Press coverage:
Category Archives: Campaigning
KENSINGTON & CHELSEA TOWN HALL DIE IN
Pictured-Warm-kind-cyclist-killed-lorry
When: Thursday, October 12th, 5.30pm to 7pm
Where: Horton Street, W8 7NX
Stop Killing Cyclists will be staging a Die-In Vigil and Protest outside Kensington & Chelsea Town Hall, on Thursday 12th October from 5’30pm to 7pm to mark the terrible killing of a young 36 year old woman at Chelsea Bridge.
Our hearts go out to the family of the second cycling victim of a HGV killing in Kensington & Chelsea within a year.
Every week, pedestrians and cyclists are being killed by dangerously designed trucks. It is outrageous that Transport Minister Jesse Norman, whilst acting immediately on the one fixie-bike death in 30 years, has totally failed to act legally make HGVs safer or to take the simple ministerial commencement action to allow TfL to fine drivers who dangerously enter mandatory cycle lanes.
Kensington & Chelsea have responsibility for traffic on Chelsea Bridge.
In our 2015 survey of all London boroughs, Chelsea ranked as the most cyclo-phobic in London.:
* For years they opposed all proposals by the Mayor of London to build protected cycle lanes through the Borough, blocking new safe routes to West and North-West London.
*They have refused to build a single meter of protected cycle lanes on their own roads, insisting that children and pensioners on bikes must share the roads with HGVs and buses.
*They even oppose protected bus-stop cycle bypasses.
* They are one of the few inner London Boroughs refusing to introduce the safe 20 mph speed limit.
Kensington & Chelsea failed the tenants of Grenfell.
For years, they have also lethally failed to protect the thousands of kids, adults and pensioners who want to cycle in the borough.
Our Die-In is demanding:
1/ Kensington & Chelsea must stop its disgraceful opposition to all of the proposed London Mayor’s protected cycle highways through the Borough.
2/ TfL must urgently revisit the designs for Chelsea Bridge Junction and bring them up to Go Dutch standards.
3/ The Transport Minister must stop opposing the introduction of long demanded regulations for safer HGV truck design and legislate urgently to get lethal blind HGVs off our roads and also issue the commencement order to enable TfL to fine HGV trucks and traffic that illegally drive into mandatory cycle lanes. Too many pedestrians and people cycling are being killed week after week by them.
There were 26 crashes at Chelsea Bridge Junction last year, the largest of any junction in the Borough.
21 year old Prince Filippo Corsini was killed by a HGV truck on Kensington High Street in November 2016.
Press Contact: Donnachadh McCarthy 07947 884299
Vigil for Ardian Zagani The Sixth London Person Killed While Cycling This Year
Vigil for Ardian Zagani The Sixth London Person Killed While Cycling This Year
For the sixth time this year, Stop Killing Cyclists (SKC), the direct action pressure group, will be remembering a person who has died after being involved in an incident with the driver of a motor vehicle, while they were riding their bicycle. This commemoration will be with a Vigil and Die-In at the scene of the incident.
The person being remembered is Ardian Zagani, known to his friends as “Sam” and in his 30s, who died as a result of his bicycle being hit by a van being driven along Camden Road at the junction with Hilldrop Crescent just after 6am on Tuesday 29th August. Ardian was commuting to his first day
back at work at the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London in Tottenham where he worked as a caretaker.
Stop Killing Cyclists will begin gathering from 5.30pm on Monday 4th September at the junction of Camden Road and Hilldrop Crescent and the vigil will formally start after 6pm. In this sadly increasingly familiar sight on the streets of London, short speeches will be given, candles lit, and flowers laid around a ghost bike in memory of Mr Zagani, before
hundreds of people will lay on the road, many with their bikes.
Traffic will be brought to a standstill for ten minutes, and all will be given a space to contemplate the terrible price paid by Ardian Zagani, and by cyclists and pedestrians killed and seriously injured on the streets of London.
To date, Islington Council and Transport for London (TfL) have so far failed to provide cycling provision along a busy corridor connecting North and Central London, and must take responsibility for this latest tragedy.
Both TfL and Islington Council seem content with allowing with buses, HGVs and motor traffic sharing space with people on bicycles, which will only lead to more tragedies like this. TfL has identified that more than 50% of collisions involving cyclists take place at junctions and have acknowledged
Camden Road as an area of high potential for cycling in their Strategic Cycling Analysis.
Stop Killing Cyclists are calling for Islington Council to tackle its shocking failure to date, and work with TfL to improve safety on its roads. Both authorities are complicit in Ardian’s death for failing to build safe segregated cycle lanes along A503 Camden Road. We also call upon the Metropolitan Police to strictly enforce the 20mph Borough wide speed limit
in Islington, which has been in place for more than a year, to help reduce road danger for all road users.
SKC Co-organiser Nicola Branch said “We are calling for TfL and Islington Council to provide protected infrastructure on Camden Road, like the bike lanes you see on Blackfriars Bridge. It also needs traffic calming measures. Pedestrians need protection too, with proper crossings. When I was at the scene of the incident, I saw two people trying to cross the road and standing in the middle of the traffic island. I am horrified at the speed people drive along there”
Ends.
Release Dated: 31 August 2017
Event Listings (including feeder rides info):
https://www.facebook.com/events/https://www.facebook.com/events/113481649335294/??ti=ia
contact Nicola Branch 07710 827041
GENERAL ELECTION: Double Labour / Tory HQs - #10%by2020 Stop Killing Cyclists Protests and Die-Ins !!
PRESS RELEASE
GENERAL ELECTION:
Double Labour / Tory HQs -
#10%by2020 Stop Killing Cyclists Protests and Die-Ins !!
What: Stop Killing Cyclists are staging 2 protests and Die-Ins outside the Headquarters of the Labour & Tory Parties, demanding that they increase investment in the UK’s national protected cycling infrastructure and walking to 10% of the transport budget by 2020.
Where: Labour HQ, 105 Victoria Street, Westminster, SW1E
Tory HQ, 4 Matthew Parker Street, Westminster SW1H
Tory HQ, 4 Matthew Parker Street, Westminster SW1H
When: Friday 21st May Labour Party Protest/Die-In
Friday 28th May Tory Party Protest/Die In.
From 5pm to 6.45pm both days.
Protest will feature protesters in gas masks.
This will symbolise the thousands of UK children, whose lungs are being stunted from living on traffic polluted streets or attending polluted schools.
Both protests will include our signature Die-Ins, where protesters will lie down on the road outside the Party HQs, representing the tens of thousands of people who have died from transport pollution and inactivity diseases due to lack of protected cycle lanes under recent Tory, Tory/Lib-Dem and Labour governments.
Please bring gas or pollution masks.
Stop Killing Cyclists co-organiser Alex Raha said:
“Air pollution is poisoning millions of people in the UK, whilst traffic carbon emissions are contributing to the climate emergency. Road danger means most people do not feel safe cycling on UK roads, which means they lack life-saving physical exercise”
He added: “There is now an urgent health crisis which is costing the NHS billions. It is now crucial that our national cycling infrastructure gets its fair share of national infrastructure investment.”
Co-organiser Dr Ruth-anna McQueen and cycling mother added:
“It is unacceptable in a supposedly free society that parents are afraid to allow their kids to cycle to school. It is even more unfair that our children’s lungs are being stunted from being in polluted schools. All political parties must now commit to invest the money needed to protect the public when cycling.”
Cycling and walking are crucial to creating a healthy and sustainable UK, urgently addressing the obesity, inactivity, transport pollution, health and climate emergencies.
Successive governments have lethally underfunded active travel and current spending plans would further reduce the cycling infrastructure budget to less than £1 per person in England - This compares with the Dutch investment of about £24 per person per year.
The government must urgently commit to radically increasing the funding for cycling from the current less than 2%, to 10% by 2020.
This needs to then increase to 20% of the transport budget by 2025, according to the UN.
This would equate to about £1.3 billion per year by 2020 and about £3 billion by the UN deadline in 2025.
This is a modest amount when one compares it to the £27.5 billion being spent on just one new suburban commuter railway in London, but would protect people on roads all over the country and not just commuters in one part of London.
The protest welcomes pedestrians, parents, elderly, motorists, taxi/bus drivers, children, asthmatics etc., as pollution and inactivity diseases caused by lack of cycling infrastructure is causing ill-health to all sections of society.
The Die-In on 21st May will be dedicated to the memory of prominent octogenarian cycling campaigner and Stop Killing Cyclists member Londoner Bryan Stout, who was tragically killed by an inebriated driver in Spain in April 2017.
End.
Press spokesperson Donnachadh McCarthy: Mobile 07947 884299
Notes to Editors:
A. Full list of protest demands:
1. Fair funding for cycling: * Invest £15 billion in a National Segregated Cycle Network over the next 5 years. (Dutch £24 per person x 64 million (UK pop) x 2 to start catching up on 40 years of failure to invest).
* Invest 10% of Department for Transport Budget by 2020 in safer cycling/walking infrastructure.
* Invest 10% of Department for Transport Budget by 2020 in safer cycling/walking infrastructure.
2. Ban all non-zero emission private cars from cities on days where pollution levels are predicted to rise above EU safety levels.
3. Ban all diesel-powered vehicles in city-centres within 5 years.
4. Ban all fossil-fuel powered vehicles within city centres within 10 years.
5. Instigate a programme of regular car-free days in England’s major cities, along the model of Paris.
6. Stop the Killing of children - set up a national multi-billion-pound programme to convert residential communities across Britain into living-street Home Zones with an end to dangerous polluting through-routes.
7. Stop the Killing of pedestrians - establish a national programme to fund pedestrianizing/cyclisation of our city, borough and town centres, including the nation’s high-street - Oxford Street.
8. Allow city councils and TfL to limit the total number of private hire vehicles in their cities and promote the usage of zero emissions pedicabs with legal pedicab stands etc.
B. List of current Government Actions worsening the horrific pollution death toll have included:
- Increased taxes on cleaner cars
- Reduced taxes on more polluting cars
- DfT released proposals to close down local street pollution monitoring
- UK government lobbied EU to weaken pollution testing standards after VW scandal
- Despite taxi numbers in London soaring above 100,000, government refusing to allow TfL to regulate taxi numbers in London.
- Osborne slashed the already miniscule funding for cycling investment to a tiny pathetic 6% of what Dutch are spending, whilst allocating billions more to road-building.
- Osborne has cut fuel duty at every single budget despite oil prices having fallen by over a third since 2012.
- Government banned use of camera vehicles by local councils to enforce parking restrictions.
- They refused to reduce speed limits to 60 mph on M1 and M3 help reduce frequency of EU pollution levels being breached.
- They have proposed raising speed limit on motorways to 80 mph
- UK government has been breaking EU road pollution law safety limits since 2010
- Government found guilty of breaking EU pollution directive by UK Supreme Court in 2015
- Government plans for London to continue to break EU pollution limits until 2025
- Government plans for other major UK cities to continue to break EU pollution limits until 2030 e.g. Birmingham & Leeds
- Government lobbied EU to dilute road pollution laws that it is breaking
- Chancellor extended first MOT requirement from 3 to 4 years., thus enabling faulty polluting vehicles to be undetected on the roads for yet another year.
C. Full 2016 Royal College of Physicians report on transport pollution death statistics and £20 billion cost to NHS (16% of total cost!) is here:
HM Treasury: 10 by 2020 Stop Killing Cyclists Protest !!
Tragically in the past week Karla Roman, Anita Szucs Ben Wales and an unnamed person have been killed whilst either cycling or walking in London, Stop Killing Cyclists will be holding a vigil and die in to remember them as part of our protest. This highlights the need for safer streets for pedestrians and cyclists is now more pressing than ever.
HM Treasury: 10 by 2020 Stop Killing Cyclists Protest !!
What: Stop Killing Cyclists are staging a protest and Die-In outside HM Treasury on Horseguards Parade, demanding that the Chancellor Philip Hammond increases investment in the UK’s national protected cycling infrastructure and walking to 10% of the transport budget by 2020.
Where: Protesters are meeting outside the National Gallery and marching to HM Treasury,1 Horseguards Parade, London, SW1A 2HQ for rally and Die-In.
When: Assembling at National Gallery from 1pm. Rally and Die-In at HM Treasury at 2pm.
Protest will feature children playing in gas masks in front of Hammond’s Treasury.
This will symbolise the thousands of UK children, whose lungs are being stunted from living on traffic polluted streets or attending polluted schools, as well as our signature Die-Ins representing the tens of thousands of people dying from transport pollution and inactivity diseases due to lack of protected cycle lanes.
Please bring gas or pollution masks.
Stop Killing Cyclists spokesperson Caspar Hughes said:
“Air pollution is poisoning millions of people in the UK, whilst traffic carbon emissions are contributing to the climate emergency. Road danger means most people do not feel safe cycling on UK roads, which means they lack life-saving physical exercise”.
He added: “There is now an urgent health crisis which is costing the NHS billions. It is now crucial that our national cycling infrastructure gets its fair share of national infrastructure investment.” Cycling and walking are crucial to creating a healthy and sustainable UK. Successive governments have lethally underfunded active travel and current spending plans would further reduce the cycling budget to less than £1 per person in England. This compares with the Dutch investment of about £24 per person per year. The government must urgently commit to radically increasing the funding for cycling and walking to 5% of the 2017 transport budget and to 10% by 2020. This funding needs to further increase to 20% of the transport budget - the UN’s recommended minimum for cycling and walking.
The protest welcomes pedestrians, parents, elderly, motorists, taxi/bus drivers, children, asthmatics etc., as pollution and inactivity diseases caused by lack of cycling infrastructure is causing ill-health to all sections of society.
End. Press spokesperson Alex Raha: Mobile 07930-928751
Notes to Editors:
A. Full list of protest demands:
1. Fair funding for cycling: * Invest £15 billion in a National Segregated Cycle Network over the next 5 years. (Dutch £24 per person x 64 million (UK pop) x 2 to start catching up on 40 years of failure to invest).
* Invest 10% of Department for Transport Budget by 2020 in safer cycling/walking infrastructure.
2. Ban all non-zero emission private cars from cities on days where pollution levels are predicted to rise above EU safety levels.
3. Ban all diesel-powered vehicles in city-centres within 5 years.
4. Ban all fossil-fuel powered vehicles within city centres within 10 years.
5. Instigate a programme of regular car-free days in England’s major cities, along the model of Paris.
6. Stop the Killing of children – set up a national multi-billion-pound programme to convert residential communities across Britain into living-street Home Zones with an end to dangerous polluting through-routes.
7. Stop the Killing of pedestrians – establish a national programme to fund pedestrianizing/cyclisation of our city, borough and town centres, including the nation’s high-street – Oxford Street. 8. Allow city councils and TfL to limit the total number of private hire vehicles in their cities and promote the usage of zero emissions pedicabs with legal pedicab stands etc.
B. List of Government Actions worsening the horrific pollution death toll have included:
Increased taxes on cleaner cars
Reduced taxes on more polluting cars
DfT released proposals to close down local street pollution monitoring
UK government lobbied EU to weaken pollution testing standards after VW scandal
Despite taxi numbers in London soaring above 100,000, government refusing to allow TfL to regulate taxi numbers in London.
Osborne slashed the already miniscule funding for cycling investment to a tiny pathetic 6% of what Dutch are spending, whilst allocating billions more to road-building.
Osborne has cut fuel duty at every single budget despite oil prices having fallen by over a third since 2012.
Government banned use of camera vehicles by local councils to enforce parking restrictions.
They refused to reduce speed limits to 60 mph on M1 and M3 help reduce frequency of EU pollution levels being breached.
They have proposed raising speed limit on motorways to 80 mph
UK government has been breaking EU road pollution law safety limits since 2010
Government found guilty of breaking EU pollution directive by UK Supreme Court in 2015
Government plans for London to continue to break EU pollution limits until 2025
Government plans for other major UK cities to continue to break EU pollution limits until 2030 e.g. Birmingham & Leeds
Government lobbied EU to dilute road pollution laws that it is breaking
Chancellor extended first MOT requirement from 3 to 4 years., thus enabling faulty polluting vehicles to be undetected on the roads for yet another year.
C. Full 2016 Royal College of Physicians report on transport pollution death statistics and £20 billion cost to NHS (16% of total cost!) is here:
Direct Action Protest along Oxford Street on Saturday 15 November
The direct-action protest called The National Funeral for the Unknown Victim of Traffic Violence is taking place along Oxford Street on Saturday, November 15, 2014 from noon. It ends at Marble Arch with a rally and Die-In.
In the 1970s, a series of Die-Ins under the banner ‘Stop De Kindermoord‘ (stop the child murder) lead the government of The Netherlands to introduce a road infrastructure that caters for people, whether they choose to drive, cycle or walk.
Fred Smith, a co-organiser with the Stop the Killing coalition said:
“The UK’s road network is not fit for purpose. We need to end the culture of acceptance which surrounds traffic-violence and unite road users of all kinds from across the country to create positive human-friendly roads and public-spaces in Britain.”
The march starts at Bedford Square (near the British Museum) and proceeds along Oxford Street, following a horse-drawn hearse with an empty coffin that symbolically represents all the unknown victims who have lost or had their lives destroyed on UK’s roads through:
- Traffic Crash Violence
- Death from traffic air-pollution
- Obesity related deaths through fear of walking or cycling
- The millions dying worldwide as a result of climate change.
There are 10 Demands being put to local and national governments:
- Stop the Killing of Children
- Stop the Killing of Pedestrians
- Stop the Killing of Pensioners from excessive speed.
- Stop the Killing of Cyclists.
- Stop the Killing by HGVs.
- Stop the Killing without liability.
- Stop the Killing from Lung, Heart and other Diseases caused by vehicular pollutants.
- Stop the Killing at Junctions.
- Stop the Killing from CO2 emissions from impacts of the climate crisis.
- Focus on Life! Transport governance must make safety and quality of life the top priority.
| Details: | PROGRAMME and FEEDER RIDES |
| YouTube: | Watch the videos at http://goo.gl/v3KRtz and http://goo.gl/OEG7iM |
| Twitter: | #NationalFuneral and @StopKillingCycl |
| Facebook: | NATIONAL FUNERAL (event listing) and STOP KILLING CYCLISTS (discussion group) |
Other Die-Ins arranged by Stop Killing Cyclists took place over the past year at:
Transport to National Funeral From West Midlands
A Facebook page has been set up in order for those thinking of going to the National Funeral in London from the West Midlands to discuss/ arrange transport - book train spaces on bikes, car shares, coaches etc.
Members can post any train or coach offers they see there and can offer any car shares.
Click: EVENT PAGE ON FACEBOOK (West Midlands)
We want as many to turn up as possible and hopefully Event pages like this will help those who are unsure about transport. Anyone interested in setting up an event in their area, please get in touch!
References and Resources
A collection of evidence, references, resources and other things related to campaigning for a safer environment to travel about in.
Government:
Reports, Parliament
- All Parliamentary Party Cycling Group
- Get Britain Cycling — inquiry report
- Transport Committee
- Draft National Policy Statement on National Networks — strategic road and rail network
Department for Transport
- Crash (“accident”) statistics
- English Road Safety Comparison
- Walking and cycling statistics
- Guidance:
Campaigns:
National
- SpaceForCycling — grassroots
- Space4Cycling — CTC, Cycle Nation
- Time to #ChooseCycling -British Cycling
- Time to Cross — Living Streets
- GO 20 — Brake
- Cities Fit For Cycling — The Times
- Crash not Accident — RoadPeace
- Give us time to cross — Living Streets
- Road Justice — CTC
Regional and Local
- Pedal on Parliament — Scotland
- Space4Cycling — London Cycle Campaign
- Safer Lorries, Safer Cycling — London Cycling Campaign
- See Me, Save Me — RoadPeace
How The Best Do It:
- A View From The Cycle Path by David Hembrow who also offers study tours
- Bicycle Dutch by Mark Wagenbuur who has made many videos
- Amsterdamize by Marc van Woudenberg
- Copenhagenize by Mikael Colville-Andersen
- StreetFilms — how smart transportation design and policy can result in better places to live, work and play.
This & That:
- Knowledge Base — Cycling Embassy of Great Britain
- RoSPA — The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
- Road Safety GB — represents local authority road safety teams
- EuroRAP — European road assessment programme
- Sustrans — a world in which people choose to travel in ways that benefit their health and the environment
- Road Danger Reduction Forum — safer roads for all
- Road Safety Analysis — social enterprise, not-for-profit company; aka MAST Online
- CycleHelmets — evidence about effectiveness of bicycle helmets
- PACTS — Parliamentary advisory council for transport safety
- Phil Jones Associates — transport planning consultants, key member of team that created ‘Manual for Streets’
Campaigning
Here are some of the campaigning groups and individuals working towards the same goal of reducing (eliminating!) the conflict on the roads that leads to many thousands of people being killed or seriously injured.
 |
Stop Killing Cyclists (“radical and peaceful”) |
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RoadPeace (national charity for road crash victims) |
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Space For Cycling (national; also see London-focused LCC space4cycling) |
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The Bus Stops Here: A Safer Oxford Street for Everyone |
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Brake - the road safety charity |
Thanks
All that we do is based on volunteering and donations. We thank everyone for their help in support of Stop the Killing and Stop Killing Cyclists. Hopefully you have already been told by others in the group just how much we appreciate your donation of time, experience, supplies, equipment, positive encouragement, and whatever else you bring to the table. Truly: Thank you.