Bike crash survivor tells how passers-by saved her life
After five cyclists die in nine days on the capital’s roads, Claire Pepper tells Channel 4 News how the superhuman efforts of passers-by saved her life when she was trapped under a car.
On the spur of the moment, Claire Pepper bought a new cycle helmet at the weekend, writes Jane Deith. On Monday night she was wearing it when she was hit by a car in East London.
Ms Pepper was cycling the seven miles home to south London but remembers nothing about what happened on Commercial Street. Witnesses and police have told her a car coming in the other direction turned right across her path.
She said: “I’ve been told I hit the bonnet, and ended up with my head and shoulders trapped underneath the car. A group of 10 men lifted the car onto its side so paramedics could reach me.
What those people did restores my faith in the people in this city. Claire Pepper
“They saved my life. A trauma nurse passing by also looked after me. What those people did restores my faith in the people in this city. My doctor says if they hadn’t lifted the car off me, I could have died. The oxygen level to my brain was already dropping.”
Claire Pepper suffered a broken collar bone and an injured arm. I asked her whether she would ever get back in the saddle.
“I will cycle again. Perhaps because I don’t have any memory of what happened, I’m not too scared. But I don’t think you should let fear stop you from doing something, and I like cycling.”
Death toll
So far this year, 13 people have been killed on London’s roads. In 2012, there were 14 deaths, while in 2011, 16 cyclists were killed.
The total number of cyclists killed or injured was 12 per cent up in the second quarter of 2013 compared with the same period in 2012.
British Cycling called for an “urgent investigation” into the recent deaths, while CTC chief executive Gordon Seabright, chief executive of cycling charity CTC, said: “All cyclists are sickened by the continuing failure to protect cyclists, in particular from the dangers caused by lorries in our towns and cities.”
Former transport secretary Lord Adonis called for an independent review of the cycling “superhighways” introduced to the capital by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
Read more: Jon Snow's manifesto for safer cycling
Mr Johnson said: “Some of the cases that we’ve seen in the last few days really make your heart bleed because you can see that people have taken decisions that really did put their lives in danger.
“You cannot blame the victim in these circumstances. But what you can say is that, when people make decisions on the road that are very risky – jumping red lights, moving across fast-moving traffic in a way that is completely unexpected and without looking to see what traffic is doing – it’s very difficult for the traffic engineers to second-guess that.
“I’m appealing to all cyclists, as well as all motorists, do think of the laws of the road, because if you take these hasty, rash decisions that we’re seeing sometimes, then you will be endangering your life.”
Russian national Venera Minakhmetova, 24, from Bethnal Green, east London, died after an accident involving a lorry at the Bow roundabout in east London in the morning rush hour on Wednesday. There have been no arrests.
Just a few minutes later, a male cyclist was badly injured in a collision with a lorry in Millbank, central London. He remains in a critical condition.
A cyclist was hit by a double-decker bus in Aldgate, east London, on Wednesday night died in hospital at 4am on Thursday.