A CORONER has warned young cyclists to ensure their BMX bikes have brakes after the death of a 12-year-old boy.

Mateusz Kucinski was riding his bike in Charney Road, Southmoor, near Abingdon, on April 12, when he collided with a car on the A420, Oxfordshire Coroner’s Court heard yesterday.

The inquest heard the Matthew Arnold school student died instantly from severe head injuries after the collision with a Honda CR-V, driven by consultant David Lewis.

Coroner Darren Salter said: “It does serve as a note of caution for youngsters who use BMX bikes on the roads to have a BMX bike that has brakes.”

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Pc Simon Bishop, who investigated the collision, told the inquest it was “fashionable at the moment” for BMX bikes not to have brakes.

Mateusz, who was known as “Matty” to his friends, lived in Southmoor with his parents, Adam and Agata, who both attended the inquest.

Recording an accidental verdict, Mr Salter said: “There was nothing the driver could do to avoid the collision given the very limited time he had to react and the apparent speed of Mateusz, who on the evidence doesn’t appear to have looked right.”

Pc Bishop said Mr Lewis might have had “possibly up to two seconds” between seeing Mateusz and the impact.

Mr Lewis said in a statement he was travelling at about 65mph and had seen two of Mateusz’s teenage friends cross the A420 dual carriageway on their bikes and stop in the central turning lane.

He said: “The very next thing I knew was a loud bang and my windscreen was smashed. I had no idea what on earth I had hit as I had not seen anything.”

Katie Mabberley, who was driving another car and witnessed the collision, said in a statement the driver “had no chance whatsoever to stop”.

The boy’s two friends said in separate statements they had shouted for Mateusz to stop once they were in the turning lane. One friend said Mateusz was “coming down the slope quite quickly” and that “he did not even look” for traffic at the junction.

Mr Salter said that, although signs at the junction did not contribute to the collision, he would write to the council to recommend a worn triangle on the road surface be repainted.

The inquest heard that two other serious collisions had occurred at the same junction, which has a give-way sign, in 2009 and 2010.

After the hearing Simon Hunt, chairman of Oxford cyclists’ campaign group Cyclox, said: “Bikers must have brakes, whatever the kind of bike it is, and they must have working brakes.”

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