Cyclists should have ‘mandatory bell’ in safer roads drive, MP suggests
Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis suggested mandatory bells for cyclists ‘so they could at least warn pedestrians of their approach’.
Every cyclist should be made to have a bell on their handlebars, a Conservative MP has suggested.
Sir Julian Lewis made the suggestion after former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith called for a crackdown on dangerous cycling.
The MP for New Forest East intervened on Sir Iain and told the Commons: “It would also help if it were made mandatory for all cyclists to have a bell so they could at least warn pedestrians of their approach.”
Sir Iain had in the last parliament proposed new offences as part of the Criminal Justice Bill, which never became law – “causing death by dangerous cycling”, “causing serious injury by dangerous cycling” and “causing death by careless or inconsiderate cycling”.
Debating the Labour Government’s new Crime and Policing Bill on Monday, he asked whether ministers had considered reviving his suggestions in their proposals.
He asked: “Is that gone?”
In response to Sir Julian, Sir Iain said he would take the suggestion of mandatory bells “into consideration”.
He told MPs: “The main point I was making was we have had deaths on the street where cyclists cannot be prosecuted for having killed someone.
“We are still using a piece of legislation from the mid-19th century, which was offensive and wild carriage driving, which is not acceptable but it hardly ever commits anybody and convicts them either.
“So, I would encourage the Government to please look again at dangerous cycling where people genuinely abuse the Road Traffic Act and nothing ever seems to be done for them, particularly now on e-bikes which are very dangerous and they’re used in the pathways.
“Even if they’re not committing a criminal offence in the sense of it, they are causing major danger.
“And ASB – antisocial behaviour – is a big thing our constituents notice and they feel very threatened by people who ride them down on the pavements.
“It may seem small, but it’s not.”
Responding to Sir Iain, policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said: “The issue of dangerous cycling we are looking at, and we recognise what a doughty campaigner he is, so we are certainly looking at that in detail.”
