Olympic gold medallist Chris Boardman hits out at laws treating killer cyclists like dangerous drivers
I have to say I don’t agree with Chris Boardman on this. Surely it’s the actuality of the offence not the frequency of it that justifies the sanction. I often reflect on my car based journeys around rural England that motorists and cyclists need to stop seeing each other as “the enemy” and just concentrate on where they are going!!!!
New laws which could see cyclists who kill treated the same as dangerous drivers have been criticised by Olympic medalist Chris Boardman. The former racing cyclist lost his mother Carol after she was fatally injured following a collision with a car in July 2016.
The 49-year-old, who won gold in the 1992 Olympics, hit out at plans to introduce a criminal offence for causing death by dangerous or careless cycling.
The legislation is being proposed by the Government after 44-year-old mother-of two Kim Briggs was knocked over and killed by a bicycle courier in February 2016.
But Cycling UK head of campaigns Duncan Dollimore described the current system of prosecuting and sentencing for careless or dangerous drivers as “something of a lottery” which leaves victims and their relatives “feeling massively let down”.
He went on: “Adding one or two new offences specific to cyclists would be merely tinkering around the edges.
Mr Boardman added his voice to concerns raised by cycling campaigners that the move was not addressing real threats on the road.
He wrote on Twitter the focus was “on a single tragic case”, when around “66 pedestrians are killed each year, on the pavement alone, by drivers, who are prosecuted for careless driving.
He suggested the Government should consult road fatality statistics before deciding “where to focus resources to save most lives” and went on to criticise an official Conservatives tweet endorsing the law change.