All who cycle in London deserve action from those who want our votes to become London’s next Mayor
When I last wrote in these pages emotions were running high.
Only days before, City worker Ying Tao had been killed cycling to her office across Bank junction, in a collision with a construction lorry. Tao’s death is the highest profile of the cyclist fatalities so far this year – all but one due to a collision with lorries.
But every victim has a story, however unseen, and the pain of the suddenly bereaved can scarcely be imagined. Who leaves for work in the morning thinking that there is a possibility they might not make it to the office alive? I imagine few bus or Tube passengers. But if you cycle, then the chances are that every near miss you have with a lorry makes you thank your lucky stars.
No commute should carry such risk.
Today the London Cycling Campaign sent the Mayor, Boris Johnson, a petition of more than 13,000 signatures calling on him to act to end lorry danger.
The loss of Londoners’ lives in collisions with lorries is a system failure that requires a systemic solution. Better cycling infrastructure will over time design out collisions at danger hotspots; but we also need action now to regulate lorries, allowing only the best equipped “direct vision” trucks on London’s streets and banning lorry movements in the morning rush hour.
The police and TfL must also crackdown on the worryingly high number of rogue drivers and operators who flout existing safety regulations.
Let me be clear once again: I’m not blaming the responsible operators who have taken steps to improve safety. But we can no longer treat such loss of life as an unavoidable fact of life. Things must change.
Although Boris Johnson can and must take action before he leaves office, he will have to hand over the baton to whoever succeeds him in May to complete the task.
That means the spotlight will soon turn onto Sadiq Khan, Zac Goldsmith, Caroline Pidgeon, Sian Berry and all the other candidates for London’s top job. We need to hear from them that they will take the difficult decisions necessary to save Londoner’s lives.
I leave the last word to David Muslin, who helped convey our petition to the Mayor today via a cross-party group of Assembly Members:
“I was hit by a lorry on Finchley Road in July 2013. But I’m lucky – I survived. The same year, 14 cyclists lost their lives to lorries in London. I don’t want anyone else on a bike, or on foot, to go through what I did – let alone what others have”.
All who cycle in London, like David, deserve action from those who want our votes to become London’s next Mayor.