MP says justice system too often fails to punish drivers who hit cyclists

It's the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group again! They will make lots of positive recommendations, which will be recorded, and then filed away, and forgotten. No change to the justice system will occur.

Don't forget that this is the parliamentary group which has existed for years, but has yet to do anything of use to bike riders.

I agree about the justice system being useless,

I got wiped out by a bus last week. It clipped me while overtaking causing me to fall into the path of the following traffic. The impacts with the side of the bus and the kerb were so hard, that the front wheel was buckled beyond repair, breaking spokes in the process.

Somehow, I failed to make a note of the registration as I was sliding backwards down the road. Notwithstanding that my GPS has recorded the precise, time, location, when I started braking and speed at impact, the police are not interested. They have not so far, despite a request in writing, released the witness statement. Busses have way point telemetry, so it should not have been that hard to trace.

I have discovered that the accident form "Stats 19" can be down loaded from the internet. So I filled it in and sent it off by post, having failed to get the accident recorded when I attended a police station.

Does the justice system care about cyclists?

Not in my experience.

An absolutely incredible piece of victim blaming by Dr Helen Measures and her legal coaching staff in that court case. Making it out as if it was the cyclists fault for panicking and falling off her bike, when she was performing a dangerous overtaking manouever.

The worst thing is that a jury found her not guilty. She was on the wrong side of the road. She's on record as saying she couldn't see 100 percent of the road.

Her lawyer introduced her as a person of high moral standing, a cancer specialist, a church goer. So what? Drivers like her are part of the cancer on our roads.

Reading up on the case the judge waxed lyrical about the defendants moral character, yet at no point was the moral character of the victim even brought up, let alone defended.

How are cyclists ever going to get justice when the judicial system and juries are this biased and stupid?

If you look up Helen Measures on Google you find that-Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.

All this sounds well and good, but will anything change?  After all, these are politicians.

I hope they'll go on to discuss cycle facilities, how bad most of them are, and the lack of them, but still, a good start.

Haven't heard it reported on the news though, far too full of Brexit and air pollution, and the air pollution stuff never mentions cycling except to tell you to stop it when pollution is high.

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If that is all that can be highlighted in the first of 5 hearings, then I fear that the full extent of the challenges and changes required will not receive the time required to get sufficient momentum for any appreciable changes.