On Monday a man lost his life while out cycling. When I was contacted by the Daily Echo I paid tribute to Mr Morris and extended by sincere sympathies to his family. After yesterday’s Echo article I was trolled on Twitter and Facebook by cyclists who suggest I had blamed the cyclist for the accident. I did no such thing. I merely said that I wanted cyclists to be safe and a way to help would be to choose the safest route possible.
Last night I did a follow-up with the Daily Echo on the back of Wednesday’s article. I expressed by disappointment that my condolences to the family were not included in the article. I therefore want to express my sympathies and condolences again to Mr Morris’s family in this difficult time.
As for the issue of cyclists and road safety, I will not resile from my opinion. Our roads are dangerous. They are dangerous for drivers, pedestrians and yes, for cyclists. If my comments about cycling safety have offended some cyclists there is little I can do about that, but conflating the lack of cycle provision with any of my comments about keeping safe does nothing to further the cause.
Hi I appreciate your comments, it’s not good to be misunderstood, we all know you spoke with the best of intentions. It is a well established fact though the principle causes of death in the UK are due cancer and heart disease, the likelihood of falling victim to these are greatly diminished by regular exercise of which cycling can play a major part.
I fully understand that you would care about this incident and the welfare of the family and their loss as do we all. However, the suggestion is that this could have been avoided by the cyclist taking other actions. Perhaps also what needs to be looked into is how the lorry driver could take more care and how as many roads as possible could be made safe for cyclists by making sure that drivers cannot put them at risk and do take care. Surely, in this day and age, it is unacceptable that roads are as dangerous as they are.
What has most likely annoyed most people is the suggestion that the lorry driver could not have done anything when at this point it is not clear how it happened.