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news
Broken bike (CC licensed image by garryknight, www.flickr.com)Parents of cyclist killed on main road in Dorset call for cycle lane
The parents of a cyclist who was killed as he rode home at night on a main road near Bournemouth have urged that it be made safer for bike riders – an appeal echoed at an inquest into his death by a police inspector and the driver of the van involved in the fatal collision.
Christopher Gibbs, aged 30, was killed instantly when he was struck by a van driven by Kevin Johnson on the A338 at 10.40pm on 3 October 2017, reports the Bournemouth Echo.
Johnson was last year sentenced to a 12-month community order after pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving. He said he had failed to see Mr Gibbs and believed he had hit a deer.
> Community order for careless driver who drove on to make a delivery following fatal collision
At an inquest into his death last Friday, Mr Gibbs’ mother, Deborah Turner, told Assistant Dorset Coroner Richard Middleton: "I would like all vulnerable road users to be kept safe, and if that means a cycle lane on the Wessex Way, then there should be a cycle lane.
“There is no safe alternative route for cyclists from Verwood to Poole."
She told the court that previously she had pleaded with her son not to ride his bike on the road because "I didn't want him exposed to 60 or 70mph traffic.
“I didn't want him, as a vulnerable road user, there. But he felt he would be alright, and he should have been."
His father, Rob Barron, said: "Something has to be done to make the Wessex Way safer."
Dorset Police established through GPS data that Johnson had stopped at the scene and had been driving below the speed limit at the time of the collision.
However, the impact had thrown Mr Gibbs’ body 130 feet and the driver thought he had hit a deer.
He told the inquest: "I'd just like to apologise to the family. It was a tragic accident, I'm not a bad person.
"I've been driving for 40 years and never had an accident in my life. If I thought I had hit a person I would have stopped and reported it straight away."
He added: "I'd like to see a cycle lane put in, and the lighting could be better on the road. Even some of the motorways are lit up better than that road."
Inspector Joe Pardey told the coroner: "There is clear evidence he stopped his vehicle," but added that 16 other drivers had given statements saying they had seen the rider, and all but one confirming they had noticed his rear light.
Asked whether there should be a cycle lane on the road, he said: "It is a major route into one of our biggest towns and cyclists should be afforded protection. A cycle lane would be great because it gives protection to cyclists."
Mr Middleton, who is considering recommending safety improvements on the road, concluded that Mr Gibbs’ death was the result of a road accident.
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.
Latest Comments
- mattw 2 hours 22 min ago
That's an interesting one....
- mattw 2 hours 46 min ago
I take the greatest increase being in Inner not Central or Outer London as being because much infra was previously built in Central London and...
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Controversial I know but the problems would mostly go away if the whole lot was decriminalised or legalised, dependence and addiction were treated...
- BikeyDavey92 6 hours 54 min ago
As someone who works in Insurance completely agree with this. This is why you have the product and even if everyone is well intentioned, you can...
- ktache 7 hours 34 min ago
Don't know what it was about today, maybe the banks of mist, but I received several weeks of close passes in one day.
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I've a feeling that yellow colour attracts flying insects - either that or they're just out to get me. So the bug mesh is a valuable addition
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At a pinch point, where the road narrows, in a blind bend, to avoid a pothole, to avoid being doored, to deter a senseless or careless overtake,...
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No more ludicrous than the UCI sock height limits!
- grumpyoldcyclist 9 hours 12 min ago
They may be limited to 50 or 60 mph, but they don't observe it and speed cameras haven't been told about the different limits....
- CyclingGardener 9 hours 15 min ago
I agree. As I said, just trying to add some context.
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25 comments
The A338 Spur Road was completely resurfaced a couple of years ago - no special cycle provision was made, unsurprisingly.
I agree with the earlier assessment “if only there had been a cycle track, this all could have been avoided”. Sure, mate - or try watching the road.
From near Hurn up to the junction with the A31 the old road provides an alternative route for bikes - by all means make that a quiet lane with a strict low speed limit for the access only motors using it.
I’d don’t venture south of Verwood and the run down to the coast from Salisbury has the A31 forming a pretty tricky obstacle to cross safely by bike, that’s all the way a cross the New forest from the end of the M3. There’s just one road that has an underpass. There’s other underpasses if you’re on your gravel bike.
If a network of yellow OS lanes is ideal cycling country, this area is far from that - you’ve got large chunks of heathland and Forest, little habitation, the rivers Stour and Avon with wide valleys, so few roads and all traffic concentrated through the major crossing-points, particularly for Bournemouth which is limited to four or five roads in and out, (of which the A338 Spur road is one).
we’re simply too casual and accepting of this type of accident.
plod, CPS and judge in being utterly effing useless shocker, a thousand plagues on your houses!
Well let’s hope that cycle infrastructure is in place before his driving ban runs its course. Otherwise it might be dangerous if he “blacks-out for a second” again.
Surely there's the technology.
Black box on all cars that's taking info from satelites not allowing the speed limit to be broken, after dark reduce the limits by 10mph (or more), depending on weather reduce the limits. Or if that's too much work, if you're over the speed limit automatic ticket or insurance price hike. All cars to have dashcams as well, all centrallyrecorded, all monitored by Police / Insurance companies when an incident occurs.
It should not be possible for anyone to not drive to the conditions and not be considered dangerous. If you can hit something in a massive vehicle and not know the difference between a 4 legged animal and a person on a bike then you weren't paying attention!
Yeah, but that's just more of the 'war on the motorist'. Remember: drivers are 'cash cows' who 'subsidise cyclists'. Any attempt to make them pay more is just 'a ruse' to tax them more, to 'pay for climate change' which - whilst we're about it - is 'a hoax' invented by Jeremy Corbyn whilst he was down on his allotment.
The right. I dream of a day when every fucking one of them is wiped from the face of the earth.
Ah right, now I get it. That POS van driver obviously worked out a very nice way to rationalise his crap behaviour and conveniently compartmentalise his guilt by saying that the lack of a bike lane was behind it all. If I was the family involved I would feel very bitter about the whole thing, not least the police redirecting attention away from the thoroughly reprehensible actions of the driver with some smoke and mirrors. Bike lane, my arse.
This was the previous article which makes the whole thing even more disgusting, especially how the driver was caught.
https://road.cc/content/news/251211-community-order-careless-driver-who-...
Oh - this was that case! From that Article, for those with low blood pressure:
"Gibbs hit the bonnet and windscreen of Johnson’s van and was thrown 47.5 metres.
Johnson pulled over and made a "cursory" search of the carriageway before continuing to the Applewood Hotel to drop off a suitcase.
...
Johnson did not enter pleas to failing to stop after a road accident or failing to report an accident. Both charges were not proceeded with by the prosecution.
...
After arriving at the hotel, Johnson wiped blood from the van with a tissue and took photographs of the damage. He told mechanics who came to collect the vehicle that he believed he could have hit a deer and may have "blacked out for a second".
Travelling back along the A338 Spur Road, he saw emergency services workers and searched the web for information on road closures.
A police officer spotted the van on the back of a recovery truck and reported it as a possible suspect vehicle for the collision. Attempts were made to track down the driver.
...
At 6.20am the next day, Johnson searched 'contact police', but did not make a call. Three minutes later, officers arrived at his address and arrested him.
Ian Bridge, mitigating, said Johnson was "desperately sorry" for his "momentary inattention" to the road ahead.
Johnson was sentenced to 240 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £250 in prosecution costs. He was disqualified from driving for 18 months."
or they could campaign for the police to get off their arses and restrict motorists criminal activities, maybe they could campaign for \ speed limit to be 40mph with devices in motors and limit signs to control vehicles and stiffer sentences for killers and removing the bullshit 'death by careless'. Maybe they could campaign for special segregated streets for women to walk down at night time as this is the dame thing right? It totally misses the root cause of the problem and yet again the vulnerable are being made to pay/change what they do.
You'll be waiting a long time for a proper cycle lane so in the meantime mr careless and the rest of the criinals will continue on doing their thing knowing full well they'll get the tap on the wrist as per here and it'll never change a fucking thing except push cyclists off the rad or away from cycling altogether, that's the reason why cycling hasn't increased as a whole in the ountry!
Considering Alliston got roasted and 18months this is a disgusting outcome yet again!
How the fuck is this careless ffs, British justice at its finest yet again!
Highly unlikely to be succesful, though. Where and when has that ever happened?
Again - one can dream, but I don't see it ever happening.
Well, or campaign for a curfew for men, as has been a rhetorical ploy in the past. Restricting men to certain streets only, perhaps? But it's a crap analogy anyway as the practicalities are completely different.
But you'll be waiting even longer for the ideal world you are demanding instead. Why not a proper cycle lane in the meantime?
The Alliston case was appalling, I agree. But getting this ineffectually radical and angry even over much more mainstream political issues doesn't seem to go anywhere. There are any number of topics on which I might occasionally daydream about locking people up or sending them to re-education camps for being so irredembaly stupid, but we all know that's not how the real world actually works (and on those rare occasions when it does, it doesn't go well).
I've had this in my car for the past couple of years, though you have to actively enable it (speed lim - resume, on wheel) - it uses a combination of GPS, and a camera in front of the rear view mirror to read signs. This enables it to know the speed limit of a given road.
I've found it significantly easier to drive, as I don't have to continually check my speed against the limit; I can spend more time on situational awareness.
The system has no control over brakes, just the amount of fuel in the cylinders. It can be disabled by hard acceleration, or by pausing from the left side of the wheel controls.
Turn it on by default, and most people will never bother to turn it off.
Heh, news today suggests that I spoke too soon about the limting device bit! EU law appaerntly mandating this system.
Still will believe it when I see it, though. I predict howls of outrage from the Nick Ferraris and Jeremy Clarksons out there. And I really have huge doubts that, given it can be over-ridden, those who regualrly exceed 40mph in 20mph urban zones will ever even turn the thing on.
It's more shameful that drivers can't pay enough attention not to kill other road users.
In some ways cycle lanes would lead to less tolerance when people used the roads.
Good point. If the cyclist's lights were at fault then you can lay money it would have been mentioned, but it wasn't. I'd take from that that they were working fine and that the van driver just literally failed to notice another road user...
If they were to put a cycle track down, it'd clearly have to be segregated or completely away from the roadway otherwise you'd get people passing at 60/70 and not moving out "because I didn't go into their lane, did I?".
I wonder if a driver who has knocked down a cyclist, has ever actually got out and 'tampered' with the scene. A taxi driver told me once that he'd knock me down, and then would take my helmet camera and drive away, dispose of it and then come back. When I told him that failing to stop was an offence, he just laughed and said he'd tell plod that he 'panicked', and that he'd get off scot-free.
And he was probably right.
^^ This, cycle lanes and segregation encourage an us and them atmosphere and I believe in the long term only increases the danger of cycling on the roads.
More driver education and much harsher sentences for road users that make “mistakes” or are dangerous would encourage more concentration, attention and driving with care.
That's the logic of the failed "shared space" rubbish, though. It's disengenuous, becuase it does't actually work like that when there's an imbalance of power.
I find it hard to believe that those who complain about an 'us and them atmosphere' don't know full well that it _is_ 'us and them', and is inevitably so, becuase there's an 'us' and a 'them', differentiated by an asymettry of power. "They" have a surfeit of KE and metal box armour, and "they" are not giving that up.
Likewise, I disagree with the mantra about 'more education' that gets pushed as a cure for all ills across any number of domains, usuallly by people who don't want to do anything that might upset those with power. Education is a hugely over-rated solution to problems. What most problems need are real material changes to the physical world.
I'm OK with harsher sentences, but it's unlikely to happen.
Totally agree, but at least education is cheap and thus a reasonable place to start with. They just have to throw together a few public information films and show them during The X Voice or whatever.,
It's obscene that there's no cycle lane there. They've just spent millions resurfacing and upgrading it, and there's sufficent space for one for the entire length. The alternative is Matchams Lane which is narrow, undulating, and a favourite of the local boy racers at night and then the road past Bournemouth Airport, where there isn't space for a separated cycle lane.
It's shameful that there's no cycle provision. Although the law allows us to cycle on 'A' roads, traffic safety experts recommend a maximum speed differential of 15 mph relative to other vehicles around you. That's why I avoid roads with fast traffic and it's why no planner should allow road systems to exclude 'slow vehicles'. Whether it's milk floats or bicycles there need to be adequate alternative routes. If there aren't alternatives, the speed limit should be no more than 25 mph*.
I find it particuarly annoying when the quiet road that I'm following 'crosses' a main road with a 100 metre, or more' dogleg'. I presume it's to stop motor vehicles taking chances, but it puts cyclists at risk. Sometimes you could wait for hours before the main road is clear enough to allow you a period long enough to cycle through the dogleg without negotiating fast traffic. It's just typical of the lack of consideration for minority road users.
At least the driver admitted responsibilty and made an appropriate statement to the coroner. However, none of the recommendations can bring Christopher back. The people who approved plans for the Wessex Way should be on trial for manslaughter. This wasn't an accident, it was a misjudgment long before Kevin Johnson made his mistake.
A cycle lane will be useful as long as it's segregated behind a decent crash barrier** (not the wire ropes that kill motorcyclists, please) or moved well away from the main road.
* We don't all cycle above 15 mph.
** Remember, Zak Carr was killed when he was cycling along a layby! (https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/driver-who-killed-zak-car...)
Doglegs are safer for cyclists than cross roads in some circumstances - it stops cars just crossing at speed without looking properly - one crossroads near us in the New Forest has had more one fatal SMIDSY...
I’m not sure but are you saying that the national speed limit should be 25 and not 60 ? I love cycling on country lanes where the limit is technically 60 as there is nothing else to say otherwise.
Rubbish sentence for someone who basically drove into a cyclist carrying a light, no sort of deterrent....
Doglegs are safer for cyclists than cross roads in some circumstances - it stops cars just crossing at speed without looking properly - one crossroads near us in the New Forest has had more one fatal SMIDSY...
I’m not sure but are you saying that the national speed limit should be 25 and not 60 ? I love cycling on country lanes where the limit is technically 60 as there is nothing else to say otherwise.
Rubbish sentence for someone who basically drove into a cyclist carrying a light, no sort of deterrent....
Doglegs are safer for cyclists than cross roads in some circumstances - it stops cars just crossing at speed without looking properly - one crossroads near us in the New Forest has had more one fatal SMIDSY...
I’m not sure but are you saying that the national speed limit should be 25 and not 60 ? I love cycling on country lanes where the limit is technically 60 as there is nothing else to say otherwise.
Rubbish sentence for someone who basically drove into a cyclist carrying a light, no sort of deterrent....
25 mph limit: Yes I am proposing that this should be applied to any road that carries a mixture of low speed vehicles and vehicles capable of higher speeds. It would require a great deal of new vehicle infrastructure to be built, which would be a good boost to our economy and, I hope, lead to a serious fall in unemployment. We will never have safe roads while human beings are controlling vehicles moving at radically different speeds on shared roads.
It is a national disgrace that nearly 2000 people die on UK roads each year. Many more have 'life changing' injuries. It's as if we have a secret war raging in our country, but no photojournalists or UN observers to shock us into action.
It wouldn't matter if you set the speed limit on all UK roads at 5 mph, because as long as there are no coppers out watching the roads (and as long as the motoring lobby - willingly aided by the right wing press - has enough clout to convince the public that any attempt to regulate speed and dangerous driving is part of 'the war on the motorist', there will continue to be 'no coppers out watching the roads'), then drivers know that they've probably got more chance of winning the lottery than getting stopped by the Old Bill.
This situation will not change as long as there is a far right Conservative government in power, and as long as that government is permitted to pursue its ideological transfer of wealth from the public sector and from the majority, to the private sector and a small subsection of Conservative Party donors.