When critical mass matters: London 26th March 2010

Publisher note: @alien8 hosted our Mobile Social Worldwide in London last year. We rode with him and London Fixed Gear crew with lorries next to our ears. The recent spike in deaths has the community reacting.

“Too many cyclists are being killed each year by lorries on the streets of London. Something has got to be done.”*

The call went out after the third HGV (Lorry/Truck) related death occurred in London.

Cyclists killed by HGV this year in London, UK

Professor David Vilaseca-Perez, 46 from South Bank (February 2010) Muhammad “Haris” Ahmed, 21, a 4th year Medical student (March 2010) Shivon Watson, 28 years old, a designer and musician from Bow (March 2010)

There has been more press coverage of this issue: The Evening Standard and London SE1 with some interesting observations in their forum

Online Cycling Community call for action.

When Jack Thurston says ‘Please come to Critical Mass this Friday’ it pays to listen. Not the biggest fan of CM he has a compelling case for attending this time.

Side note: I highly recommend The Bike Show Podcast

Mark who writes iBikeLondon published an analysis of stats that can be summarised as:

“Collisions with HGVs were the cause of 69% of London’s cyclist deaths last year. In 2008 this figure was 88%. There can be no doubt that lorries are the primary source of cyclist’s deaths in London.”

Rob of Real cycling has his own take on the events and links to CityBeast’s cycle accidents map

Io of VeLo LoVes the City has a very interesting post with respect to the time restrictions of HGVs and a scary video of the London Mayor narrowly avoiding injury or worse from an HGV as well as a link to that video of the truck pushing a sideways car down a road.

The more cheerful reason to be out tonight is that it’s the LFGSS Rolling Birthday Party. with over 100 riders planning to be there.

Southwark and Hackney Cyclists are going to try and lead the Mass to the 3 sites.

For these reasons – for the first time in quite a while – I’ll be at Critical Mass tonight.

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