A coroner today described one of Boris Johnson’s first cycle superhighways as an “accident waiting to happen” as she heard how a cyclist had followed it into the path of an HGV.
Chartered surveyor Brian Dorling, 58, an experienced cyclist, was killed in a collision with a tipper truck at Bow roundabout as he rode to work on the Olympics site on October 24, 2011, Poplar coroner’s court heard today.
Martin Porter QC, representing Mr Dorling’s family, suggested he had jumped the red light to get away from the McArdle truck, being driven by David Cox. However the lorry also jumped the light and dragged Mr Dorling under its wheels as it turned left across cycle superhighway 2.
After viewing CCTV evidence and pictures of the scene, Coroner Mary Hassell said: “It just seems to me that it’s an accident waiting to happen if cyclists are guided into the space where blue paint is on the left and they’re in the very place where the lorry is going to hit them. It seems like they’re being guided into the place where they’re most vulnerable.”
Accident investigator Pc Alex Hewitt replied: “It’s almost an impossible situation.”
Mr Cox, 49, pleaded guilty to careless driving at an earlier court hearing and was given a suspended 24-week jail sentence and a 100-hour community service order and banned from driving for two years.
Mr Dorling’s path had been blocked by a bus that straddled the bike lane, leaving him alongside the four-axle tipper. The court heard that Mr Dorling probably undertook the lorry.
Asked by the coroner what status cycle superhighways had in relation to vehicles not being permitted to enter, PC Hewitt said: “Legally nothing. It’s just a piece of blue paint.”
It was the first cyclist death on a superhighway and was the first of two cyclist fatalities at Bow roundabout that year.
Mr Cox told the coroner’s court that he was in the second (outside) lane as he approached the Bow roundabout from the City and failed to see Mr Dorling, from Hounslow. He said: “I have thought about it a million times since. I know I was looking. I know I was. I can’t change anything unfortunately.”
He admitted there were “blind spots” in his view. He said: “As I have gone around the corner, all I have heard was like a crack, like a car mirror sound. I stopped and then found out what had happened.” The hearing continues.
