Stop Killing Cyclists Die-in at TfL, Blackfriars Rd
Ten years ago today I was outside the Transport for London Offices on the evening of Friday 27th November 2015 for a rally and die-in by cyclists calling for much greater provision for safe cycling in London.
A row of 21 coffins remembering the 21 cyclists killed in London 2013-2015
This was two years after their earlier die-in here which had followed the killing of six cyclists in a terrible fortnight on London roads. And after a rally with speeches, poetry and music and reading the names of the 21 cyclists killed, people and bikes again blocked this junction on Blackfriars Road with a short die-in, closing the junction for 15 minutes.
On My London Diary I wrote a fairly lengthy account of the rally, which included speeches from several cyclists who had been seriously injured on London’s roads and were fortunate to still be alive. But in the two years since the previous die-in here, 21 cyclists had been killed and at the protest there was a row of 21 white coffins on the pavement outside the TfL offices, one for each death.
Most cyclists are killed by drivers of heavy goods vehicles, particularly skip lorries, which have very limited vision vision behind and to the side and are unaware of the presence of cyclists.
In the two years since 2013 progress on cycle safety has been very limited, and before this protest the organisers, ‘Stop Killing Cyclists‘ had sent a questionnaire to all the candidates standing in the forthcoming election for Mayor of London asking them whether they supported the demands for safer cycling, in what they called the “10% by 2020” London Mayoral Cycle Safety Challenge.
You can read the ten demands on My London Diary but the first was for 10% of TfL budget to be spent on cycling safety by 2020. Stop Killing Cyclists point out that this spending and their other proposals would also make London safer for pedestrians and by encouraging cycling (and walking) would make London healthier for us all.
One of the speakers was Professor Brendan Delaney, a doctor working in London, who pointed out that air pollution which comes mainly from traffic, particularly diesel-engines in buses and lorries, is thought to kill around 7,000 a year in London. More people cycling and less traffic could reduce that number dramatically.
The demands also called for a speed limit of 20 mph (except on motorways) across London and more traffic free areas and all five candidates supported the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street. Only Sian Berry of the Green Party and Independent Rosalind Readhead (who stood to ban private cars from London’s Zone 1 & 2) supported the 10% budget demand, though Labour’s Sadiq Khan promised a “significant” increase.
Green Party Mayoral candidate Sian Berry (in black coat)
In his first two terms as Mayor, Khan massively expanded the network of protected cycle tracks and also brought in and improved the Direct Vision lorry standard. And the expansion of the ultra low emission zone (ULEZ) to cover all of London has greatly improved air quality. But this in particular led to considerable public opposition and was blamed by Labour for them failing to win the Uxbridge by-election – although they still came close in what had long been a safe Tory seat.
Donnachadh McCarthy makes the final speech after the 15 minute die-in
Labour’s 2024 election victory has been a disaster for sensible transport planning – as well as more general environmental policies – with a switch to supporting major road-building, a third runway at Heathrow and other measures. Active travel seems no longer to be one of his or TfL’s priorities. Pressure from Labour leader Starmer after Uxbridge forced Khan to commit to not implement smart road user charging in his third election manifesto, severely damaging any chance of realising his ambition to make London a ‘Net Zero’ city including for transport by 2030.
Cyclists ‘Die in’ at TfL HQ: On Friday evening on 29th November 2013 over a thousand cyclists came to demand safer roads for cyclists and pedestrians across London. 14 cyclists had been killed already that year on London streets, including six in the previous two weeks.
Cyclists generally get a bad press here in the UK, and proposals and schemes that improve safety for cycling often meet with considerable opposition from non-cyclists, especially where these provide joint use of paths by pedestrians and cyclists.
Of course some cyclists are irresponsible – but so too are many not on bikes, whether driving vehicles or on foot. And we all sometimes do stupid things. Some may ride through red lights – but so do some motorists, and the statistics show that around 95% of pedestrians killed or injured in accidents caused by jumping lights are killed by drivers rather than by cyclists.
Motorised vehicles – cars, motorbikes, vans, lorries, buses etc are far more dangerous than cyclists because of their higher mass and often much greater speeds which mean that they bring many times more energy to any collision – typically more than 10 times as much, sometimes very much greater.
It’s hardly surprising the of the around 400 pedestrians killed in road traffic accidents each year in the UK on average only 2.5 involve collisions with bicycles – even on those shared pavements you are many, many times more likely to be killed by a collision with a car or other vehicle.
A cellist played during a long silent vigil
Cyclists are – like pedestrians – vulnerable road users. Unlike drivers in vehicles they are not surrounded by a protective shell of metal, and they have seat belts and air bags which proved extra safety – and its good that they do. But this does all remove them some way from the dangerous reality that all cyclists – however well-behaved and experienced – when sharing road space with them.
It would not of course be feasible to provide entirely separate street networks for vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians, although it would be good to provide these where possible, and we have made some progress in doing so. But there are many more places where separate ‘dedicated’ cycle paths can and should be provided.
Encouraging cycling has many positives. It reduces the toxic air pollution in our cities – estimated to cause almost 10,000 early deaths in London alone, as well as a great deal of suffering from various lung conditions. And by reducing the number of vehicles on our roads it cuts the congestion on our roads which often brings transport in London to a near standstill (and which is also highly polluting.)
Donnachadh McCarthy announces it was time for the die-in
And cycling provides healthy exercise (which would be even healthier if we cut pollution by having more people on bikes) helping to cut the obesity which, particularly among children, is now a major health problem. It has also been shown to improve mental health.
Cycling is also the cheapest form of transport other than walking, and is often the fastest way to travel in London for relatively short journeys, including some that most of us would find too far to walk.
Worries about safety put many off cycling, as does the weather. But there are relatively few days when our weather makes cycling a real problem (and mudguards help.) Making our roads safer is more of a problem, but doing so would increase the quality of life in the city for all of us. Even drivers breathe the same air and have sometimes to get out of their cars and walk.
Things are happening slowly, but too slow. We are getting more dedicated cycle routes. 20mph zones make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists, despite the outcry about them in some areas. Improvements in design of lorries to provide all-round vision are slowly coming in…
Protests such at outside the London HQ of TfL on 29 Nov 2013 to protest at the lack of safe road provision that leads to many deaths of cyclists and pedestrians, with a vigil, rally and a 15 minute ‘die-in’ on Blackfriars Road help to raise awareness of the need to improve our road system and encourage TfL to make a positive effort to do so. You can read more about it in my post on My London Diary, which includes the eight demands made by those taking part as well as a description of the event and many more pictures.
On Friday 29th November 2013 I went to two very different protests in London.
Islamists Protest Angolas Ban on Muslims – Angolan Embassy, Friday 29th November 2013
I’d had an interest in the rise of extremist Islamic movements in the UK since 2004, when I first photographed a march by Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, and the activities of Anjem Choudary had attracted my attention for some years before this event in 2013. In 1996 he had been one of the founders of the Islamist al-Muhajiroun, an organisation which dissolved itself shortly before it was banned by the UK government as a terrorist organisation in 2010, going on to found a series of new organisations considered by many to be al-Muhajiroun under different names.
I can’t now remember under what title Choudary had announced ‘DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN TYRANNY UPON MUSLIMS IN ANGOLA!’; another group he was associated with, Muslims Against Crusades, had been banned in November 2011, but I think many of those at this protest were the same individuals. The many posters they held named no organisation.
I’d gone to the Regents Park Mosque where a march had been announced to start to the Angolan Embassy, but as the crowds emerged after Friday prayers there was no sign of Choudary or his followers. Asking people there I learnt a small group had been present earlier but had left before the time announced and I gathered it had been made clear they were not welcome at the mosque.
I hurried down to the Angolan Embassy in Dorset Street, arriving to find a noisy demonstration taking place, but with no sign of Choudary. Another photographer told me I had missed them setting off firecrackers when they arrived. There were some loud chants echoing the message on the placards that ‘Muslims Will Destroy The Crusade & Implement ISLAM!’
As I wrote in the captions, “I came to the protest thinking for once that Amjem Choudary and his supporters had a just cause – Angola is clamping down on non-Christian religions including Islam. But it isn’t a ‘crusade’ but something that most Christians around the world and secularists would firmly oppose. But they would oppose it in the name of freedom. This was something rather different.
Finally Choudary himself arrived and began a lengthy speech. It was interesting and there was much that many including myself would agree with, as the Angolan regime has embarked on a purge of all non-Christian religions in the country. According to a report in The Guardian, there are only 83 approved religious organisations in Angola, every one of them Christian, and a statement from the Angolan embassy in the US claimed that they had ‘lots of religions’, citing “Catholic, Protestants, Baptists, Muslims and evangelical people.” In other words, freedom of religion – so long as it is Christian.
But what Choudary and his supporters advocate is not freedom of religion but the establishment of an Islamic Khilafah (caliphate), establishing Sharia law, where the only religion tolerated would be their extremist distortion of Islam. There was something new in his speech, when he talked about Islamic armies rising to “establish the Sharia” which at the time I thought was just wishful thinking on his part, but was in fact a chilling reality which became obvious as ISIS rose to occupy not Angola but a large territory in the Middle East around six months later.
Many of us were convinced in 2013 that Choudary was, if not an MI5 agent, at least protected by them and the police as a ‘honeypot’ for Islamic extremists, gathering them together to enable them to be readily recognised and kept under observation. It’s difficult to see otherwise why he had not been arrested for some of thee statements in his speeches at protests, careful though he was. But it was the rise of ISIS and his support expressed for Islamic State that led to his eventual arrest and sentencing in 2016 for five and a half years under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Cyclists ‘Die in’ at TfL HQ – Blackfriars Rd, Friday 29th November 2013
Cyclists are the most vulnerable of road users, riding unprotected among cars and lorries whose drivers are cased in powerful and heavy metal shells. Pedestrians also lack any protection, but are usually provided with pavements which cyclists cannot legally use.
That of course is stating the obvious, but it’s an obvious that is almost always obscured by heated anti-cyclist opinions forcefully expressed, about cyclists who get in the way of motorists, or who ride aggressively on pavements, cross red lights and fail to wear cycle helmets etc.
I write as a cyclist and a pedestrian, and a former if reluctant driver. As the latest Highway Code makes even clearer, cyclists have a right to be on the road and are a part of traffic just as much as any car or lorry. And there are probably about as many bad cyclists as there are bad drivers, perhaps rather more given the number of people too young to get a driving licence who ride bikes.
We now have many shared paths for bicycles and pedestrians and accidents on them are rare, and very seldom cause significant injuries to either party, though the few that do get great publicity. Many of us also occasionally ride on pavements which are not officially shared, and do so with care for those on foot, in places where the roadway is dangerous and there is no separate provision for cyclists. I won’t get into cycle helmets in depth, but they provide little protection and may well decrease the safety of cyclists as well as making cycling a rather less convenient activity. And the emphasis on their use is simply trying to put the blame on the victims of road accidents rather than trying to make the roads safe.
There are many reasons why cycling should be encouraged and proper facilities provided. It improves the health of those who cycle and leads to a cut in expenditure on health services, is an almost non-polluting form of transport and much more efficient in the use of road space, reducing congestion for others, and a cheap solution particularly to many shorter distances in cities. Many cities have become better places to live by welcoming and providing proper provision for cycling.
The protest outside the London HQ of TfL demanded safer road provision for cyclists. It was organised after 14 cyclists had been killed in London over the previous years. For more than 50 years the design and provision of roads has been almost entirely based on increasing the flow of motorised vehicles, with other considerations being largely ignored. And faster traffic becomes more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists – congestion actually makes cycling in central London safer.
Even where TfL has begun to provide cycle ‘superhighways’, these have been badly designed at many junctions, and marked cycle paths are often used as parking places, forcing cyclists into the heavy traffic the path is meant to avoid. Some cycle lanes in my area are far too narrow and on uneven road edges making them dangerous to ride on even where they are not obstructed by parked vehicles, others have stop signs at every minor road or even injunctions to dismount.
On My London Diary you can read the list of eight demands the protest made to improve safety and get more people using bikes. As well as spending more money on cycling infrastructure they included a ban on vehicles whose drivers are unable to see adjacent road users. Most deaths of cyclists are caused by drivers who turn left at junctions unaware that there is a someone on a bike in their path.
After a short introduction to the event there was a long silent vigil while a cellist played solemn music, and those who had brought candles came and lit them around a bicycle. Then there was a speech reminding us that Amsterdam had become a much more pleasant city with high bicycle use following a series of protests in the 1970s had prompted the city into action – with die-ins such as that which followed. Police at the scene estimated a thousand bicycles and cyclists took part, though organisers thought it was double this. The BBC reported it as ‘hundreds’ in a typical media response to cyclists and protests. Then the rally continued, with more speeches and the reading out of the names of cyclists killed on the streets.
