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Cyclists killed on A30 named as Toby Wallace and Andrew McMenigall

Dedicated cyclists were riding Land's End to John O'Groats ...

The names of the two riders killed when they were hit by a lorry on the A30 on Tuesday morning have been revealed as Toby Wallace, 36 and Andrew McMenigall, 47.

As was speculated at the time, the two had just started a Land's End to John O'Groats ride when they were hit, according to a report from the BBC.

The two were colleagues at Aberdeen Asset Management where Andrew McMenigall, from Edinburgh, was a senior investment manager and Toby Wallace worked in the company's Philadelphia office.

They were riding the length of Great Britain to raise funds for the Kirsten Scott Memorial Trust, which was set up in memory of a colleague who lost her battle with cancer in October 2011.

Athletes & family men

Toby and Andrew were dedicated sportsmen and cyclists. Andrew McMenigall was a triathlete who had graduated as an Army officer from Sandhurst then qualified as an MBA at Edinburgh University. He was married and had two daughters.

Toby Wallace also leaves a wife. He was a senior relationship manager at Aberdeen Asset Management, joining the company in 2000 after graduating from Jesus College Cambridge.

He had been a member of the winning team in the 1998 and 1999 University Boat Races and had been part of an eight-man crew that rowed across the Atlantic in 2012 to raise money for the Kirsten Scott Memorial Trust.

Dedicated and popular

Martin Gilbert, chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management, said: "I knew both Andrew and Toby well.

"They were dedicated and popular members of our senior team. The fact that they died in such tragic circumstances while trying to help others less fortunate tells you much about their selflessness and humanity.

"This is a terrible time for the company. More importantly our thoughts are with the families of Andrew and Toby.

"We will be doing everything we can to support them."

Andrew Scott, Kirsten's brother and one of the trustees of the Kirsten Scott Memorial Trust, said: "We learnt on Tuesday evening of the terrible news that Toby Wallace and Andrew McMenigall had both died in a cycling accident.

"Their fund raising efforts have meant so much in helping to establish a trust in Kirsten's name to support young people under 26.

"We are all devastated to learn of this dreadful accident. Our thoughts and prayers are with Toby and Andrew's families and friends at this sad time."

Driver arrested

The driver of the lorry, a man in his 30s from Holsworthy in Devon, was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and released on police bail.

Pictures from the scene showed the lorry carrying the logo of Launceston, Cornwall company Frys Logistics.

The driver of the lorry, a man in his 30s from Holsworthy in Devon, was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and released on police bail.

Pictures from the scene show the lorry carrying the logo of Launceston, Cornwall company Frys Logistics.

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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11 comments

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dog_film | 11 years ago
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Just sick to the back teeth of this now. Week in and week out more cyclists seem to be being killed and there killers given paltry sentences. Every single cyclist can tell a tale of either someone they know or the near misses they have on a daily basis. Why is it that the thing we do that makes us feel alive nearly causes our demise?

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rickallison | 11 years ago
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Typical for the police to instill the seed of doubt as to whos to blame too much paperwork for them to prosecute.

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jazzykoenig | 11 years ago
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Very sad. I just can't understand why someone would ride by choice on the A30, it's just so dangerous.

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Leviathan | 11 years ago
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I've just seen the photos of the bikes on a newspaper website, they are completely crushed. It is truly inexplicable how a driver could collide with some cyclists so completely on a straight piece of road. Truly gut wrenchingly horrific, beyond sad or a shame, all for the momentary inconvenience of one van driver.

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fancynancy | 11 years ago
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This is so sad. RIP Toby & Andrew.

On a similar note, I was cycling to work today & I experienced terrible aggression from a HGV driver carrying one of those huge shipping containers. He had no awareness of the large number of bikes around him & was happily speeding along to the next set of traffic lights at what seemed like 40mph. I wouldnt have been surprised if there was an accident. Some people shouldn't be allowed to drive those huge vehicles. They seem to have no responsibility for those around them & the damage they can do.

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STATO replied to fancynancy | 11 years ago
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fancynancy wrote:

On a similar note, I was cycling to work today & I experienced terrible aggression from a HGV driver carrying one of those huge shipping containers.

Dont want to distract from this main point of this topic, very sad news, but please fancy in instances like that, take a moment to note the guys reg and report them to the police. If you dont do it then its unlikely that anyone else will. People may say it wont change anything, but if you dont try you wont know.

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gazza_d replied to STATO | 11 years ago
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as well as the Police, report driver's behaviour to the company as well. You will often get a more positive result from them.

Back on topic, this was an appalling tragedy.

Disgraceful victim blaming by the Police here http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Driver-arrested-death-cyclists/story-194...

The cyclists were legally allowed to be on the A30. There is often no alternative to roads like that, for even short distances.

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oozaveared replied to gazza_d | 10 years ago
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gazza_d wrote:

as well as the Police, report driver's behaviour to the company as well. You will often get a more positive result from them.

Yes I did this but I was actually driving. I watched a smaller Kingsmill Bakery lorry go through a 30mph zone of a winding road through Gomshall in Surrey at probably 50mph. I was behind him and he accelerated away from me out of sight. The road then speeds up and I caught up with him at the back of a line of traffic doing 40mph. As we approached Westcott in Surrey he overtook a cyclist on double white lines over the crest of a hill and then had to dart back in cutting up the cyclist who had to take evasive action to avoid being swiped by the back of the lorry.

When stationary at the lights in Dorking I took note of the reg number on the back of the vehicle and the "how's my driving" number and reported him. About a week later I had a call from a senior logistics manager at Kingsmill to ask for more details. A week after that I had a call to tell me that on my report they looked at the taco in the vehicle and mathched the routes driven and found that he was consistently speeding and by a long chalk and that he had been dismissed.

It is worth it. My wife is head of HR and her company has a lot of vans on the road. They take a random sample from the GPS output every month. Several people have been dismissed on the basis of that but only when they first started the policy. Now the drivers know they can be tracked their hasn't been any issues for ages. Just proving the old management adage "what gets monitored gets done". They have the company livery on so it is a matter of corporate appearance but also the corporate manslaughter rule changes means that are responsible for having policies and procedures in place to cover them should one of the drivers kill anyone. And apart from that this policy lowers their insurance costs.

Not all companies are like this. But many are. They are not keen on having their liveried vehicles bringing them into disrepute, hiking their insurance costs and landing one of their directors in court for not keeping their drivers under control.

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fancynancy replied to STATO | 11 years ago
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Agreed, sorry STATO, nor did I want to go off topic.

Thanks for the advise.

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swelbo | 11 years ago
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Shame every driver everywhere can't/won't read this..

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merckxman | 11 years ago
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So sad, especially when riding to raise money for a good cause, lets hope if the driver is proven to be at fault then the courts make an example of him..

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