Bow Roundabout: Widow's plea to change cycle superhighway

More cyclists will die unless a busy road junction in east London is changed immediately, the widow of one of two recent crash victims has said.

Debbie Dorling's husband Brian, 58, was killed on a cycling superhighway at the Bow Roundabout on 24 October. A lorry driver was arrested and bailed.

A 34-year-old woman died on the same stretch of the A11 on Friday afternoon.

Transport for London (TfL) said it was investigating the crashes, along with the police.

The road layout, with vehicles turning left across the cycle lane, was "a recipe for disaster", Mrs Dorling said.

"And it is a disaster for us," she added.

The superhighway is one of four which have been created around London to encourage cycling, with a lane painted blue on the left-hand side of the road.

'Just so needless'

Mrs Dorling, who lives in Hounslow, west London, said her husband was an experienced cyclist who would ride about 200 miles (320km) a week in the summer as he travelled to work.

He was killed after telling a colleague he was about to stop cycling for the winter because the days were becoming far shorter, she added.

"I think it's a definite design fault with the superhighway.

"I don't know who designed it and how they got away with it, but what they're doing is mixing cyclists with a left-hand turn."

She went on: "It would appear that they've actually chosen speed of traffic over safety.

"When I look at the junction, it was just so needless.

"What possessed them to design it the way they have?"

The lorry driver detained over Mr Dorling's death was bailed until Friday.

Separately, a lorry driver was arrested after Friday's collision and bailed until 7 December.

TfL said there had been "an 18% fall in the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured on London's roads in the last decade, compared to TfL's baseline figures from the mid to late-1990s".