Boardman calls for Boris to act on HGVs following London cyclist deaths

Chris Boardman has written to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to ask him to put into action his promise to look at removing the most dangerous lorries from the capital's roads during the busiest times.

Speaking in his capacity as British Cycling's Policy Adviser, Boardman reminded the Mayor that he made a promise eight months ago to study the experiences of cities such as Paris and Dublin, where lorries over a certain size are restricted from entering certain parts of the city during peak hours.

In the letter, which comes in the wake of six cyclist deaths on the capital's roads in the last two weeks, Boardman states:

"When I rode alongside you to help you launch your vision for cycling in March this year, you made a verbal promise to look at the successful experiences of Paris and many other cities in restricting the movements of heavy vehicles during peak hours.

"London has an opportunity to emulate and surpass Paris and to lead the way for the other ambitious cycling cities across Britain. Let's not waste this opportunity to do something now. The longer we delay, the more lives will be lost.

"There have now been six cycling fatalities on the capital's roads in two weeks and a total of 14 so far in 2013. HGVs were involved in nine of the fatal crashes - that's 64% of the fatalities - despite making up less than 5% of traffic. In Paris, last year there were zero cyclist fatalities."

Boris Johnson is regularly seen cycling around London; the Mayor is strongly associated with the city's bicycle hire scheme, known as "Boris Bikes", and earlier this year he took part in the inaugural RideLondon-Surrey 100 sportive.

The number of journeys made by bicycle in the capital has soared during Johnson's time as Mayor. However, despite investment in infrastructure for cycling the number of cyclist injuries has risen: figures from Transport for London in June showed that in 2012 the number of cyclists seriously injured on London's roads was 1,054, a rise of 17% over the previous year. At the time, Boris Johnson described the figures as "troubling".