Speaking about the tragic, avoidable, and needless death of Alan Neve, the head of Transport for London's (TfL's) Surface Transport, Leon Daniels, said that he wanted to avoid a 'knee-jerk' reaction to make things safer for those cycling.
The thing is, TfL has been avoiding a 'knee-jerk' reaction to make our streets less inhumane ever since it was formally constituted as a government body in 2000.
More shockingly, Boris Johnson, our 'cycling' Mayor, has been avoiding a 'knee-jerk' reaction ever since he first took office five years ago in 2008.
Here is a list of all 69 of the Londoners killed by drivers of motor traffic while choosing to cycle in London since May 2008 (full database here, courtesy of icycleliverpool). After each single one of these Londoners was killed on the road, TfL choose to continue to promote cycling as a mode of transport they wish to encourage, but simultaneously to blindly avoid doing any kind of 'knee-jerk' reaction that might have resulted in the physical segregation of motorists from the cyclists they routinely kill and maim on brutal London roads.
23 Jun 2008 - Lucinda Ferrier - Hackney
09 Aug 2008 - Massimo Pradel - Brent
18 Sep 2008 - Graham Thwaites - Bromley
18 Sep 2008 - Nick Wright - City of London
24 Sep 2008 - Wan-Chen McGuiness - Camden
20 Oct 2008 - Syed Mohammed Sajjad Bilgrami - Wandsworth
17 Nov 2008 - Unknown - Ealing
26 Nov 2008 - Michael Fletcher - Hounslow
24 Dec 2008 - Malcolm Boswell - Enfield
24 Dec 2008 - Natalie Lee - Barking and Dagenham
13 Jan 2009 - Unknown - Newham
05 Feb 2009 - Eilidh Cairns - Kensington and Chelsea
08 Apr 2009 - Meryem Ozekman - Southwark
09 Apr 2009 - Rebecca Goosen - Islington
15 May 2009 - Adrianna Skrzypiec - Greenwich
30 May 2009 - Khaleel Rheman - Newham
12 Jun 2009 - Maria Emma Garcia Fernandez - City of London
29 Jun 2009 - Catriona Patel - Lambeth
05 Jul 2009 - Christopher Durand - Ealing
16 Sep 2009 - Chrystelle Brown - Tower Hamlets
20 Oct 2009 - Tanya Van Der Loo - Westminster
11 Nov 2009 - Dorothy Rose Elder - Camden
05 Dec 2009 - Robert Domienik - Surrey
07 Dec 2009 - Stella Chandler - Greenwich
08 Jan 2010 - Sayit Huseyin - Islington
04 Feb 2010 - Patrick Gorman - Camden
09 Feb 2010 - David Vilaseca - Southwark
09 Mar 2010 - Muhammed Haris Ahmed - Southwark
10 Mar 2010 - Shivon Watson - Hackney
14 Apr 2010 - Jayne Helliwell - Westminster
26 Apr 2010 - Zoe Sheldrake - Barnet
22 May 2010 - Everton Smith - Westminster
20 Jul 2010 - Rajaendran Ramakrishnan - Harrow
05 Aug 2010 - Arina Romanova - Hackney
06 Jan 2011 - Gary Mason - Sutton
02 Feb 2011 - Daniel Cox - Hackney
10 Mar 2011 - Tom Barrett - Hillingdon
22 Mar 2011 - David Poblet - Southwark
05 Apr 2011 - Paula Jurek - Camden
22 Apr 2011 - Gavin Taylor - Islington
28 Apr 2011 - Naoko Miyazaki - Hammersmith and Fulham
17 May 2011 - Thomas Stone - Barking and Dagenham
29 May 2011 - Michael Evans - Bromley
21 Jun 2011 - Peter McGreal - Tower Hamlets
31 Jul 2011 - Johannah Bailey - Lambeth
06 Aug 2011 - Samuel Harding - Islington
03 Oct 2011 - Min Joo Lee - Camden
24 Oct 2011 - Brian Dorling - Tower Hamlets
11 Nov 2011 - Svitlana Tereschenko - Tower Hamlets
02 Dec 2011 - Eleanor Carey - Southwark
07 Jan 2012 - James Darby - Bromley
03 Feb 2012 - Henry Warwick - City of London
05 Mar 2012 - Ali Nasralla - Kingston upon Thames
23 Mar 2012 - Olatunji Adeyanju - Lewisham
27 Mar 2012 - Frank Mugisha - Haringey
29 Apr 2012 - Zakiyuddin Mamujee - Hillingdon
26 Jun 2012 - Redwan Uddin - Newham
05 Jul 2012 - Tarsem Dari - Ealing
10 Jul 2012 - Neil Turner - Croydon
01 Aug 2012 - Dan Harris - Hackney
16 Oct 2012 - Hilary Lee - Barnet
29 Oct 2012 - Sofoklis Kostoulas - Tower Hamlets
19 Nov 2012 - Brian Florey - Barking and Dagenham
06 Dec 2012 - Javed Sumbal - Tower Hamlets
09 Feb 2013 - Edward Orrey - Leytonstone
08 Apr 2013 - Katharine Giles - Westminster
24 Jun 2013 - Paul Hutcheson - Lewisham
05 July 2013 - Phillipine De Gerin-Ricard - Tower Hamlets
15 July 2013 - Alan Neve - Camden
Saying that you want to avoid a 'knee-jerk' reaction implies that Alan Neve's death was some kind of freak one-off. It wasn't. Alan Neve's death was only the latest in a grim series of killings that have been going on for the last decade. These deaths have virtually all occurred at notable accident hotspots that TfL have previously been warned by the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) are incredibly dangerous for cyclists.
TfL aren't avoiding a 'knee-jerk' reaction. They're callously letting Londoners continue to be killed on our streets by criminally poor road design that leaves those that choose to cycle defenceless against drivers that habitually make mistakes and kill them.
Leon Daniels should resign. Immediately.
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AsEasyAsRidingABike has written an extremely excellent post along similar(ish) lines available here.
Leon Daniels should be *fired* immediately. His weasel words - yet again - show clearly that he is part of the problem. And we need someone in that job who actually gives a shit.
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