While Andrea Leadsom vows to carry on after Commons setback, without government backing her private bill is unlikely to get any further

In April last year we carried news of a proposal by Andrea Leadsom, the Conservative MP for South Northamptonshire, to introduce a specific offence of causing death by dangerous cycling.

Leadsom argued that a new law was necessary as the current offence of dangerous cycling has a maximum penalty of £2,500, with no possibility of prison. For someone who, to take a hypothetic example, ploughs recklessly into a pedestrian at speed on a pavement, this is insufficient, she said.

Hers was a private members bill and thus very unlikely to proceed very far without government backing. But then this apparently arrived: the roads safety minister, Mike Penning, promised Leadsom he would back it. The Department for Transport confirmed it would "consider the merits" of the new law.

On initial examination Leadsom's idea might seem to some uncontroversial. But cycling groups were alarmed. We ran a Comment is Free article explaining these worries at length. The main objection boiled down to this – pedestrian deaths from cyclists are so incredibly rare that the law would be both a near-irrelevance and a distraction from the enormously geater peril posed to pedestrians (and other road users) from motor vehicles.

In addition, while the only law covering the most serious cycling offences is a section of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, originally aimed at the "wanton or furious" driving of a horse-drawn carriage, this has been used for successful prosecutions in recent years.

The other worry many people had was Leadsom's use of the death of Rhiannon Bennett as a prime argument as to why the new law was needed. Leadsom's explanation of the case, as explained both in the House of Commons and, in very similar words for a post she wrote for the Bike Blog, went as follows:

In 2007, Rhiannon Bennett was walking with friends on a pavement when a cyclist approached at speed yelling, "Move, because I'm not stopping." He hit Rhiannon who fell and smashed her head on the kerb. She was taken to hospital but died six days later.

While it is, without any doubt, a tragic and heartbreaking case, Leadsom's account of it seems to be a notable over-simplification. The court case heard conflicting evidence about whether the cyclist involved, Jason Howard, ever mounted the pavement, and whether Rhiannon and her friends might have been standing in the road. I spoke to two local newspaper reporters who covered the trial and they both told me they didn't recognise Leadsom's version of events.

I had a long debate with Leadsom's office about this, and they pointed to the conclusions of the subsequent inquest, where the coroner decided that "some part of Rhiannon was on the pavement" when she was hit.

Either way, I think there's an important point here: making a new law from a single event is generally bad policy; doing so from what some would call a misleading version of that event is even more the case.

But this might all become moot. Leadsom's bill was tabled for a second reading on Friday, but never made it to the chamber as MPs instead endlessly debated the issue of extended daylight saving.

Leadsom's office passed me the following statement from her today:

Despite the bill not receiving its second reading on Friday, I will not let this rest. I will continue to campaign for justice for Rhiannon and to update the 1861 Offences Against the Persons Act to ensure dangerous cycling can be dealt with in the same way as dangerous motoring. I will continue to keep pressure on the minister who I know takes a keen interest.

However, reading between the lines of a statement from the minister in question, Penning, which also arrived today, the Department from Transport is having second thoughts:

I am clear that everyone who uses the road – including cyclists - have a responsibility to behave safely and with consideration for others. We are investigating how existing legislation is working to establish if any changes are needed to ensure justice in these sorts of cases and whether there is a route to address these difficulties without the need for new primary legislation.

That sounds to me very much like doom for the Leadsom bill. Without wishing to downplay the importance of cyclists behaving safely and courteously on the roads, all I can say is thank goodness for that.