KILLSPILLS CELEBRATION RIDE 20th SEPTEMBER 2008 – London
Hi,
My name is Stephen Edwards and I founded the KillSpills road safety campaign back in 2003, the campaign is run by a small group of volunteer motorcyclists who want to make our roads safer for all road users.
Since 2004 and with the help of the Metropolitan Police BikeSafe London team we have organised various events to highlight the dangers that diesel spills represent to road users. In 2007 we set a new Guinness World Record as part of our publicity event.
As a campaigning group, we have been invited to meetings at the Palace of Westminster to update members of both Houses as to the progress we have made. I now sit on two Department for Transport groups and am working with the DfT to remove the danger of diesel spills from our roads.
To date, this has been a motorcycle led campaign, however we are aware that cyclists are just as vulnerable as bikers to this danger.
We have been contacted by David Walters who’s friend was tragically killed as a result of a diesel spill when he was taking part in the London to Paris ride. He has asked if cyclists could join us on what is planned to be our last ever London run. As a campaign group, we would welcome the involvement of cyclists to help highlight this danger.
I have spoken to the Police, who will be overseeing the event, and they have agreed that we can include around 50 cyclists in the final part of the run.
Our route will take the motorbikes from the Ace Café to Parliament, with a full police escort. Junctions are closed and we have an uninterrupted run to Parliament.
Obviously, we would need to segregate cycles and bikes. We have agreed with the Police that we will meet up with cyclists at Constitution Hill. Bikes and cyclists (segregated by the police will head down the Mall, through Trafalgar square to Parliament. KillSpills will call into Downing Street to hand in our report to the Prime Minister, and them the ride will return to the Ace Café, again with Police escort. The cyclists would again ride with us to Constitution Hill.
We need to be able to identify cyclists taking part in the ride with us. We are providing all riders with KillSpills t shirts to be worn over their riding kit, we have ordered some spare t shirts for cyclists. That way the Police know who is officially in the ride.
Diesel spills are lethal to road users, particularly for us on two wheels.
I hope you will consider joining us this year, this is not a publicity stunt, we as a group of bikers are committed to improving road safety for all road users. … especially those of us on two wheels, whether they have an engine or pedals.
You can visit our website
www.killspills.org.uk for more information.
If you would like to join in, please e mail me
steve@killspills.org.uk and I can add your name to the list. I will need to know what size t shirt you will need and an address to send the t shirt and itinerary to.
Kind regards and ride safe
Stephen Edwards
KillSpills
), and the sheer weight of numbers caused the police outriders and marshals a real headache as we had to block the side roads for up to 20 minutes to keep the group together, so this one is by invitation only and the numbers are strictly limited.
- probably from the local bus depot (I've traced loads back to there over the last 10 years)
