2011-04-05 - Rider Down/Fatality, Camden Road

Hello everyone. I'm the Paul Dean quoted in the Islington Gazette. Also the Camden New Journal, Camden Gazette, Evening Standard and today the Independent.

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and your sympathy. Me and many of Paula's other friends met her family on Tuesday this week at a memorial event and, of course, they were devastated. I wrote an open letter to the Mayor and also contacted the Transport Office.

I'm frustrated at how avoidable this accident could've been if TfL had taken several sensible and, in one case, not all too expensive safety measures. After consultation with the Transport Office Chairs and Vice Chairs (Val Shawcross and Caroline Pidgeon), I've put together an online petition asking Boris and TfL to:

Standardise cycle-awareness training for lorry drivers across all boroughs (at present only a couple have it).

Fit lifesaving "Trixie" mirrors at all A-Road junctions so that lorries can see into their blind spots at these junctions. These have been proven to reduce blindside collisions in Germany and Switzerland. Boris is merely "trialling" them here, eventually, installed merely a handful and has yet to review the trial after nearly a year.

Make Camden, a classic spot for young cyclists, more cycle-friendly. At the moment it's horrific and local Councillor Paul Braithwaite told me he's been trying to push TfL to do this for a long time.

Please sign the petition. Its web address is:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/boris-install-mirrors-that-save-cyclists-lives-petiti.html

For tweeting or shortform promotional mediums, it's best to use this shortened link. It'll automatically redirect:

http://bit.ly/g3aW6m

If you Tweet it, please use the tag #pfp

Thank you again.

A very worthwhile article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/apr/18/boris-lives-cyclists-trixi-mirror?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

                                                    **Remind Boris that the lives of cyclists are in his hands**

                                The Trixi mirror is a cheap, simple device that saves cyclists' lives – but its journey onto our roads appears to have stalled

Sign this petition urging the roll-out of Trixi mirrors

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  ![](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/4/18/1303119127707/Cyclist-Paula-Jurek-007.jpg)                                Paula Jurek, 20, of Tottenham, north London, was yet another victim of a lorry driver's blind spot earlier this month
  
          At 3:15pm on a pleasant and clear 5 April, at the junction of Camden Road and St Pancras Way in Camden, 20-year-old [London](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/london)  Metropolitan University student Paula Jurek was first knocked down and  then crushed by an articulated lorry. Her injuries were so severe that  her life could not be saved even by the doctors who rushed to the scene  from a practice 100 yards away.
  

  Someone who I admired and considered a close friend was transformed in that instant from a real, tangible and glorious human being to nothing more than a story in a newspaper, highlights of which included a few choice, truncated quotes. Paula was studying travel and tourism management and preparing for a trip to France in Easter. She was kind. She took French evening classes with me.
  Worst still, Paula has become a statistic. On London roads alone, cyclists die at a rate of about one a month and a disproportionate amount of those fatalities are women struck by left-turning lorries. The sides of a heavy goods vehicle, articulated or not, quickly form a lengthy blind spot that extends behind the cabin like a shroud. Despite their drivers' best efforts (and a 2009 EU directive demanding a retrofit of mirrors on some vehicles) these enormous beasts have a lack of peripheral vision and an all-too-well documented reduced awareness of what is directly beyond them.
  Worst of all is the possibility that Paula's death might easily have been prevented by a more proactive attitude to road safety in a city that remains alarmingly ambivalent to its cyclists. In Camden borough, cycle lanes are scarce and at the junction where Paula died, only one connecting road has a cycle box. Despite the efforts of the London Cycling Campaign, the borough has not given its HGV drivers cycle-awareness training, and neither have most others.