Forum Topics

The death of a cyclist

There's a powerful piece in tonight's Evening Standard about the awful death of Gao Gao, a young woman who was knocked down whilst cycling home and killed by a speeding driver. It's not a long piece, so I make no apologies for including it all here.Oh, and I hope the anti-cyclists here will have the grace not to post their usual diatribes against cyclists and cycling.I cannot escape the horror of seeing cyclist Gao Gao’s terrible hit-and-run death on CCTVRoss Lydall"The images enter my sleep, and trouble me awake. A speeding car cannonballs across a wet road, flips and smashes head-on into a female cyclist riding home. This is no Netflix horror show. This was a residential street in Hackney on September 21 last year.Gathered from council CCTV footage, this deeply distressing film was shown in evidence to Court 12 at Snaresbrook Crown Court last Friday. The packed, overheated room was silent but for horrified gasps and sobs from about a dozen of the cyclist’s family and close friends.This was how the life of Gao Gao, by all accounts a quite remarkable young Londoner and devoted mother to two terribly young children, ended.Gao Gao’s family and friends had gathered expecting to see the ill-educated 29-year-old man who had pleaded guilty to causing her death by dangerous driving sent to prison.In 30 years as a journalist, the victim impact statements are as distressing as anything I’ve heardInstead, they had to wait as he claimed in court that when he fled the overturned car with his father, he was unaware that a woman was dying less than 20ft away.Somehow her widower, Luke Walker, and her sister Ella found the courage to read out their victim impact statements. They told how many lives had been torn apart, not least those of her four-year-old boy and his one-year-old sister, who will grow up motherless.The little girl, who was still being breastfed, now goes to her front door daily to plead for her 'mama' to return. In 30 years as a journalist, it’s as distressing as anything I’ve heard.This is the reality of what happens daily on London’s roads. As a cyclist, it’s terrifying. As a parent, doubly so. The selfish lack of regard for other road users runs directly from those who rush red lights or ignore pedestrians on zebra crossings to those who, like Gao Gao’s killer, drive at nearly 50mph in a 20mph zone. Hit-and-runs are soaring. Speeding is at epidemic levels: a million tickets may be issued this year. The so-called 'war on the motorist' — LTNs, Ulez and speed cameras — is anything but.But it has inspired the deadliest of vengeance against vulnerable road users. Protected by airbags in ridiculously fast, often unregistered and uninsured cars, many drivers think nothing of the consequences as they turn London into a lawless racetrack."https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/cyclist-hit-and-run-death-london-mother-gao-gao-b1134162.html

Richard Carter ● 64d10 Comments ● 37d

Sunak and integrity: how has that gone?

When he took up the job of prime minister, Sunak promised “integrity, professionalism and accountability,” welcome words after the previous holders’ lack of compassion (May), lack of integrity (Johnson) and lack of any competency (Lettuce Liz): how has that worked out? We’ve found out this week.Setting aside his welshing on the £1,000 bet with Piers Moron (“I’m not a betting man,” he said “it took me by surprise” – let’s hope the Russians don’t see this) and the tasteless attack on Starmer on trans issues as if they weren’t bad enough, I think even worse was his smearing of Starmer in an interview with Moron, in which he said that Starmer was “on the side” of a major Islamist group and suggested he was a “terrorist sympathiser”.What’s the background to this? Before he was Leader of the Labour Party, before he was Director Public Prosecutions and even before he was an MP, Starmer, working as a lawyer, represented the Islamist group Hisb ut-Tahir in a court case (and I hold no brief for them, before someone accuses me of being an Islamist supporter). Discussing this, there came this exchange (quoted from the Telegraph)Mr Morgan then asked: “Do you think he is a terrorist sympathiser?”Mr Sunak responded: “Well I would say let the facts speak for themselves, right?”Sunak doesn’t (or won’t) understand certain basic principles of the law, in particular, that you’re innocent until proved guilty and that you are entitled to legal representation if a case is brought., so he went ahead and accused Starmer of being a terrorist sympathiser. What an utter disgrace the man is!

Richard Carter ● 47d43 Comments ● 41d

Musical Museum survival appeal.

I'm a volunteer tour guide at the Musical Museum in Brentford, London. https://www.musicalmuseum.co.uk/It is a very satisfying role because I watch the delight and wonder on the visitors' faces when they see and hear the instruments used for music reproduction through the ages. We have musical boxes, polyphons (the precursors of juke boxes) self-playing organs and pianos including player pianos and reproducing pianos that play the actual performances of famous pianists of the past including Gershwin, Rachmaninoff and many others. There are phonographs, gramophones, juke boxes that play 78s and a mighty Wurlitzer Cinema organ in our concert hall. The collection is of national and international importance because it restores and preserves working examples of extremely rare instruments.Loss of income during the Covid shutdown followed by huge inflation in the museum's costs mean that the museum can no longer pay its way so this year, our 60th, might be the last. We have trimmed our costs to the bone but must find money urgently to keep the doors open as we change the way we operate.If you value a historic musical resource, you may wish to support the museum's survival crowdfunder but if it doesn't seem that important to you, I understand that and I apologise for the intrusion. Here's the crowdfunder link.https://gofund.me/5632515eIf you feel able to, it would be great if you can also pass on the appeal to anyone you think might be interested.

David Lusty ● 54d3 Comments ● 53d

<