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Broken bike (CC licensed image by garryknight, www.flickr.com)Cyclist killed in bus crash in Whitechapel
A male cyclist has died after being hit by a double-decker bus at the junction of Whitechapel Road and Commercial Road in east London. The as-yet-unnamed man is the fifth bike rider to die on London's roads in nine days in a collision that came just hours after a protest vigil for the rider killed at Bow roundabout yesterday morning.
London Ambulance Service and police were called to the scene at 11:30pm on Wednesday, November 13 after a passing paramedic raised the alarm. Two ambulance crews and an air ambulance doctor attended the man, who was treated for serious head injuries at the scene. He was taken to Royal London Trauma Centre but was pronounced dead at approximately 4am on Thursday, November 14.
Cycle Superhighway 2 passes though the junction of Commercial Road and Whitechapel Road, which is just a few yards from where French student Philippine De Gerin-Ricard was killed in July.
Scotland Yard said that the male bus driver was treated at the scene for shock. Enquiries are underway to locate the cyclist’s next of kin. There have been no arrests and enquiries continue.
A workman at the scene, who did not want to be named, told the Evening Standard: “I heard a bang and a screech of brakes, turned around and saw the cyclist on the ground.
“There were lots of people milling around at the time but it was a taxi driver who was the first one to get out and help. Then another guy came up with a first aid kit but the police and ambulances got there within minutes.”
Eyewitness Anthony Hill, a writer from Bethnal Green, said: “I was on the 25 bus home after an evening out in the West End when I noticed blue lights and an ambulance in the road.
“Police had blocked off the westbound side of Whitechapel Road at the junction where Aldgate East station is. I saw a damaged pushbike lying on a traffic island, and a black cab with one of its front wheels half mounted on the kerb.
“There was also some debris in the road. It’s not the first cyclist incident I’ve seen the aftermath of at this junction.
“I was also passing by on the evening a foreign student was killed there a few months back. My girlfriend, who was sitting with me on the bus, and I both said ‘let’s just hope this one’s okay’. It shocks me anyone is still brave enough to cycle round here.”
The Mayor of London's cycling commissioner, Andrew Gilligan, told the BBC: "The danger in the current atmosphere of understandable alarm and concern is that we rush into some panic measure which actually makes things worse."
He said that there were three deaths in the first six and a half months of the year in similar road conditions to now.
Mr Gilligan admitted that the death toll after nine days was "extraordinary" and said: "From the beginning, Superhighway 2 has been little more than blue paint and I've been pressing to change it."
He said plans to upgrade all the superhighway routes will go out to consultation in four months and that it would take 11 months for changes to happen.
He added that there were 69 pedestrian deaths last year but that pedestrians do not have as strong a voice in the media.
Anyone with any information or witnesses to the collision are asked to call the police non-emergency line on 101.
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.
Latest Comments
- E6toSE3 12 hours 18 min ago
I've posted before about being 69, lifelong cyclist as my main transport, much of it in, through, under, over London and how it's bicycles that...
- David9694 13 hours 20 min ago
I hope you're all checking your insurance policies, helmets, test certificates and road tax, it's the 2024 round-up...
- check12 15 hours 1 min ago
200 people out of a close by population of how many? Just build it and stop being a wuss
- Spangly Shiny 16 hours 34 min ago
To paraphrase Field of Dreams, "Build it right and they will come: and use it!"
- Rendel Harris 18 hours 55 min ago
And a Happy Christmas to you, road.cc staff!
- Rendel Harris 19 hours 43 min ago
The odds of not being able to find a single pedestrian - just one, note, "any pedestrian" - in an area containing more than about ten of them who...
- bikeman01 21 hours 22 min ago
I love how wannabe racer reviewers talk about fork flex under braking like their tyres are made of glue. I find traction gives long before fork flex.
- hawkinspeter 22 hours 29 min ago
They don't make them like they used to
- LongitudeLatitude 23 hours 19 min ago
Thanks for using my picture of chocolate in your opening picture. The original can be found here, chocolate! | LongitudeLatitude | Flickr.
- lesterama 23 hours 46 min ago
Fair comments. I'll put my hands up and say I got the wrong end of the stick with this one. ¡Feliz navidad! Here's a pic for the season of goodwill.
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27 comments
An update on today's inquest.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/cyclist-killed-in-spate-of-london-...
Regardless of the causes, there's an interesting quotation about helmets, from the pathologist.
RIP.
+1 with fluffy. I've been in situations when crossing a side street when motorists have deliberately accelerated at me or swung in regardless of my having read the road and given plenty of time to cross.
That seems to be every single time... drivers act as if they have right of way.
I delayed work this morning to write a bit about the current state of affairs - it's just wrong by every standard you can apply!
http://themartincox.co.uk/2013/11/roads/
Just watched the ITV lunchtime news.
TFL reps were saying that the cyclist exited from a one-way street the wrong way. This was followed by Mayor BJ saying we should respect the rules and not take so many risks.
I don't think ITV should have given such prominence to such a biased view before there is a full inquiry.
This could be the prelude to a court case. Is Sub-judice (spelling ?) still around, or was that taken away from us by Europe as well ?
Very much still with us, if you look at the madeline macain (sp?) case the portuguese police do not say anything because of teh way there legal system works. The uk system claims innocent until guilty, the reality is trial by media.
I try to avoid getting wound up by stuff I read after these incidents, but I've just seen some quotes attributed to Boris Johnson that absolutely disgust me.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/14/fifth-london-bike-death-b...
To paraphrase, "You can't attribute blame without all the facts, but cyclists go through red lights".
What London bus drivers think of us:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24937699
although I am sure the BBC would admit, this is hardly a representative sample.
Depressing nonetheless.
Who are these one-legged cyclists causing all the aggro to that driver?
Hopefully the reporter got some more reasonable responses that were left out for not being antagonistic enough.
At least the driver quoted on the comparison piece (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24930598) comes across as more balanced.
Automobiles have killed more people in the hundred or so years they have been around, than all the people killed by all wars in human history
Whilst compelling, I'm not sure that this statement is true...see:
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672161/infographic-how-people-died-in-the-2...
RIP in this and all other cases
An analysis of pedestrian deaths in London can be found here:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/pedestrian-fatalities-i...
It's a fcking terrifying road, frankly. Boris has blood on his hands encouraging people to cycle there.
Automobiles have killed more people in the hundred or so years they have been around, than all the people killed by all wars in human history. I heard Jeremy Clarksson say this , but I imagine, he was trying to shoot the fox. If he said it its out of the way.
In a few years most cars will be driven by computers, and they will be much safer. Until then we are in a dark and mad age of road carnage.
One thing though, the 3000 pedestrians or so killed by cars a year. Bet the majority are children. Something not brought to our attention by the news services.
The car lobby, like the tobacco lobby in the 1960's, has massive influence over our politicians and media, it would seem.
Not again, my sympathies to yet another bereaved family.
Considering the pedestrian fatalities as well, we tolerate far too many deaths at the hands of (often badly driven) vehicles.
Attitudes have to change and the media has a massive role to play in this.
Terrible, terrible news.
I also am shocked by the statistics on pedestrian deaths - but I suppose dreadful as it is, since basically everyone is a pedestrian, proportionately the number of deaths isn't so huge?
Taking Gilligan's point about pedestrian's voice in the media, I can't see that many people would classify themselves as "a pedestrian" - at least to the extent that they would establish / join a pressure group that would be represented in the media. That said, advertising on road safety seems to me to be heavily focused at teenagers crossing the road - it may be my perception, but I don't remember seeing a lot of posters/tv adverts promoting safe cycling?
RIP to all those who have suffered over the past couple of weeks. I really don't know whats going on... So sad.
Just came across this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24930598 it is a refreshing article to read from both points of view.
Intresting point he makes about pedestrains though, theres no pavement.com group making a noise.
Perhaps including them when describing the problem would add weight to arguments and help properly identify the cause.
RIP this soul and all the others.
Not entirely. I think it is a distracting comment. As a pedestrian I do not feel in danger walking on the pavement. The only point at which I am in danger is crossing the road, and you can either freestyle it or use a zebra or pelican crossing. If you freestyle it you are obviously taking a risk yourself, and the comeuppance you receive is your own reward. Pedestrians who are hit using the other means are naturally in the all clear and it is the car driver who is in the wrong.
Also, with the numbers of pedestrians (given the population of London it is 7 million or so) the numbers of deaths is still proportionately low.
"As a pedestrian I do not feel in danger walking on the pavement."
Around 40 pedestrians are killed by vehicles on UK footways each year.
What?
Where do you get this stuff from? Are you just making up your own moral code as you go along?
I'm not borrowing yours then?!
I just mean that when you take to cross the road it is an exercise of judgement. If you get it wrong then you do rather risk a lot. Unless a driver makes an unexpected acceleration you enter that risk yourself and voluntarily. I'm not saying that cars won't try to avoid you, but you are entering in to a place where as a pedestrian you do not have right of way.
If you like though I can create a whole new moral code. Rule no.5 will definitely be 'toughen the f**k up' though.
Well, as pointed out further up, pedestrians get killed on the footway.
Pedestrians also get killed on zebra crossings and on designated crossings on their green.
And actually pedestrians do have priority when a car is turning into a road they are crossing https://www.gov.uk/using-the-road-159-to-203/road-junctions-170-to-183
So there are really rather a lot of situations where pedestrians are behaving within the law and within their rights, and can still be killed and injured by drivers breaking the law or driving carelessly.
Wrong. In a great many cases a pedestrian does have right of way. And in any case that's not what you said. You said that if you cross anywhere other than a zebra or pelican crossing then any accident is your own fault. That's flat-out not true, both legally and morally. If a motorist hits you while you are crossing it can certainly be legally the motorist's fault (for example, if you look, cross when the road is clear, and then a car comes whizzing out, possibly over the speed limit, of a side-road without giving way and into the road you are already part-way across). In still more cases it would be morally the motorist's fault (the law is mostly an arse in any case).
Maybe you in fact know this but you just didn't express yourself very clearly to begin with?
I mean, you clearly said that if you cross anywhere other than a zebra or pelican and you are hurt that would be your "comuppance" ergo something you _deserved_ for doing something 'wrong'. That's just morally and factually mistaken. There is no obligation to cross at a zebra, and motorists have obligations towards crossing pedestrians wherever they cross. Which obviously is not to say its a motorist's fault if someone jumps out from behind a parked vehicle right in front of them.
No idea what your last comment is supposed to mean.
Another tragic tale.
Stay safe out there people.
Whatever the reasons for this accident its another sad day for cyclists, my condolences go out to the family.
Yup. RIP