Headphone ban for cyclists considered by mayor after multiple deaths
Posted: November 20, 2013
Posted in: Bicycle Accidents Road Traffic Accidents Wrongful & Accidental Death 
After this week saw the sixth cyclist death on London’s roads in two-weeks, Mayor of London Boris Johnson believes that there should be a ban on cyclists wearing headphones. With many new methods of tackling the problem being suggested every day, Boris Johnson believes that cyclists’ ability to hear could be a highly contributory factor to the numerous deaths, calling them a “scourge”.
Speaking to Vanessa Feltz on BBC London 94.9 he said that he was “absolutely terrified” by the idea of cyclists not being able to hear the traffic around them. During the interview he said that the number of cyclist deaths in the last five years was less than the five-year-window prior, despite there being three times as many cyclists on the roads. However, he argued that more should be done to protect them on the roads, with a programme currently in the development stages which will see an investment of “the thick end of £1bn” made to make cycling safer in London.
9 of 14 fatalities caused by heavy goods vehicles
Mark Ames, editor of a cycling blog, tweeted that the mayor was simply taking the attention away from his “inaction” regarding the problem. He said that he was a “clever man” who was purely distracting the public from his failure to actually solve the problem. Nine of the 14 cyclist fatalities over the last few months have been caused by heavy goods vehicles, suggesting that this is actually the central issue.
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