Friday 5 August 2022 10:16 PM Killer cyclists face tougher jail sentences under crackdown proposed by Grant ... trends now
Killer cyclists face tougher jail sentences under a crackdown proposed by the Transport Secretary.
Grant Shapps wants to close an ‘archaic’ legal hole which means riders who kill pedestrians can be jailed for a maximum of only two years.
Mr Shapps wants reckless cyclists to be treated the same as reckless motorists, and hit out at ‘a selfish minority’ of aggressive riders. He said an overhaul was needed to ‘impress on cyclists the real harm they can cause when speed is combined with lack of care’.
Under his proposal, a new law of causing death by dangerous cycling would be included in the forthcoming Transport Bill, due before Parliament in the autumn.
Grieving relatives of victims of killer cyclists have ‘waited too long for this straightforward measure’, he told The Mail+.
In February 2016, Kim Briggs was killed by reckless cyclist Charlie Alliston (pictured) after sufferring 'catastrophic injuries' when he hit her as she crossed OId Street in East London
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps says he wants to close an ‘archaic’ legal loophole which means reckless cyclists who kill pedestrians can only be jailed for a maximum of two years
Campaigners have been calling for cyclists to be treated the same as drivers since mother-of-two Kim Briggs, 44, was killed as she crossed a road in east London in February 2016. She was hit by Charlie Alliston, then 18, who was illegally riding a fixed-wheel bike with no front brakes at 18mph.
He was jailed for just 18 months because no law existed to charge him with the equivalent of causing death by dangerous driving.
Prosecutors had to rely on the Offences Against The Person Act 1861, designed to cover offences with horse-drawn carriages, to secure a conviction of causing bodily harm by ‘wanton or furious driving’. By contrast, motorists can be sentenced to life in prison for causing death by dangerous driving.
Mr Shapps said the current ‘archaic law’ means prosecutions of killer cyclists must rely on ‘a legal relic of the horse-drawn era or invoke manslaughter, a draconian option’.
He added: ‘We need the cycling equivalent of death by dangerous driving to close a gap in the law and impress on cyclists the real harm they can cause when speed is combined with lack of care.
‘For example, traffic lights are there to regulate all traffic. But a selfish minority of cyclists appear to believe that they are
