CTC, the UK’s travel, rights and services organisation for cyclists, says that “government plans to introduce harsher sentences for reckless drivers must force the judiciary to punish guilty motorists more appropriately”. CTC Campaigns and Policy Manager Stuart Reid said: “Jail sentences and driving bans are the minimum punishments irresponsible drivers deserve”.

He went on: “The judiciary already has the power to impose ten year terms but has rarely, if ever, used that option. It is now time the government forced the courts to appreciate that the lives of cyclists, pedestrians and other road users killed by motorists are worth more than demeaningly small fines.”

In June a driver was fined just £100 with three points on his licence after hitting and killing cyclist Carl Fox when speeding in a 30mph zone in Doncaster.

And just two weeks ago a Cheltenham magistrate fined a motorist £200 after she knocked a cyclist to the ground. The cyclist, 22-year-old Peter Williams, was subsequently run over by another car.

Earlier this year record breaking cyclist Bruce Bursford was when a lorry hit him from behind on a clear road in Norfolk. The driver was distracted by his mobile phone yet the coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death.

Tragic as these individual deaths are, they are the tip of the road deaths iceberg in Britain. Remember the media outrage at the Paddington, and subsequent Hatfield rail crashes? It all begs the question which we higher; human life or the right to drive…

There’s more information about this, and other related issues on

CTC website.