The Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast

Episode 170: An interview with Matt Briggs of the Briggs Campaign

Friday, 29th September 2017

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST:
Matt Briggs


TOPIC

Matt Briggs tragically lost his wife Kim when she was involved in a road traffic incident in London in 2016. She died a week after being hit by fixie rider Charlie Alliston, whose bicycle didn’t have a front brake which is illegal. Alliston was sentenced to 18 months in youth detention. We didn't discuss Charlie Alliston directly, but we did discuss Matt’s campaign to make sure fixie retailers sell legally compliant bicycles. We also discussed Matt’s campaign for a law change, bringing cyclists into line with motorists who kill.

It’s this second part of the campaign which has generated an amazing amount of media coverage and promises of government action – there have been mentions of the campaign by Prime Minister Theresa May, the Department for Transport has said it will carry out a review of “cycle safety” and the minister for transport has sent out an extraordinary letter asking cycling organizations to police cyclists, the kind of letter that has never been sent to motoring organizations (I checked).

Matt has been on the BBC, Sky News and all over much of the rest of the media. But this is his first audio interview with a cycle journalist, and I asked questions that the mainstream media didn’t.