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news
broken bike.jpgCyclist killed when pedestrian stepped out in front of him may have been prosecuted had he survived
The family of a Reading cyclist who died after a pedestrian stepped out into the road in front of him, causing a crash, were told he may have faced prosecution had he survived, it has emerged.
Benjamin Pedley, aged 26, died from head injuries sustained following the collision in Earley, near Reading, with Nathan Kellsell in March this year. At an inquest earlier this month, witnesses described how the pedestrian had walked into the road without seeing him.
> Berkshire cyclist died after pedestrian stepped out in front of him, finds inquest
Mr Kellsell was also injured and has no memory of the incident, and Mr Pedley’s brother William has told Get Reading that police informed him that had the rider survived, he could have been prosecuted.
However, he and his family believe that pedestrians who step into the road causing a cyclist to crash should be held to account for their actions.
"It is an incredibly sad but avoidable death,” he said. "But I spoke to police officers who said if Ben had survived and was healthy there would be a chance that he would be prosecuted as a road user.
"And yet there is no comeuppance for a pedestrian,” he continued. "At the moment there is no law to say that if you step out into a road you are responsible for your actions.
"Potentially one could step out in front of somebody you have a vendetta against and nothing would happen about it.
"Surely the law needs to be changed so that when you step into a road, you are responsible for your actions," he added.
The news comes in a week that London cyclist Charlie Alliston was sentenced to 18 months’ detention in a young offender institution in connection with the death of pedestrian Kim Briggs.
Last month, an Old Bailey jury cleared Alliston of manslaughter but convicted him of causing bodily harm by furious and wanton driving under the Offences Against The Person Act 1
Mrs Briggs had started to cross London’s Old Street as Alliston approached, with much of the prosecution’s case resting on the fact that his fixed wheel bike had no front brake, meaning it was not legal for use on the road.
That case, and the media furore surrounding it, prompted the government to announce last night an urgent review of the law regarding cyclists, including whether offences of causing death by dangerous or careless cycling should be introduced.
> Government announces cycle safety review in wake of Alliston case
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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88 comments
Are you including these examples as how not to ride?
I just watched both those videos . In the zebra crossing one, you are 100% in the wrong. You do not enter the zebra crossing until it's clear (precisely because of this eventuality). Second video, you can see kids playing, you need to be aware. Move out to take the centre of the road.
If you think these examples show that you are a good responsible rider, please reconsider.
This. I watched the videos and was baffled that you'd post this as evidence that cyclists need legal protection from pedestrians. If you run into a pedestrian on a zebra crossing, you're in the wrong. You ran the crossing after seeing someone step onto it, and undertaking a car that was blocking your view of people crossing the other way. Even if the pedestrian hadn't done something odd, you could easily have run over someone crossing from the right. In the second one, you had plenty of time to see the kids were running around in the road. You just assumed that they were not going to go round again despite seeing one go round towards the back of the car. An easy mistake to make if you're not paying close attention (I could easily have made the same error if distracted) but ultimately you had a good chance to avoid it. If the kid had appeared from no-where in the same gap, I'd have had a lot more sympathy for your situation, and this does happen. Another good reason for riding primary position past parked cars - gives you a slightly better chance to brake before hitting such kids, so the chances of serious injury to either of you are lower. You may avoid them altogether.
To be fair, whislt the first video is an example of terrible cycling, the second one is OK in my opinion. The rider had slowed and moved to the centre of teh road in a pre-emptive manner.
The fact that the riders could all but stop in time shows that it was perfectly acceptible cycling.
Not so the first video... poor form.
What a f***ing tw*t
I agree with you 100%.
General rule if you see children or animals especially dogs on leads you slow down as they are unpredicatable.
I don't think we're supposed to keep children on leads these days.
Amen to that, I'd be ashamed to have these videos on my hard drive.
Deleted
For the sake of cyclists everywhere please take these of Youtube ASAP! I had a few incidents like this when I was young and learned from them. Always be prepared to stop approaching zebra crossings and when you see children playing in the street.
Neither of those are good cycling technique. But I still think they fall into the category of understandable errors (assuming the cyclist is inexperienced).
In the first one, the cyclist should have stopped or at least slowed to a crawl (legally I'm pretty sure you have to stop if a ped is on a zebra crossing, even if they've gone beyond the part where you are). But I think the behaviour of the motorist is worse, even inexplicable.
Poor ped, caught between a crap driver and a bad cyclist.
In the second one while the cyclist should have been aware that little kids tend to run around randomly without looking, it is still true that the child was lucky it wasn't a car. That road is too narrow for two way traffic plus two lanes of parking anyway. Bar it to cars, ban parking, or make it one-way!
As others have said, these are examples of how NOT to ride well.
Have you passed your driving test ? You never cross a zebra until the person is clear - to avoid cases like this. Undertaking a car with a pedestrian so close was incredibly stupid.
With the kids - I'd have been expecting that. Expect the worst and you won't be too far wrong.
If I were you I'd be deleting those videos. It doesn't make you look good.
Lots of local authorities do traffic cycling sessions - perhaps the OP should take one of those? Would help the OP on their hazard perception. Depending where you live or work they are free or cost up to £30.
How the hell did you not see the impending hazards in both of these videos and why did you not slow down?
Presumably this is some sort of wind up, or trying to get someone else in trouble. If not, I'd definitely not have those videos on public view, if it was me.
If I were you, I'd take those videos down as they could be used as evidence against you (e.g. a future collision).
The zebra crossing was simply bizarre - why did the car driver try to go forwards? A pedestrian has priority when on a zebra crossing (although you don't necessarily have to stop if someone is waiting to cross) and you should have been a perfectly good view of what was going on, so I'd say that collision was entirely preventable and your fault.
The children playing on the side of the road and then chasing into the road was careless on your part. Yes, they shouldn't have run into the road, but you had clear sight of them as you turned into the road and you should have predicted that they could run into the road - running children are a well-known hazard. I would have moved further into the middle of the road after seeing children running on the pavement - more space for moving/braking and the possibility of avoiding without having to slow down.
A good tip with using helmet cameras is to review footage like that and try to impartially think what you could do to predict/avoid those situations in future. Learn from it rather than just blaming other people.
The car was queuing behind traffic turning right and I assume was not paying sufficient attention to notice the dog walker begin to cross the road. Silly, but explicable in that the walker may have been just outside of peripheral vision... the cyclist had no such excuse and displayed a shocking lack of awareness.
This
This kids were already running around the parked car and were an obvious hazard... they could only have been more obvious had they provided prior written notice of their intention to transgress into the path of the bicycle!
Those are simply apalling examples of roadcraft, or rather total lack of. You should hang your head in shame.
1. What sort of moron undertakes at a Zebra crossing? Period!
2. Kids playing in street. You could have protected those boys from harm.
The only redeeming aspect of your post is to illustrate what extremely poor hazard awareness looks like from a first person perspective, hopefully you learned from those situations and so can others, but I'm literally embarrassed for you.
@mungecrundle, it isn't undertaking. Undertaking is what undertakers do. It is overtaking, regardless of whether you pass on the near side or the off side. But yes, overtaking at a crossing is prohibited:
191. You MUST NOT park on a crossing or in the area covered by the zig-zag lines. You MUST NOT overtake the moving vehicle nearest the crossing or the vehicle nearest the crossing which has stopped to give way to pedestrians.
The kids playing in the street, even if you can't see the kids, you can see that there is an obstacle that will obscure small children. The door zone isn't the only reason to give parked vehicles a wide berth. In a situation like that, you should be in primary position, if only for your own protection. Keeping wide of parked vehicles will:
* prevent you from being door
* make you more visible
* allow you to see around obstacles better
* give you more time to react to anyting
* hopefully prevent other road users from trying to pass you (the last thing you want is to have truck over take you when a bunch of kids run out from behind a vehicle).
There are enough opportunities to get wiped out by inattentive pedestrians, you don't need to create more.
ooops, if they're the best examples of careless pedestrianism you have, I'm guessing you have some videos where you ride on the pavement, knocking them flying, Crazy Taxi-style, and then blame them for not looking.
Might have a trawl later.
Really? I mean, are you being serious?
- Undertakes a single car at zebra crossing while pedestrian crosses with a dog, leaving absolutely fuck all margin with predictable results.
- Sees kids playing boisterously up ahead, continues at normal speed, doesn't create any margin by moving to the centre or right of the street, again with predictable results. In fact I would argue that you did predict that result and just wanted to teach them a lesson; I mean, who genuinely shouts out like that when taken by surprise and performing an emergency stop?
- Overtakes a bus with absolutely no visibility of what's on the other side of it, squeezes between the bus and a lorry that was already there. "I'm on my side of the road" - you do know that other vehicles are allowed to cross the white line, right? I don't believe there's a police officer in the land who would caution the lorry driver in that video. The driver had two, perhaps three seconds to do anything about your sudden appearance in his path. Could easily have been checking his nearside mirror or speedo.
If you're going to take unnecessary risks, maybe don't be so self-righteous when it all inevitably goes wrong.
that dog has the best road sense of anyone on the video
To be honest having seen those videos you are a total dick head. If you carry on like that you are going to go the way of Charlie Alliston or have a story about you with a broken bike. You could of course try riding sensibly and avoid either outcome, the choice is yours.
Cyclists are permitted to go down a big hill with their eyes closed, would you do it?
What you believe you HAVE to do isn't really the factor, when passing the inside of the car you were both going too fast and not giving yourself clear visibility. When vehicles are stopped at a zebra crossing you will often see people joining from each side, some often join from behind a car etc. to meet half way in the road, again not best practice but quite common.
If it was me you'd hit riding like that, I'd have helped you up just so I could put you on your derrier again!
To get a wider perspective, does anyone know how the law in more cycling enlightened countries handle this?
Questions of road use, right of way, due care and attention and general responsibility supported by law.
Between this story and the response to the Alliston/Briggs story, I'm really beginning to worry that something wicked this way comes...
I'll get my (tinfoil) hat...
Wondering if there are any driver KSIs attributed to pedestrians (swerve, hit tree, etc). I would imagine there are some.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32622465
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