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news
Police tape (CC licensed by freefotouk on Flickr)Updated: Cyclists injured in Westminster terror attack as driver crashes through them
UPDATED: Two people, believed to be cyclists, were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries after a car was driven into a group of riders outside the Palace of Westminster this morning. The Metropolitan Police have confirmed that they are treating the incident as a terrorist attack.
The incident happened at 0737 according to Scotland Yard, who cordoned off a large area of Westminster.
The driver of the vehicle, who has been arrested on suspicion of having committed terror offences, ploughed through a group of around 10 cyclists on the south-east corner of Parliament Square before hitting a crash barrier outside the Palace of Westminster.
Three cyclists were injured. Two, a man and a woman, were treated at hospital for their injuries but have since been released, while a third was treated at the scene.
Another cyclist was shown on video chasing after the car on foot just before it hit the barrier outside Parliament.
Armed police officers were on the scene immediately and took the driver away in handcuffs.
Cycle Superhighway 3, the most popular cycle route in London, runs through Parliament Square though the cyclists who were hit were not on that route but on the other side of the square..
Eyewitnesses told BBC News that they believed the motorist drove into the cyclists on purpose.
Barry Williams, who works for the BBC at its Millbank location, said: "I heard lots of screams and turned round.
"The car went onto the wrong side of the road to where cyclists were waiting at lights and ploughed into them.
"Then it swerved back across the road and accelerated as fast as possible and hit the barrier at full pelt.
"It was a small silver car and he hit it at such speed the car actually lifted off the ground and bounced.
"Then the police just jumped. Two officers managed to leap over the security barriers and then the armed police vehicles all sped towards the scene."
BBC reporter Callum May, speaking from Westminster, said: "Parliament Square is now ringed by blue police tape. There is a large group of armed officers in the square.
"Paramedics are treating a small group of people sitting on the ground outside the Palace of Westminster.
"They are wrapped in silver blankets. One eyewitness, who declined to give his name, said he saw a small hatchback drive into a group of cyclists and then into the barrier outside the Palace of Westminster.
“The man said that the driver's action appeared deliberate."
Scotland Yard confirmed that a man was arrested and is being held at a police station in south London.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has
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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35 comments
People are uncomfortable with the idea of terrorism actually happening. They don’t like the idea of people being so angry and confused that they drive cars into people, or the idea that the system can’t always stop things like that. Why do you think conspiracy theories persist about the authorities sanctioning 9/11? People don’t want to believe that anyone could hate them enough to do something like that, or that the system would allow something like that to happen.
It doesn’t look like an accident, though it does look like he didn’t do his recon properly and ended up crashing way before he reached any more dramatic target than a massive roadblock.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/15/police-question-man-on-suspicion-of-terrorism-over-westminster-crash
So, after all that coverage of it, some random bloke still tells a news reporter that "it was an accident"? What do you have to do for random blokes to believe something like this was intentional?
That'd be why we want the police to just follow the law rather than using their opinions.
OK, I consider my wrist slapped there
I suppose IMO its just very unlikely to have been "an accident". Whether or not it was "terrorism" as its commonly understood is still up in the air...
Though ultimately that usually involves a jury, made up of, um, 'random blokes' (plus random women).
Yes, but in theory you have a somewhat impartial judge guiding them according to the written law.
Reading these comments has done nothing other than convince me it's time for the UK to lay in the grave it dug for itself. The irony is you all view your martyrism as noble cause, whereas outsiders just see simpletons.
Being more of an oaf than a simpleton, I'm afraid you are going to have to expand on your comment, because I have no idea what you are alluding to.
This is random word bingo. No?
Testing Google translate? No?
Deliberately stretching a definition of 'irony' that would make Alanis Morissette wet herself through embarrassment?
From what I heard the motorist ploughed into the group of cyclists who were stopped at a red light, but there I was thinking that we all ignored red lights.
I wish the injured well and a speedy recovery.
New CCTV image of the driver has emerged:
squirrel_driving.jpg
I wonder if there's an argument here for restricting ownership of private motor vehicles...? If they are increasingly being used actively and solely as weapons?
I think you're onto something here. Perhaps we need to stop citing the environmental and health benefits of cycling when putting forward the case for cycling infrastructure...
and just focus solely on the improved security that would result from restricting motor vehicles in our cities and installing protected cycling infrastructure.
For all the concern about 'dangerous cycling' I've yet to hear of an attacker attempting to spread terror by cycling into a crowd of pedestrians.
They should probably bar motorised vehicles from the area around parliament. The area within the north and south circulars should probably be sufficient.
That quality rag, the Evening Standard, ran with an editorial this evening suggesting just that - although not quite as wide a net as Fluffy Kitten suggests, and didn't qualify it as motor vehicles.
Going by the colour chart I'd say the only people that could be classified as 'shooters' are gingers and albinos.
I guess I'll have to wait for the suntan to fade a bit as well as I an currently close to 'radical'.
I'm 'radical' from the shorts line to my ankles, biceps to my wrists and the back of my neck and ears. (factor 50 on the face)
They are now treating this as a terrorist incident, so the driver must be darker skinned (certainly not gammon coloured).
Vince Cable has captured the motorists' zeitgeist: "Thank goodness the barriers are in place and worked."
So great that there are people around who challenge prejudices based on people's skin co... oh no wait.
You got me!
Here's the best image I could find of the terrorist (the blurry bloke 2nd from the left):
westminster-incident-arrest.jpg
Ah, I see. Its nothing to do with skin colour or race, just old-fashioned pixellism! Personally, I think the pixellated should stand up for themselves, and campaign for equal rights
I think we need a consultation about harsher laws for Minecraft.
The police have NOT denied that the following suspect was spotted fleeing the scene, muttering something about 'Doris Donson'
download.png
And it is just coincidence that there's a Wreck-It Ralph sequel coming out shortly? "Coincidence" - I think not!
It occurs to me that the comments on here may have drifted ever so slightly off topic...
Sorry, people!
I expect they were provoked by lawless cyclists riding 10 abreast.
And they don't pay road tax.
It says it all when most of the reporting on this focuses on the barrier being hit whilst giving one line at the end of the article to mention a group of cyclists being intentionally mown down.
There are few MPs at Westminster now anyway, they're all on holiday.
At the moment the police (and media) response is treating the incident as possibly terrorist-related. As soon as they realise that it was just a homicidal cyclist-hater, they'll release the arrested suspect and collectively shrug their shoulders. "People in cars kill cyclists. What do you want us to do about it? Just go about your business, not thing to see here ..."
The sad thing is, you think you're being satirical. Unfortunately, you're just being accurate.
My sources in MI6 tell me that the driver is the Conservatives' social media manager on their way to work, momentarily distracted while using their mobile phone at the wheel to tweet about the impending crackdown on dangerous cycling.
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