The press haven't been completely honest in their description of his bike. He had a fixie. Which is illegal, and is dangerous, but you can slow / stop the bike by simply not pedaling. People are acting as if he was cycling a runaway train.

They're quite common in the US and not illegal there.

This discussion is outdated but just wanted you're right, I think I was misled here: it's standard pedal-back-and-skid brakes. The newspapers here really did make it sound like he had no capacity to brake at all.