I think everyone will be offering their sympathies to Jason's family, and props to the Van driver being so forthright.

Does this sound like good cycle lane design?? It sounded to me like it just crosses a road! Mind you, with the cycle lanes in and around edinburgh being ill-conceived and un-joined, why would I think that their placement would have been given any more thought anywhere else!

Unless it was a very nice cycle lane (which most in Briatin aren't) I can't imagine a top TTist would be out training at speed on it.

That's why I won't use cycle tracks that don't have the same priority as the road they follow - and most of them don't, unlike the Netherlands. They're generally useless for serious cycling

Sounds a little strange to me. That would be the only way the driver could be in the clear. Riding a TT bike on a cyclepath? I doubt it. Certainly not at the kind of speed needed to do the damage that there was. The only other witnesses were council workers too. Oh good. This will be a fair inquest then. The council wont be to blame, rest assured there.....

So he's a SMIDSY? When will these people realise that not seeing a cyclist doesn't mean it's not your fault, but is an admission of guilt. Yes it's bad cycle path design, but sadly having to give way to every little access off a road is all too common for bike paths in this country http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-month/September2007.htm - hence why he's almost certain not to have been on it, and the suiggestion that he was is basically preposterous.

Props to the van driver for being forthright? Seems to me that the guy's simply trying to wriggle out of responsibility.

Cambridge Cycle Campaign have photos of the cycle lane in question, built to support cyclists visiting last years World MTB event. One about a mile further north on the A82:

http://www.camcycle.org.uk/map/location/12074/

A second photgraph, from closer to the scene of the accident:

http://www.camcycle.org.uk/map/location/12070/

I agree, although it is round to lay blame on anyone at this point it is highly unlikely that a cyclist like Jason MacIntyre would be training in a cycling lane.

So I suppose what's being implied by the cycle path defence is that it's ok to kill people on bicycles who use cycle paths.

Let's take another tack, the sort of people who use cycle paths will contain a larger proportion of unskilled road users - especially children - so therefore drivers should be exercising even more care at an intersection with a cyclepath.

So my take on this is that this visually impaired driver who knew the intersection well did not take any precautions when driving down a road where he knew there was a cyclepath crossing because it's ok to kill/maim cyclepath users if they make mistakes.

Of course it's a load of the proverbial, there's no way you can train on a cyclepath, but what he is saying in his defence is even worse - that you can drive without care or looking when you know that there may be vulnerable people crossing your path BECAUSE they just happen to be coming from a cyclepath.

There is no way Jason would have been on the bike path, as is usual with a lot of bike paths it is not designed for a road bike, there are too many obstructions on it. Jason had just been on a longish road ride. Why on earth would he jump onto a short cycle path a mile a way from home? He has never used it before why would he have done so this time?

The Driver here is trying to justify his actions and ease his conscience. He simply just didn't see Jason probably because he was cutting the corner and didn't look twice.

What the driver should realise is that issueing comments like these which are not factual and are very upsetting to the family and friends of Jason.

The driver that hit me and did a runner first of all claimed she didn't see me. Then when she found out I was in a coma claimed I was riding on the pavement.

you can say anything when the rider is not there to tell the truth.

the punishment these people get is pitiful and yet they still try to get out of it.

We all agree that Jason was not likely to be using the cycle lane, how do we make sure this is clear to the prosecution if there are charges brought against this clearly substandard driver?

I get really annoyed reading these idiot comments when a cyclist dies. You assume you know what happened based on the small amount of facts you have and lots of assumptions.

It's tragic, but there's just as much chance that McIntyre was at fault. OK so it's unlikely that he would have been on the cycle path but the driver might just be trying to make sense of the situation.

What if McIntyre was trying to undertake and didn't see the driver indicate?

It might have been the fault of either party but you've already made your minds up. Sometimes cyclists really annoy me and I'm embarrassed to be one.

I doubt a cyclist like Jason, with uninterupted field of view, riding a TT bike on notoriously unfriendly UK roads, would have ridden into a van. However, as a driver, motorcyclist and cyclist, I am all too familiar with 'killer pillars' of vehicle front and side windows.

I also don't believe Jason would have been on the cycle-lane. Road surfaces are usually rubbish, and you have to giveway to everything. But even if he was on the cycle-lane, this would mean that the van driver would have driven across it, expecting all else to stop for him. Including children and pedestrians. How arrogant is that?

From the situation described, I reckon he glanced down the road, Jason was obscured by a van pillar for that moment, and the van driver pulled across Jason's path. I've had bus driver's look right at me and pull out, as if to kill me. But I can see their eyes are obscured by a window pillar. They can't be bothered/are too stupid to move their heads back and forth a fraction, to see around the pillar(s), before pulling across a junction.

They expect to see a car width, but don't consider any other road user. Jason's death was caused by incompetant driver training, the UK Highway Law, the courts, the police, and the van driver. Jason might have been able to predict the van driver's stupidity and swerved to avoid the van.

But you know what, if he had gone back to the driver and screamed at him that he'd nearly killed him, he'd be told to F off, and the van driver's mates would have come out for a bit of cyclist bashing.

This country sucks, for cyclists. Pathetic funding for infrastructure and sport, virtually zero support from the police, the courts, or the media. VIPs can talk about decapitating cyclists heads with piano wire, or attacking them with a handbag and this is totally acceptable behaviour.

What a f***king liberty!

Exactly Calvin. You doubt. You don't know.

Well lets hope other drivers saw him cycling and the truth comes out either way.

We should all remember the driver and his insurance company will be hoping for the cycle path to have been used.

I shall remember my blinkers next time I am out that allow me to ignore everybody not on the road in a protective box. Are pedestrians also fair game to say I didn't see them, they must have been on the pavement just before I hit them.

Hi highly doubt that Jason was on the cycle path. c'mon, we all train...who rides on the cycle path?

Dull Dave, "Trying to undertake"?

Please read the story. They were going in opposite directions, one north, the other south.

The driver didn't see him at all, so how can he justify claiming that Jason was on the cycle path? He has even less right to claim what happened than we have, since he clearly doesn't realise that the likelihood of a national champion out training suing a cycle path is pretty close to zero.

I am astonished at dulldave's comments. There are any number of cyclist deaths where some idiot has gone up the inside of a turning lorry, but so many of them are in reality cases of the vehicle partially overtaking, ignoring the cyclist, and turning into them. In many cases, the cyclist, being dead, is unable to give the true facts.

Read the facts of the case, dave. Then add in the idea so clearly rubbished that a national champion would be on a cycle path. Then please rethink your comments.

There seems to be an assumption on this thread that the driver was wrong, but there is the posibility that he wasn't. There are loads of explanations why the accident happened where the driver wasn't at fault. In the end it is a tragic loss, particularly for his family. Maybe we should wait and heard the outcome of the investigation before lynching anyone.

I'm surprised that my comments astonish you? OK my example was a poor one. The point I was trying to make is the same as what SAYWHATYOUTHINK has just made.

You don't have the facts. While you can try to guess what happened, that's all it is. A guess. What astonishes me that in these instances, is that so many cyclists jump past the point where facts are established and post comments on the web on how the driver was at fault.

I was hit by a SMIDSY on Sunday. I can say he was a SMIDSY because I was there and I know what happened. Thankfully I also lived to tell the tale. If I had been killed it would be wrong for others to jump to the conclusion that the driver was at fault unless the driver had admitted guilt, the police had apportioned the blame or that you'd actually witnessed the incident.

I hope this makes a little more sense.