A police forensic tent at the scene of the Camden Road collision

• I FEEL I must take issue with Dr Greg Carson’s idea that the law should be changed to having a system of presumed liability (A change in the law on liability would cut the number of these road incidents, September 8). 

This is in connection with the death of the cyclist in Camden Road (Cycle death: Why was road safety plan delayed?, August 31). I am obviously under the (misguided) impression that under British law one is deemed to be innocent until proven guilty by a panel of his or her peers.

While I do agree that any death on the roads from whatever cause is one death too many, do we actually know the facts behind what tragically happened?

Under Dr Carson’s idea, I suppose that if I am walking along a pavement and a cyclist who should not be riding on the pavement hit me, that far from it being the cyclist’s fault for hitting me, it would actually be my fault for daring to be walking on the pavement as a pedestrian.

Or, as another example, I am a motorist who has stopped at traffic lights at red and another car runs into the back of my car, am I at fault for being stopped at a traffic light?

Yesterday, for instance, I caught a bus to Highbury Corner outside St Paul’s Church in St Paul’s Road. A little way up the road is a traffic-light-controlled pedestrian crossing.

The lights were at red, the bus stopped, but a woman cyclist in front of the bus went through the lights; and again at the junction of St Paul’s Road and Highbury Grove the lights were red and the same cyclist went through them as well.

Under Dr Carson’s proposals, if this cyclist had hit anybody on the crossing it would have been the person crossing with the lights in their favour and not the cyclist for ignoring the lights, who was to blame. Again at the other junction I presume anybody hitting her while she ignored the lights would have been at fault and, again, not her.

Why should the blame automatically be put onto somebody else? I am not trying to put a defence up as we don’t know all the facts about why and how the cyclist in Camden Road lost his life. But we must remember that, as road users whether we are cyclists, pedestrians or motorists, we are all responsible for our actions.

I have driven and cycled in London and held a clean, full British driving licence since the age of about 23, and renewed my licence last month as I have turned 70.

I have been judged fit to carry on driving a 16-seat minibus and trailer and also a light goods vehicle and trailer, for which eyesight and medical requirements are somewhat higher than for a normal car licence. Unless and until I am advised by my doctor that I should not drive any longer I will continue to do so.

No doubt part of the blame for this accident could be laid at the door of Transport for London, which is supposed to be working on a plan to improve safety at this particular location.

JE KIRBY
Clissold Crescent, N16