Mary - the unwitting cycling ambassador

Proof that Mary is a fighter...

Petre Beiu, 39, a Romanian national who lives on the northwestern outskirts of London, was yesterday charged with dangerous driving after his lorry hit Mary as she cycled to work on November 4. He will appear in Magistrates' Court on April 10th.

I'll be reporting on this in The Times tomorrow, along with an update on the campaign. Laura asked me to give you all a brief update on how the 'Cities fit for cycling' campaign that Mary inspired is going. Frankly, it could do with Mary's keen investigative eye for a good social affairs story, but I've been telling her in the hospital that her first-person piece is on the schedule as soon as she's finished her extended lie-in.

The campaign is going extremely well. It has received messages of support from Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband, with the latter mentioning Mary directly as he pledged his support. The mayoral candidates in London as well as council leaders around Britain are behind the campaign, and the House of Commons will be launching a national inquiry into cycle safety. Scotland is today holding their own cycle safety summit, after the deaths of two cyclists in Edinburgh so far this year - a total of 18 in Britain in 2012.

This is all well and good, but we need to translate all these fuzzy messages of support into some kind of action now. The Budget today will announce, I've been told, some extra cash for dangerous cycle spots in London and hopefully for more nationwide, and The Times will be heavily targeting the mayoral elections in London and Liverpool and the local council elections around the UK on May 3rd to push cycle safety up the agenda.

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The Times's campaign has also received support in the United States, Australia, the Netherlands and South Africa, while Italian national newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport and Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung have translated and re-launched the Times campaign for their own countries.

If you've not seen it, do log on (for free) to the 'Cities fit for cycling' campaign page, and if you've not already done it, do visit our cycle safety map, where you can pinpoint the areas of road you would most like to see improved for cyclists.

I've been explaining the whole campaign to Mary and how we were in Milan on Friday to launch the Italian branch, where Mary's name has cropped up in La Gazzetta dello Sport and Il Corriere della Sera newspapers as the girl who has inspired an increasingly global protest movement of cyclists.

When she comes round, I'm sure this will all be a huge surprise for someone who, like me, just saw their bike as a means of getting to work, rather than an obsession or a soapbox, but I really hope she'll be pleased at the good that's coming out of her awful accident and will be able to give me her much-needed advice on what else we could be doing to change things.

Kaya