The London Evening Standard reports on Kevin O’Sullivan work to help Geoff Lee fight for legal justice following his wife’s death following a cycle accident. Cycle Legal are still campaigning for justice in the way of an apology and changes to prevent this from happening ever again. This case was not about the claim, even though some financial payment has been awarded, but purely about implementing a change.

Mr Lee and solicitor Kevin O’Sullivan, whose new firm Cycle Legal specialises in helping cyclists and their families, brought an action against the insurers of New Southgate builders Fitzgerald & Burke. After an “insensitive” first offer, a higher second amount was made to settle the case.

“Naively, I was hoping to get the driver back into a courtroom and get the verdict I didn’t get with a jury on the balance of probabilities,” Mr Lee said.

“I never wanted anyone to go to prison. I never wanted loads of cash. I just wanted an acknowledgement of the tragedy. It seemed to me that everybody was trying to cover their own backsides. In court, it felt all the sympathy was with the driver of the lorry.”

Mr O’Sullivan said: “What’s more important to the families in these situations is some recognition of their loss, and some action from the lorry company in trying to prevent another family going through the same experience.”

“Fitzgerald & Burke have thus far refused to communicate with us about any ways they could improve driver training or safer lorry design, and our fight to achieve this change goes on.’’

Kevin O’Sullivan, Cycle Legal Solicitor & Cyclist Campaigner, gives his views on the disappointing news that improvements to this cyclists ‘Wacky Races’ junction have been scrapped.

Transport bosses have performed a dramatic U-turn and scrapped a multi-million pound redesign of the deadly Stamford Hill junction – saying it’s safe enough as it is.

“If accident rates have declined, this is in my view not anything to do with the junction becoming safer but more down to cyclists like me avoiding a junction that in rush hour is like something out of Wacky Races” Kevin O’Sullivan, Cycling Lawyer

Cycling campaigners have been left fuming by TfL’s report, which was published in response to its own three-month consultation earlier this year.

The decision was based partly on a reduction in collisions in the 12 months leading up to February 29. But just four days after that a man was hit by a bus and killed – the first of three serious crashes in as many weeks before the consultation closed.

Kevin O’Sullivan adds his view to a Guardian article on the legal advice that needs to be considered for the growing number of bike riders in the UK.

Sales at Halfords, one of Britain’s biggest bicycle vendors, improved 7.2 per cent last year; cycling is on the rise in most cities and increased in London alone by 91 per cent in the past 12 months; and the government is wedded to encouraging pedal power nationwide as a way of getting fit, beating the traffic and bringing down carbon emissions.

In fact, there’s so much going for cycling that people are increasingly inclined to ignore the dangers and how much an accident could cost them. According to accident prevention charity RoSPA, about 16,000 cyclists were injured in 2006, the latest year for which figures are available, but between 60 and 90 per cent of incidents go unreported.

The reality is that accidents that don’t involve another party are sometimes tricky to prove, but it’s worth discussing any possible claim with a personal injury lawyer. ‘Cyclists tend not to want to make a quick buck’, says Kevin O’Sullivan, a keen cyclist who has represented other cyclists for more than 10 years. ‘But they should make a claim because costs start mounting up and the law is there to protect them.’

Using a solicitor specialising in cycling accidents is a wise move. ‘They’re very used to seeing the kind of accident that cyclists have and the arguments that insurers try to make,’ says O’Sullivan.