The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1932 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I woke as the news headlines came on, two people in their early thirties had been killed while riding a tandem in Bristol. I wondered if I knew them. Apparently the bloke who killed them was disqualified from driving, driving without insurance, and had been told to pull over by the police who were following him. He hit another vehicle, caught the tandem and then fled the scene. He later handed himself in, which is little consolation to the families of the deceased couple, who’d a few days before been told they could commence fertility treatment.

The driver has been charged with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving plus several lesser charges of driving offences. He should go to jail for it, which will make a change from some recent cases where the driver has got off except for a fine.

Usually, they do them for driving without due care, rather than dangerous driving, which is often what actually happened, but is harder to get a conviction on because it goes to a jury trial and they don’t seem to like cyclists.

After taking the girls to school, I checked on the internet. Lower Hanham Road, I’d ridden there a few times over the years. Poor buggers, probably never knew what hit them–they died at the scene, so it was very likely he was going too fast as well as driving erratically–presumably trying to escape the police because he knew they’d do him for all sorts of driving offences. Now look where he’s got himself, but he’s only got himself to blame. I wonder if they’d been riding individual bikes if they’d both been hit then. Idle speculation I know because they weren’t, and they were.

It still concerns me when someone is killed on a bike–it shouldn’t happen–but it does because most humans aren’t really safe to drive a car–it requires skill and judgement and they’d usually prefer to play with their car radio or send text messages than actually concentrate on what they’re doing.

Every day I see people driving and using mobile phones–it’s been an offence for several years with a fine and penalty points. The fine should be thousands and they should be banned from driving for at least six if not twelve months. The bloke who hit that woman journalist from the Times was on his phone and didn’t see her–she’s still in a coma and badly brain damaged. We get too familiar with cars and lorries, too comfortable and too casual which is when we forget they are lethal weapons and kill hundreds every year. Worldwide it has to be hundreds of thousands if not millions every year.

I’m not saying they should ban cars, like I think they should ban all firearms, but perhaps they should make new drivers before they pass their test, see what hitting someone with a car does–yeah show them the blood and guts, it might just make them think twice about how they drive. Mind you if they had to take some test of intelligence, very few would pass.

Something which some cyclists say is that everyone who applies for a driving licence should be made to cycle for six months to make them aware of cyclists. I don’t know if it would work, because most of them are too stupid to make the connection–sure, we all know cyclists deliberately ride under vehicles or crash into car doors opened in their paths. One guy got off recently because the Crown Prosecution Service or the trial judge decided that opening a car door isn’t a driving offence, even if it kills someone. I think they should just go with murder.

Surely, if someone has just driven a car and then opens the door of that car to exit without checking to see if someone is coming up behind them and about to overtake, isn’t that still part of driving? If they sit in the driver’s seat after drinking they can be done with drink driving. The law is an ass. While they’re making new drivers ride a bike for a time, perhaps they should make some judges do the same. If they got squashed by the new drivers, it would save the country millions in pensions, which could be used towards the cost of imprisoning the lethal drivers.

“If your expression is anything to go by, you’re about to start World War Three,” quipped Stella.

“Yeah, some cyclists got killed on Sunday in Bristol, and I think I might have known one of them.”

“Oh, sorry. Which one?”

“The wife.”

“Pretty girl.”

“Yeah, I have a feeling that Siá¢n knew her and I knew did through Siá¢n. Her name was Clare.”

“Makes it even sadder if you did know them.”

“It does.”

“Cars and bikes don’t mix terribly well,” she sighed. I was tempted to suggest that was especially the case when she was driving. However, I wonder what would have happened if I’d stopped and sheltered instead of riding through the thunderstorm that fateful day when Stella launched my career as a female. It’s idle speculation and that won’t get my chores done.

“How’s Tom’s conference coming on?”

“I’ve done what he asked me to do, organised the list of speakers and suggested a timetable. I’ve still got to write my own paper, but I have some ideas about it, so will do a draft in the next few days and then get him to check it.”

“I have this feeling that the European survey wasn’t supposed to start yet,” said Stella.

“You’re quite correct, it was due to get going in 2015 but they began the rehearsals with so much new data that they moved it forward, hence the conference.”

“So, Dr Watts aka Lady Cameron aka Dormouse girl, crime fighter extraordinaire aka the healing angel, will become an international celebrity as a consequence of this conference.”

“God, I hope not.”

“I thought you said, Brian Cox proved there was no god just energy gradients?”

“He didn’t quite say that, he said there was no need for a supernatural to have created life, the universe did by providing the exact physical requirements of minerals and other environmental factors, such as acidic water and warmth, then provided an energy gradient. It’s as he said, all in the second law of thermodynamics.”

“Like that means anything to me.”

“Well get off your bum and do some research then–it’s all on wiki.”

“Certainly not, we have a houseful of biologists, so you can explain it to me instead.”

“Stella, I just did.”

She looked behind her, “When?”

Some days you just know everything is going to turn to poo, don’t you?