A motorist has been handed a suspended prison sentence and a five-year driving ban after a judge ruled that “a few seconds of bad, bad driving” led her to hit and kill cyclist Adrian Lane at a notoriously dangerous junction where safe cycling campaigners later held a ‘die-in’ protest – only for a“raging” motorist to attempt to drive through the group of demonstrators.
58-year-old Adrian Lane was cycling on Ringinglow Road, just outside Sheffield, when he was struck by driver Gillian Dungworth, who turned across the cyclist’s path at the junction with Common Lane, causing him to catapult into the car’s windscreen.
At Sheffield Crown Court on Friday, Dungworth was given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, after she pleaded guilty to causing Mr Lane’s death by dangerous driving, the BBC reported.
The 40-year-old nurse was following two other drivers who were turning right onto Common Lane when she hit Mr Lane, who the court heard was estimated to have been travelling downhill at 30mph.
A forensic crash investigator found that Dungworth would have been able to see Mr Lane for approximately four seconds before the crash. The court was also told that Mr Lane was not wearing a helmet at the time of the collision.
“It’s a few seconds’ inattention, isn’t it?” Recorder of Sheffield Judge Jeremy Richardson KC asked prosecutor Ian West during this week’s trial, who replied, “Yes”.
The court also heard that Louise Lane, Mr Lane’s former partner and mother to their children, had written to the Crown Prosecution Service to point out that the family felt the cyclist’s death was a “tragic accident”.
The family said that no one was to blame for the crash and they held “no bad feelings or malice towards the driver of the car”.
Judge Richardson added Dungworth, whose reaction to the collision was described as “obviously distraught”, was “filled with genuine remorse” for Mr Lane’s death.
Describing the case as “tragic”, the judge described the nurse as a “respectable woman” who had driver her car “very badly for a few seconds”.
“This is a tragedy in every conceivable way. You caused that tragedy by a few seconds of bad, bad driving,” the judge concluded, before ruling that the two-year suspended prison sentence and five-year driving ban was proportionate.
Last March, we reported that a die-in organised in memory of Mr Lane and to call for safer cycling infrastructure in the area where he was killed was disrupted after “raging” motorist allegedly mounted the pavement and grass verge before attempting to drive through the group of protesters.
According to cyclists participating in the demonstration in Sheffield in March 2023 – which saw dozens of protesters lay on the road to raise awareness of a campaign for protected cycling infrastructure and improved road safety measures following Mr Lane’s death the previous September – the motorist accelerated past a queue of traffic, drove around a barrier and towards group of the demonstrators, which included children, before getting out of his car to angrily confront those taking part.
Two of the protesters told road.cc at the time that, after the driver had made his way past the demonstration, another motorist “blocked his route”, forcing him to “wait until the road was cleared anyway”.
A cyclist involved in the vigil also told us that a different motorist shouted at the campaigners before the ‘die-in’ had started, while another “deliberately” blew exhaust fumes in their direction.
However, many of the campaigners acknowledged that the vast majority of drivers briefly delayed by the protest were patient and understanding, with some showing support for the event’s aims.
Was part of a very moving ‘lie in’ at the site of Ade’s death today. #lanecampaign. 10 mins. unbelievably one car driver mounted the grass in anger and tried to get through. Every other driver appreciated what we stood for…safe cycling, key to a compassionate city pic.twitter.com/CItqXmMLX7
— Doc on a Bike (@Ollie2Wheeler) March 25, 2023
The die-in formed part of the Lane Campaign, named after the 58-year-old cyclist and advocating for the introduction of improved safety measures and protected cycling infrastructure at the junction of Ringinglow Road and Common Lane.
The campaign wants the junction to be ‘squared off’ so drivers are forced to slow as they approach it, the introduction of a 20mph speed limit into Ringinglow village and traffic calming measures, as well as the installation of a segregated bike path.