popping up in every town. Very often these end with no re-integration with the main carriageway so in practical terms (although not legal) they keep cyclists on the pavement.
I don't read too much into the hit-and-run element. The cyclist was with two parents who were doubtless in an emotional state. He may have legitimately have been fearful of a physical confrontation and he did come forward later on.
You bloody well would have if it had been a car hitting a cyclist!!!!!!!
Please don't presume to know my opinion when I haven't stated it. FWIW you're absolutely wrong.
Bike rider was on the pavement where pedestrians have priority.
Bike rider knocked pedestrian over, therefore bike rider is in the wrong.
Is that too hard to understand?
All the nit picking over what happens on the road is incidental, and also goes someway to showing up Paul Boateng's advice for the sham that it is. as rather than leaving pavement riding to a police officer's discretion, he could have made it far more legally binding. Why didn't he?
Err..no…the cyclist was riding illegally. There’s no question of priority.
SMIDSY for cyclists…
My guess is that he didn’t see the kid run out in front of him, and then felt aggrieved because he thought that the kid had taken him down (even though it was actually his fault), so brushed himself off, probably in a bit of shock, and then rode off.
Change your scenario for a car illegally driving in a bike lane to avoid some congestion and while there speeding they hit a cyclist dragging them down the cycle path. They then stop to untangle the cyclist from the car before driving off sharpish...... the internet would now be in meltdown!
The shocking hypocrisy of so many cyclist who will go to any length to defend the actions of a dangerous cyclist even when the injured party is a toddler is quite sickening.
Oh drop the ridiculous posturing. Nobody is 'defending' the guy, you made that up.
It sounds like the guy behaved badly. He'd likely have behaved badly whatever his mode of travel. Let the law do its thing.
The only point being made beyond that is that this seems to be getting more media attention than the similar cases involving cars. You yourself said its 'even on media in the US' - does every collision involving a driver injuring a child in the UK get on US media?
(And I don't agree with pavement cycling, I've had enough run-ins with nerks doing that myself and I'd ban councils from employing the crap cop-out of 'shared use' in urban areas, if I had my way)
Really? "The Internet", known for its great love of people on bikes and intolerance of bad driving?
Yeah, right.
Has anyone got a google maps link to where this happened? There's a cycle lane sign in the background of the image of the cyclists face, curious to see the road lay out round there...
Yeah, I've seen this reported else where, I believe in starts about 100 yards further down the pavement, where the houses end. It muddies the water, a little, but it's not going to get your average daily mail read to put their pitchforks away.
Seems it just marks the start of an on-road cycle lane, not an on-pavement provision.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.821464,-3.03342,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1shc1ASZMZ44TrlCQi0c72IA!2e0!6m1!1e1
Looking at the road I'm unsurprised at the choice to ride on the pavements, although it's still not justified. The pavements are particularly wide and, with all the parked cars, the road is really quite narrow. I can imagine getting a hard time from following motorists for taking primary and staying out of the door-zone. The guy is absolutely in the wrong for being on the pavement but the way that the road space is being utilised certainly appears hostile to cyclists.
a) a very rare event
b) a home made video
c) relevant to a currently active vox-pop shitstorm
Therefore: in the taboids.
Therefore not news at all.
There is no denying this guy was riding like an utter twat on the pavement...but every story seems to perpetuate what is a falsehood, that is he fled the scene, and that it was a hit and run. There is a picture of the guy at the scene...does not compute...the daily mail media is well oiled and excels at spinning...
I'm sorry, but he was riding a bicycle ergo he was a cyclist. I don't know him, so I feel no sense of collective guilt, mind. Oh, and he behaved like a pillock, but still not my fault.
The kid should have been wearing a helmet and high viz clothing.
He was a cyclist at the time of the...(ha, caught myself about to call it an 'accident'!)...selfish and reckless behaviour. I don't really care about the use of the word. I don't think there's any point trying to confine it to some supposedly elite band of pedal-powered knights-of-the-road. It just means someone on a bicycle.
(I do care slightly, as others have said, that if every such event involving a driver got as much coverage as this story there would be little room for anything else in the newspapers - blasted "man-bites-dog" effect)
The reason it's big news is because it's so rare. At least society can take some comfort in the fact that a cyclist causing an injury is rare enough to warrant a major news story. The fact that it gets everyone frothing at the mouth is the bit that upsets me.
Rare???? BULLSH1T....
http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/57065/cyclists-almost-likely-injure-ped...
Not bullshit, it is still rare in absolute terms.
There aren't many pedestrians to hit on motorways & dual carriageways, so motor vehicles can travel vast distances without being able to threaten pedestrians.
So, the statistics should also include all the miles cycled on velodromes, turbo trainers etc
Yes, bullshit. If someone goes to hospital after an accident then it's recorded as a serious injury. When they go to hospital after being hit by a car, do you think they will be better or worse off than hit by a bike? So the stats behind that story are a bunch of arse.
Further, they've measured by miles travelled, where most miles travelled on a bike are in potential conflict with peds, unlike cars. So, again, I call arse on this story.
Yeah the dogdy maths used to come up with this story has been debunked a number of times.
http://www.ctc.org.uk/sites/default/files/file_public/pedestrians4rrv2.pdf
Watch out for HGVs, they love mowing people down on pavements.
From the article you link:
AKA most cyclist - pedestrian accidents are the fault of the pedestrian walking into the road without looking.
It's not a fair comparison.
A cursory glance at the figures suggests this is completely wrong, a cyclist kills a pedestrian about once a year, motors kill thousands. You can't base statistics on one a year.
20 serious injuries on paths a year is rare and is not BS.
The statistics behind that are total crap. It measures pedestrians injured as a factor of total distance traveled and somehow uses that number as a indicator of safety. There is no such link. One problem with this is that the overwhelming majority of miles driven is on roads (motorways and rural main roads) where there is no potential of conflict with pedestrians.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fil...
Lets look at how we can use statistics in another way. Imagine there are two cages; one cage contains a lion, a wolf, a crocodile and a tiger. The other cage contains a freshwater snail. Knowing that statistically the snail kills ten times as many humans as the other animals put together, which cage do you want to go in?
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