Woman convicted of manslaughter after swearing and gesturing at 77 year old cyclist.

[Dadam]

if you've looked at the street side images of the pavement in question, surely you're aware that it's clearly not 2.4 meters wide.

Edit... having a second look... it might well be I believe the Renault van is just shy of 2 meters wide

I'd just gone to google that, and the latest model is 1956cm wide. https://www.renault.co.uk/van-range/trafic/specifications.html
I'd say it's entirely plausible the whole pavement is 2.4m, though the usable width is reduced slightly due to the signpost

 

[T4tomo]

show me an image with tape measure in it and I'll tell you clearly what it measures, for reasons explained above, you cant clearly say how much is measures.

It looks wider than a car, but again the angle of view on the cars and the road are different etc etc.

Anyway i never sought to say how wide it was, I just pointed out that claiming it was 1.64m from the projection image posted was fantasy.

 

[MontyVeda]

I'd just gone to google that, and the latest model is 1956cm wide. https://www.renault.co.uk/van-range/trafic/specifications.html
I'd say it's entirely plausible the whole pavement is 2.4m, though the usable width is reduced slightly due to the signpost

Aye. The first picture i saw it looked much narrower and i figured that's never shared use. Pictures can be misleading, it seems.

 

[Mike_P]

Pretty sure the shared path I was walking on last Saturday was in the order of 1.6m anyway, I moved close to the side to let a cyclist pass who thanked me.

 

[mjr]

And now we get this sort of thing.... (sigh)

Cyclists have been given a licence to ride on the pavement

Firstly, if that happened, it happened with the Boateng guidance back in 1999. I believe I wrote back then that it was fixing the wrong problem and all cycleways should be preferably brought up to the minimum standards seen in neighbouring countries (and finally in England&Wales since 2020) or, as a last resort, the cycleway stopped up and the adjacent carriageway speed limit lowered to 20mph to allow safe mixed traffic. But ministerial instruction to ride on pavements is what we've got.

Secondly, it only excuses those "who show consideration to other pavement users". I suspect the victim in this case was one who would do that, but we never get the chance to see it on the CCTV because of the pre-emptive attack.

Thirdly, this stretch appears to have been a cycleway after all, not merely the pavement.

And most importantly, if you see someone breaking the law, you're still not normally allowed to kill them! The shoot writing in the Spectator seems at pains to ignore that this was not merely someone "who objects to a cyclist in his or her pavement path" and "put my hand out to keep an intruding cyclist at bay" but someone who went on the attack violently, effing and blinding. It also seeks to excuse the author failing to follow the highway code in several ways, including "hooting at a cyclist, taking one hand off the wheel to point demonstratively at the mostly empty cycle lane that has been expensively paid for with my taxes". I bet she's never ridden at that cycle lane and has no clue about the relative amounts spent on motorways, motor-dominated carriageways and so-called "expensively paid for" cycle lanes.

 

[matticus]

If the width of the pavement were in question, you would have hoped (for the sake of due process) that defending counsel would have had it measured and brought into evidence.

The thing is, BOTH sets of lawyers had the chance to raise this, and neither seemed to think it would affect the outcome much.
Given their expertise level and knowledge of evidence that we haven't even seen, I'm happy to assume that the exact width - measured to the inch - did not materially affect the outcome of this hearing.

 

[mjr]

The thing is, BOTH sets of lawyers had the chance to raise this, and neither seemed to think it would affect the outcome much.
Given their expertise level and knowledge of evidence that we haven't even seen, I'm happy to assume that the exact width - measured to the inch - did not materially affect the outcome of this hearing.

Yes, I've been shouted at for riding on a wide cycleway before and I suspect Ms Grey would probably have gone on the offensive even on an as-recommended 3m path. Probably even a 5m one, but that may have been wide enough for Mrs Ward to avoid her.

The path in this case seems both wide enough for walkers and slower riders to share fairly comfortably, but also much narrower than the current recommendation (3m effective width, allowing 0.5m clearance around posts, but even that is not intended for urban areas in general: cycling and walking should have their own lanes there) and not wide enough to avoid a walker determined to hit you.

A decisive aspect of this case seems to be that the assault was a disproportionate response to someone riding where you think they ought not, and that does not depend on the path width or its status.

 

[KnittyNorah]

Yes, I've been shouted at for riding on a wide cycleway before and I suspect Ms Grey would probably have gone on the offensive even on an as-recommended 3m path. Probably even a 5m one, but that may have been wide enough for Mrs Ward to avoid her.

The path in this case seems both wide enough for walkers and slower riders to share fairly comfortably, but also much narrower than the current recommendation (3m effective width, allowing 0.5m clearance around posts, but even that is not intended for urban areas in general: cycling and walking should have their own lanes there) and not wide enough to avoid a walker determined to hit you.

A decisive aspect of this case seems to be that the assault was a disproportionate response to someone riding where you think they ought not, and that does not depend on the path width or its status.

I've been shouted at for riding on a wide cycleway, too. The thing that was SO funny was that the person who yelled at me to get off my bike and not ask her to put her dogs on a lead because this is a dog-walkers path, was actually standing on the stencilled bicycle which indicates which half of the path is for whom.
This was not pointed out by me, but by a fellow passing - also walking a dog - who winked at me and said loudly 'hello Maureen, why are you standing on the bike path'.

 

[HMS_Dave]

I've been shouted at for riding on a wide cycleway, too. The thing that was SO funny was that the person who yelled at me to get off my bike and not ask her to put her dogs on a lead because this is a dog-walkers path, was actually standing on the stencilled bicycle which indicates which half of the path is for whom.
This was not pointed out by me, but by a fellow passing - also walking a dog - who winked at me and said loudly 'hello Maureen, why are you standing on the bike path'.

They're just doing what the gutter press rags are instructing them to do. Hate cyclists. They don't know why they should hate them, hence when you ask them that question, their responses are the same. Red lights, Pavements, lycra etc... This is not a reasonable response unless they also shout at motorists who drive on pavements to park, fail to signal and also drive through red lights. The sad fact is they don't know why they hate cyclists, they are just being pliable and compliant. Sure people have and do get killed by cyclists. It is an extremely rare occurrence to the point that it usually makes national press for the above reasons, but you are 10 times more likely to strangle yourself to death in your sleep, 5 times more likely to be killed by wasps and bees, 4 times more likely to be killed by be dogs and many 100's of times more likely from a car. Where i lived as a kid, they'd have a field day. There was at least 2 old ladies that rode old Raleighs to the shops, mostly on the pavement and people would stop and chat to them, one used to give me 10p for sweets. They were never shouted at or attacked. Im not condoning pavement cycling at all by the way, but pointing out the disproportionate hate levelled at cyclists for very little reason. We're losing our minds these days...

 

[presta]

An interesting thread on Twitter here, in the light of this story.


View: https://twitter.com/AdamBronkhorst/status/1632740682770128898

 

[icowden]

An interesting thread on Twitter here, in the light of this story.

It's a little bit of a false conflation in my view. Yes, the path is part of a cycle route and yes this chap is allowed to be on it, and yes the family probably shouldn't have sworn at him and had a pop, but on the other hand he was cycling quite quickly at them. If it had been me, I'd have stopped in order to safely pass them.

He says in his tweets that he "slowed down to 6mph". That's still quite quick for a route as narrow as this - as is evidenced by his camera.

 

[matticus]

He says in his tweets that he "slowed down to 6mph". That's still quite quick for a route as narrow as this - as is evidenced by his camera.

It's about the pace of someone running the London Marathon in 4.5 hours. (I haven't seen the video).

 

[Alex321]

He says in his tweets that he "slowed down to 6mph". That's still quite quick for a route as narrow as this - as is evidenced by his camera.

It is only about twice the average walking speed.

 

[icowden]

It is only about twice the average walking speed.

So running. Now imagine the runner running towards you is carrying a long pole and refuses to slow down.
That's what's happening in that clip.

Most runners in that situation would slow down, to make sure they got past the family safely.

Also we only have his report that he was *actually* slowed down to 6mph and we don't know at which point he actually reached 6mph. I'd submit that that point was quite close to the family based on the footage, if he actually reached it at all.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

I believe he did slow to around 6mph but, in my opinion, given how narrow the path is and the fact there was a young child, he could have gone even slower still or stopped. It’s a shared use space where pedestrians have priority.

I don’t think he’s done himself any favours with this and I suspect he realises this now since he has turned off replies.