Ghost bikes make a fitting memorial in London

Dan Cox was the first cyclist to be killed in the capital this year but he was never going to be the last. On Tuesday last week, 20-year-old student Paula Jurek was killed after a lorry knocked her off her bike in Camden Town.

In 2010, 10 cyclists were killed in accidents across the city, many of them involving heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). All too frequently, cyclists get stuck in the blind spot of an HGV - often when it's turning left - and are hit by the vehicle.

It is a trend that Kate Cairns, 39, is trying to stamp out. In February 2009, her sister Eilidh, 30, was crushed under the wheels of a lorry that simply didn't see her. It was travelling at 8mph in Notting Hill. Eilidh, who was on her morning commute in rush-hour traffic, was dragged for more than three metres before the driver stopped.

Her death had a profound impact on her family, and spurred Kate on to start a campaign to reduce the number of cyclist deaths on London's roads.

This began with the installation of the city's first Boris Johnson-approved ghost bike in Notting Hill. After the removal of a commemorative pair of pink wheels by the council at the site of Eilidh's death left Kate "utterly bereft," she contacted the Mayor to request that a ghost bike be chained to railings at the site of the accident as a permanent memorial. He agreed.

"For me it is a symbol of remembrance and respect for my sister. It is a symbol of heartbreak. Of utter emptiness, of grief, of cruelty, of pointlessness, of pain and of waste," says Kate, an independent sustainability adviser. "We want everyone to take notice. To keep this image in their minds as they rush to work. To remember that every act has a consequence, and nothing is worth this."

The bike, however, was only the beginning. Kate began a campaign to equip HGVs with sensors and cameras that would effectively eliminate their blind spots. The See Me Save Me campaign won the support of MEP Fiona Hall, who helped Kate take a written declaration to the European Parliament in Strasbourg this February. By March 7, Kate and her supporters had collected 401 signatures - enough to drive the declaration to the European Commission, who must now come up with proposals to improve the current law to take before the European Parliament and Council. It is a breakthrough moment for Kate but it has been a life-consuming campaign.

"It could easily be a full-time job," she says.

Nevertheless, she has never thought about quitting.

"You can't put it down," she explains. "Because you think, if I stop, somebody else will be killed by a lorry."

Eilidh's ghost bike has become more than just a memorial: it is a Mayor-approved symbol of the See Me Save Me campaign.

But not every bike has Boris's protection. Rebecca Goosen was crushed to death in April 2009 by a 32-tonne cement mixer as she turned left from Old Street into Goswell Road, Islington. The 29-year-old architectural assistant was on her morning commute. Her colleagues were left distraught by her death, and decided she too deserved a ghost bike.

Lilli Hoika, a close friend and colleague of Rebecca, came up with the idea.

"I'm a very keen cyclist myself, so I know what the ghost bikes are, and if I see one I make sure that I'm extra careful in that junction," says the 41-year-old from Clapham.

Lilli and her friends chained the bike to the junction where Rebecca had died. Two months later, however, they were furious to discover that somebody had removed it.

"I emailed the council who got back to me straight away," says Lilli. "They said it must have been an 'over-zealous' council worker."

The removal of ghost bikes remains something of a grey area. Boris Johnson's support of Eilidh Cairns's bike has helped raise awareness among councils but there is no law protecting them and they tend to be removed after a number of years.

A spokesperson for Hackney council, whose borough has one of the highest concentrations of the bikes, says that they do not "routinely remove ghost bikes" but in the event that they decide to do so, it is done "in consultation with the family of the deceased, wherever possible".

When Lucinda Ferrier, a 32-year-old HR assistant, was killed by an HGV early one morning in June 2008, it wasn't her family who created a ghost bike in her memory but London's cycling community. Her partner Stuart Jones, a 41-year-old computer consultant from Haringey, was browsing the internet for news about Lucinda when he stumbled across a chat room where cyclists were discussing whether or not it was right to place a ghost bike in her memory. Stuart intervened and said that he would approve a ghost bike for Lucinda on the proviso that it "wasn't too garish or galling or distasteful".

"I talked to the chap who did it two days after Lucy died, and within the week it was up," he says.

Back at Dalston Junction, Joe Saunders is taking me through some of the tributes to Dan Cox that are attached to the bike - a hotchpotch of books, handwritten notes, a leopard-print boa and coded messages from ex-girlfriends. It is colourful and haphazard and painfully intimate. Joe agrees that building the bike was very much a cathartic experience for him and his friends. But he hopes that the bike will be more than just a roadside shrine.

"Everyone knows that cycling in London is dangerous and that there are these deaths with heavy goods vehicles but it's a statistic until you can see that it happens to someone who means a lot to other people," he says, his eyes fixed on the gleaming frame. "It's a tiny silver lining."