Speeding cyclist who killed pensioner avoids prosecution

• Banking executive Brian Fitzgerald smashed into retired teacher Hilda Griffiths
• Credit Suisse vice president was with a Peloton group around Regent’s Park 

A cyclist who knocked down a pensioner and killed her after speeding in a 20mph zone has been let off without conviction.

Brian Fitzgerald, a vice president at Credit Suisse, avoided prosecution after a court heard that speed limits did not apply the same way to cyclists as motorists.

Mr Fitzgerald was doing timed laps of Regent’s Park, London as part of a group when he smashed into Hilda Griffiths, 81 while she was crossing the road with her dog at 7am on a Saturday in June 2022.

The banking executive claimed he had ‘zero reaction time’ to avoid Ms Griffiths, a retired nursery teacher, who suffered bleeding in her brain, vomited blood and several fractures.

Her death was not recorded as being the result of a road collision as it was 59 days after the incident, the Telegraph reported.

Brian Fitzgerald knocked over and killed Hilda Griffiths while cycling with a Peloton group around the Regent’s Park in London, but avoided prosecution due to a law exempting cyclists from speed limits (file photo)

While with the Muswell Hill Peloton Club, Mr Fitzgerald reached speeds of up to 29mph.

Do cyclists have to follow speed limits?

While motorists are required by law to comply with all speed limits on signs with red circles, the rules are not so straightforward for cyclists.

The Road Traffic Act specifies that speed restrictions advertised only apply to ‘mechanically propelled vehicles’ with speedometers so drivers are able to identify how fast they are travelling.

There is also no legislation allowing for cyclists who break regular speed limits to be prosecuted, or anything that identifies their over-speeding as a criminal act.

The group cycled anticlockwise around the perimeter of the park at an average speed of 25mph, according to their GPS devices.

But despite exceeding the speed limit, police concluded that there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to prosecute Mr Fitzgerald and took no further action.

Inner West London Coroners Court heard that no specific speed limits exist for cyclists and no legislation to prosecute them should they not comply with regular signs for motorists.

Detective Sergeant Ropafadzo Bungo agreed with Mr Fitzgerald’s representative that speed limits on roads only applied to ‘mechanically propelled vehicles’ and not to cyclists.

He added that the rules were such because only drivers of mechanical vehicles are able to identify at exactly what speed they are travelling.

Despite expressing ‘sympathies’ for Ms Griffiths and her family, Mr Fitzgerald argued that Ms Griffiths had stepped out onto the road without checking for oncoming traffic and therefore missing the pack of cyclists.

He said that his cycling was further sped up by the fact the incident took place where the road was sloped.

Ms Griffiths’s son Gerard called on existing laws allowing cyclists to ignore speed limits to be updated and said his mother had been killed by a ‘culture of cycling’, adding the outer circle of Regent’s Park had become a ‘velodrome’.

Under the Road Traffic Act, only ‘mechanically propelled’ vehicles with speedometers are required to follow speed limit signs (file photo)

Representing Ms Griffiths’s family, Ellen Robertson called on assistant coroner Jean Harkin to issue a prevention of future deaths report, on the basis that cyclists were routinely ignoring ‘highly advertised’ speed limits and putting vulnerable people such as children and the elderly at risk.

Mrs Harkin refused the request and rejected recorded the death as the result of an ‘accidental cycling collision’, pointing to the lack of precedent for pedestrian deaths ‘in these circumstances’.

Richard Hallam, representing Mr Fitzgerald, suggested the installation of zebra crossings would help to make cyclists slow down to stop for pedestrians.

In a statement, the Muswell Hill Peloton Club called the death a ‘tragic incident’ and said that the safety of road users was its ‘top priority’.

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