Dangerous Cycling Bill dead

[Red Light]

"The Bill was not moved for debate on 20 January 2012. The order to read the Bill a second time lapsed. There is no indication when the Bill will progress further."
http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/dangerousandrecklesscyclingoffences.html

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

RIP Bill. I suppose he had it coming, the way he cycled.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Don't cheer too soon. It was a ten minute rule bill and these rarely progress. Having set a hare running Mrs Leadsom hopes the govt will chase it down. Mike Penman's media responses suggested the coalition didn't wholly dismiss the idea.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/82012.stm

 

[dawesome]

Leadsom's explanation of the case, as explained both in the House of Commons and, in very similar words for a post she wrote for the Bike Blog, went as follows:

In 2007, Rhiannon Bennett was walking with friends on a pavement when a cyclist approached at speed yelling, "Move, because I'm not stopping." He hit Rhiannon who fell and smashed her head on the kerb. She was taken to hospital but died six days later.​

​

While it is, without any doubt, a tragic and heartbreaking case, Leadsom's account of it seems to be a notable over-simplification. Thecourt case heard conflicting evidence about whether the cyclist involved, Jason Howard, ever mounted the pavement, and whether Rhiannon and her friends might have been standing in the road. I spoke to two local newspaper reporters who covered the trial and they both told me they didn't recognise Leadsom's version of events.
I had a long debate with Leadsom's office about this, and they pointed to the conclusions of the subsequent inquest, where the coroner decided that "some part of Rhiannon was on the pavement" when she was hit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environme...erous-cycling?commentpage=3#start-of-comments

Andrea Leadsom had this story on her website. It was extremely dishonest, it contained claims that were untrue and seemed designed to demonise the cyclist. (The cyclist was the only person to offer aid to the girl, he put her in the recovery position).
Leadsome was told, by me and other people, that her story was wrong and her claims were bogus. She deleted all these posts from her website, and then went on to repeat things SHE KNEW WERE UNTRUE, on the BBC Radio 4 law programme with Joshua Rozenberg.

 

[StuartG]

Were you surprised Dawesome?

On yet another anti-cyclist rant on the community forum I run a nurse stated categorically that pedestrian cyclists kill and had done so in our borough to somebody she had nursed. Knowing this was untrue and that she might mistakenly be referring to a death of an elderly man crossing a road (i.e. neither he or the cyclist was on the pavement) I challenged her to find some evidence.

She couldn't as it "had been suppressed by the press". No, she could not remember when it was or how she had been told. You really can't win these arguements. A certain group of people have decided what they want to believe and that's it. Telling them to check the facts just winds them up even more. Especially if they are local politicians.

I have no idea what you can do about it beyond making a bad situation worse.