Remembering Marie Vesco

The family of a teenager killed on her bicycle marked the second anniversary of her death by cycling from London to Brighton.

French student Marie Vesco, 19, died in a collision involving two other cars on the A23 in June 2008 as she cycled to the city with friends.


This fatality occurred at a classically lethal location, where cyclists on an A road meet a joining slip road, which they have to cross. Drivers on the slip road are inevitably driving at high speed and are unlikely to consider the remote possibility that a cyclist might lawfully cross in front of them.

This is the case where, allegedly, the first thing the killer driver did after the collision was call his lawyer. No charges were ever brought against him. And when friends of Ms Vesco put up a ghost bike at the site, the local authority instantly removed it on the grounds that it posed a danger to motorists.