For Maya Foa, the image of her mother’s shattered body, the cycling helmet
she always wore for protection crushed into her skull, is a memory that will
never fade.
Equally vivid is her anger at what she sees as a miscarriage of justice over
her mother’s death – one of “too many” killings of cyclists by lorries, as
the coroner said at the inquest.
Emma Foa, 56, was thrown off her bike and crushed by a two-ton cement mixer
lorry at a junction near King’s Cross in north London on the morning of
December 21 last year.
The driver was oblivious to her as he turned left, even though they had been
stationary side by side for 38 seconds at the traffic lights and several
witnesses honked and shouted as they saw what was happening. An inquest
would later be told that he was sorting papers in his cab as he turned the
corner.
Maya, 23, a student at Oxford University, was down for the holidays when the
police arrived at the family house in Hampstead, north London, with the news
that there had been “a terrible accident”. Her stepfather, Reg Wright,
collapsed when she telephoned him at his office with the news.
Initially, they did not want to believe it. Maya recalled: “When Reg and I
drove to the morgue we actually talked about how it was all a mistake,
reassuring ourselves because Emma had been cycling for 20 years and was
incredibly careful, saying we were going to bring her home.”
Over the following months Maya, her sister Lia, 25, and Wright, 53, would
learn how little value the law placed on the life of Foa, a jewellery maker
and author. And they found themselves joining the relatives of similar
victims in a campaign for changes in the law.
Emma had been killed only four days before Christmas. “This delayed the
funeral and the police could not interview the driver of the cement mixer
until he returned from honeymoon,” Maya said.
“It was surreal – and never more so than when the police liaison officer told
me that there was no question of a manslaughter charge because the law is
not about consequences but about intent.”
Maya decided: “The only thing I could do was to try to make sure my mother’s
life was honoured with proper justice.” She got all the information
available from the police, viewed the CCTV footage of the accident and
looked at photographs – including the one of her crushed mother. She read
witness statements. “Being pro-active seemed the one way I might be able to
have our case treated as a killing, not as a fatality.”
To her dismay the driver, Michael Thorn, 52, was charged only with the minor
offence of driving without due care and attention.
Then at the initial pretrial hearing Thorn did not turn up. “We waited, but
neither he nor the defence appeared. There was just a note saying he was
pleading not guilty – he only changed his plea to guilty when he had seen
the CCTV footage of what happened.”
Adding insult to injury, Judge Anthony Evans chose to sentence Thorn at what
was supposed to be another pretrial hearing for the plea to be established,
rather than setting a date when the family would be present.
Wright, his voice cracked with tears, says: “We were devastated when we learnt
that Thorn had been tried as a hasty formality. Couldn’t the judge have
understood how important it was for the family to attend? And Judge Evans
referred to what happened as ‘an inadvertence’. My wife’s death was not an
inadvertence. It happened because Thorn did not bother to check his mirror
or look outside his cab. Emma was stationary alongside him at the lights for
38 seconds.”
Thorn was fined £300 with £100 costs and allowed to keep his licence.
“That was the value of my mother’s life,” Maya said. “I believed in this
country that killing people was taken seriously. But Thorn was charged with
a very minor offence that does not take into account that someone has died.
The killing of my mother was lumped together with minor speeding, clipping a
wing mirror, bumping into a traffic bollard.”
Deaths such as Emma Foa’s are almost always treated as minor offences. Cynthia
Barlow, a scientist at Imperial College, took up campaigning after her
daughter, Alex Jane McVitty, 26, was killed in almost identical
circumstances in 2000.
Barlow remembered angrily: “The driver claimed he had a blind spot in his
mirror, but the police said this was untrue. Even so, he was acquitted. I
saw then that it is possible to kill someone and be in no way held
accountable or expected to make sure you can see. A blind spot should not be
a defence if you drive several tons of heavy metal.”
She added: “The Crown Prosecution Service hardly ever prosecutes and when it
does it is almost always for careless driving, although you might think
failing to look in a mirror properly, or [making] sure you knew if there was
somebody alongside, would constitute dangerous driving. These cases are the
only killings to be heard in a magistrate’s court and the penalties are
derisory. Every other kind of killing goes to a high court.”
That was demonstrated again last week when a verdict of accidental death was
brought in the case of researcher Amelia Zollner, 24, who was crushed to
death in Russell Square, central London, when the driver of a lorry failed
to see her in his wing mirror earlier this year.
Last year Conrad Dutoit died when he was hit by a turning heavy goods vehicle
(HGV). The driver was not licensed to drive that kind of lorry, yet he was
fined just £500 and disqualified for 56 days. The driver of a lorry that
killed a young woman cycling near King’s Cross last year was held not guilty
because the cyclist had been listening to an iPod.
I, too, could have been one of these deaths. I was knocked off my bike a
couple of years ago by an HGV turning sharply left but was lucky enough to
be flung onto the pavement, leaving me bruised but alive.
Every year about 150 cyclists are killed on the road. One cyclist is killed or
seriously injured every day in London. In urban areas about half of
cyclists’ deaths are caused by HGVs – most frequently when they turn left. A
third more men than women die on the roads, but when women are killed it is
most likely to be by HGVs.
Transport for London (TfL), which has responsibility for the capital’s roads,
concluded that this is because women cyclists are law-abiding. They are less
likely than men to jump the lights or cycle aggressively to get ahead of
lorries.
After her daughter’s death Barlow wrote to the firm employing the driver, but
“they said ‘it’s nothing to do with us’.” Barlow did not give up: “I decided
then I would make it something to do with them.”
She bought shares in RMC, the parent firm of Readymix, the cement company,
attended shareholders’ meetings and battled to get its lorries fitted with
adequate mirrors and sensors to trigger an alarm in the cab if a cyclist is
alongside. “All their lorries now have them and so far as I know there have
been no fatal collisions with their vehicles since these were fitted,” she
said.
Under European Union law, most HGVs registered must have wide-angle mirrors,
known as close proximity mirrors, fitted by March 31, 2009. Wright has
joined campaigners pushing to have them made compulsory immediately – along
with sensors and compulsory training for drivers in using them.
The controversy has arisen at the same time as cycling lobbies campaign to get
the public on their bikes. Cycling England, the government-backed
organisation, says a 20% increase in cycling could save the taxpayer £520m,
lowering healthcare costs, fighting obesity, reducing congestion and cutting
54m car journeys a year by 2012. More ambitiously, the TfL cycling action
plan aims to achieve an 80% increase in cycling levels in London by 2010.
Charlie Lloyd, of the London Cycling Campaign, said: “Cycling is not as
dangerous as people may think when they hear of the fatalities, but we
absolutely support things being done to make it safer in the way it is in
continental countries where drivers have far more respect for cyclists and
are also held far more accountable than here if they kill or injure someone,
and they face severe penalties.”
The campaign group RoadPeace would like to see driver liability for civil
compensation brought in as it is in Europe. With construction work for the
2012 Olympics likely to bring a great many more HGVs onto London’s roads,
Brenda Puech at RoadPeace emphasises how urgent it is that drivers are made
to take the consequences of their negligent driving more seriously.
Wright, facing the painful first anniversary of his wife’s death, believes
there must be criminal responsibility, too. He asked: “How can a driver not
be made to face the significance of causing a death? Perhaps he should
understand what it is to have all the joy and light somebody brought into
life ended just like that.”
Earlier this month Thorn attended Emma Foa’s inquest where the coroner, Dr
Andrew Reid, said he had presided over too many inquests caused by
collisions between lorries and cyclists. Afterwards, Lia and Maya went up to
Thorn, who mumbled “sorry”; both shook his hand.
Maya recalls: “It was a way of putting an end to it but I am disillusioned and
I have no fight left. Emma was the glue that bound us. Now we are a crippled
gathering of people, not a family, and I have to get on with finding a way
to live. But inside there is this tragic emptiness.”
It is not the answer, simply to segregate traffic. What is required is re-education of motorists generally. As long as the media allows people, such as Jeramy Clarkson to preach the gospel of "Cyclist bad, Motorists good", we have little chance of improving matters.
We have been members of the Common Market for over 30 years now, and had to accept all the new crackpot ideas dreampt up by Brussels. Is it not high time that we adopted the same rules regarding Cyclists as France and Belgium?
Mike Christy, Stroud, Gloucestershire
Left turning lorries often have to manoevre as if to turn right. Short wheelbase lorries such as skip lorries, refuge collection vehicles and cement mixers can turn suddenly. Indicator lights are often not visible on the sides of lorries. Lorries should also give an audible signal when turning. Side panels may also help prevent cyclists from falling under lorries.
Causing death of other road users for whatever reason should result, at least, in permanent loss of licence to drive.
John Katt, London, UK
"one of the biggest problems for pedestrians here are cyclists on the pavements,very dangerous for the yuong and elderly
dave, holyhead, ynys mon"
Two pedestrians killed by pavement cyclists since 1999, verses 700 pedestrians killed by motorists on the pavement in the same time. Cyclists are not the menace you purport them to be.
Martin, Bristol, England.
Bill Q writes: "If people are to be encouraged onto bicycles there MUST be a separation between motorised and non motorised vehicles. The provision of cycle paths, ENTIRELY SEPARATE from the main highway is essential."
In fact, there is no such completely separate system of cycle paths. Cars and cyclists always meet at junctions, even in Germany. The most common problem of a deadly "left hook" from large vehicles is worse where you have a separate cycle path, because now as a cyclist you have no choice but to go up on the inside of turning vehicles and cannot position yourself correctly to their right (I am from Germany).
Germany has better conditions for cyclists not because it has segregated cycle paths, but because we have much stricter liability for the stronger party in road accidents, and because the social norms are much more intolerant towards rule breaking.
In London, turning cars don't even stop for pedestrians, how would they ever stop for cyclists?
Marianne Promberger, London, UK
"[...] The killing of my mother was lumped together with minor speeding, clipping a wing mirror, bumping into a traffic bollard."
I thin it's an additional problem that dangerous driving that doesn't result in physical injury or death receives even less attention/ consequences for the driver.
If you speed and take risks, you (and your potential victims) will be lucky many times. So yes, in that sense someone being killed is just a "tragic accident". The problem is that there should be much more intensive policing and real consequences for bad driving even if "nothing happens", because it is this wilfully bad driving that will predictably lead to killing someone eventually.
So whether something is an accident or not always depends on how you frame it and to what standards of care and attention you hold the driver responsible.
Marianne Promberger, London, UK
While the families of those tragically killed are quite right to campaign for improved safety measures, such as better mirrors, proximity sensors etc., I do not agree that deaths on the road such as these should be punished any more severely than they are at present. Intent is a crucial, undoubtedly the most important, element of a killing and a pure accident, while tragic and often avoidable with "perfect behaviour", should not lead to a person being incarcerated at huge personal and public expense. Most such accidents are the result of momentary lapses of proper attention, of which we are all guilty, the only difference being that 99.9% of the time we get away with them without any such tragic consequences. I do not believe people guilty of such deserve to be branded criminals and have their lives ruined by a prison term as a result: it will not bring the dead back. My thought on reading these stories is often "there but for the grace of God...".
Neil, Cambridge,
"One of the biggest problems for pedestrians here are (sic) cyclists on the pavement, very dangerous for the young and elderly" Oh yes? What's the death or serious injury rate for pedestrians in these circumstances. If people are to be encouraged onto bicycles there MUST be a separation between motorised and non motorised vehicles. The provision of cycle paths, ENTIRELY SEPARATE from the main highway is essential. Whatever genius thought that painting a white line down the nearside of the carriageway and designating it a cycleway obviously has no practical sense at all. If they can do it in the Netherlands and Germany, we can do it here.
Bill Q, Derby,
Chris of Malvern, above, advises cyclists to 'Go out in front of him, go on the pavement, or wait till he goes.'
Unfortunately, this misunderstands the specific problem. Left hand entry lanes to advanced stop line boxes are frequently painted alongside pavement-edge railings, as was, I believe, the case in this incident. Ms Foa could not go up on the pavement, because of the railing. As a long vehicle turns, the middle part of it naturally swings left, and the cyclist is crushed between the vehicle and the railings.
Painting a left hand entry lane adjacent to railings should be illegal - it is an 'attractive nuisance'. However, it is commonly done. The best advice to cyclists is never to use such a left hand entry lane. Filter up the right hand side of the right-most left turning lane, and, when in the ASL box, make sure you are in front of, not to the left of, the right-most left turning vehicle.
Simon Brooke, Auchencairn, Scotland
In this context, can't help thinking views here about cyclists being more careful somewhat inappropriate. Suggesting a cyclist of 20 years in central London needs to take more care is surely akin to blaming victims of shootings for not learning self-defence. So long as the law in Britain compels cyclists onto the road, along with HGVs, the only 'defensive' options are - as the piece implies - jumping red-lights (particularly at left turns and treat pelican crossings as zebras, ie. proceed if no pedestrians).
Deadliest by far, however, are 'road-side railings'. Caging cyclists in against motor vehicles, so preventing any means of escape regardless of a situation's danger, I suggest opens planners siting them not just to very real claims of failing in their duty of care, but of 'corporate killing'. Designers of one-way systems forcing cyclists past railings they otherwise would avoid are no better.
The irony of cyclists blamed for conduct both on road and pavement must sum it up.
Jack, London,
In this country the driver of a large vehicle is expected to check the left and right mirrors before, during and after any turn. "Sorting through papers" is not an acceptable substitute. Mirrors must be adjusted to eliminate blind spots.
Having said that, I have learned to avoid positioning my bicycle where I would be vulnerable to a right turning vehicle (or left turning in the UK), especially a large one.
Mark Felber, Frisco, Colorado, USA
I had an experience recently with a cement lorry from RMC, no collision but aggressive driving by the lorry driver because I happened to be on a bike and he was being delayed by maybe five second because I was there. I reported it to the Police who said he could not be prosecuted because there were no witnesses and it was his word against mine. This despite the driver admitting overtaking on double white lines and in road works. In trying to get this idiot off the road to prevent another death in future - no support from the CPS. I also wrote to RMC but was ignored, so much for them taking responsibility.
Geoff Magnay, Hereford, UK
There is a very serious point of road safety instruction here, and one which I (a former driving instructor) have no idea if it is generally taught, which is that if you can't see the drivers face in his side mirror looking at you, then it is a fair bet he can't see you.
So take evasive action. Take it anyway. You haven't just got to see, you've got to be seen.
Even more true when you are on a bike - it's you that dies, not him.
Go out in front of him, go on the pavement, or wait till he goes.
Don't sit there looking at the pretty traffic lights, because green doesn't mean go, it means go if it's safe to go.
Always has done - look in your Highway code of any vintage.
Ms Barlow is to be commended for succeeding in doing something important after her daughter's death. Absolutely.
Surely it is defensively oriented bike training that is more necessary - it's not only lorries that kill.
My own grandfather was killed on a bike by a bus in the blitz. My cousin was crippled by a car.
Chris, Malvern,
Maya is such a courageous person. The Laws do not seem to hold enough consequence for the careless. I to lost a beloved sister in a car crash four years ago. U.K roads are a trecherous place to be especially in the cities. Drivers need to be held accountable .
Linda Elliott-George, Wymondham,
Reminds me of the death of Jamie Mason, a 12 year old from Wednesfield; he was killed by an uninsured drunk driver who had never passed a test. The driver was jailed for two months.
And Mansoor Chaudhry, killed by a van driver who drove through red traffic lights; fine £250 and 8 points.
And a librarian from our local library, killed on a pedestrian crossing by a speeding van driver; suspended sentence for 6 months.
Road deaths are repeatedly trivialised by the very institutions supposed to protect us and enforce the law.
BrummyDoug, Birmingham, England
The Crown Prosecution Service needs to be disbanded.
It is up to a jury to decide on the evidence presented whether a crime has been committed. We had years of common law in this country built up so that evolving circumstances met with appropriate judicial response. The judicial system now is a travesty. The CPS makes summary decisions that effectively render an immediate not-guilty verdict before any evidence is heard or tested.
My advice to Maya Foa would be to bring civil proceedings against both the driver and the company.
MarkS, Leeds,
What I cannot understand is why such road deaths are not treated as manslaughter and out to a jury to decide.There must surely at least be a suspension of driving licence and their being forced to re take their test.
Simon, London, London
one of the biggest problems for pedestrians here are cyclists on the pavements,very dangerous for the yuong and elderly
dave, holyhead, ynys mon
"... there was no question of a manslaughter charge because the law is not about consequences but about intent.â€
Then why was a man who went to sleep at the wheel and derailed a train given a long prison sentence?
Bob Martin, Portsmouth, UK