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bike laneHead-on collision leads to calls for wider bike path in Worthing
Local riders and cycling campaigners have called for a "tight" "narrow" bike path in Worthing to be widened after a collision between two cyclists put a 74-year-old man in hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The collision saw the injured man airlifted to St George’s Hospital in London on Thursday September 11 and he and a 36-year-old man were involved in a head on collision. The other man was uninjured.
William Morris, chairman of Worthing Cycle Forum, told the Worthing Herald: “The bike path is approximately 1.45m wide, well short of the Department for Transport’s recommended minimum of 2.5m for two-way cycle tracks. There are issues with encroaching shingle and vegetation, narrowing the path still further.
“A cheap fix might be to swap the pedestrian and cycle lanes over, so that shingle is less likely to spill on to the cycling half. Another low-cost solution would be to make the path joint use for pedestrians and cyclists, as it is further along in both directions.
“If we get the path up to DfT standards we will create a better experience and help reduce A259 congestion.”
Other users of the path also criticised its width, or lack of.
Anthony Gammon said: “Those cycle paths are too narrow for both directions.
“I cycle on that route myself a lot and have almost been collided into and people walk on them, too.
“I hope that poor guy is okay as this could have been avoided. Let’s look at the issue - those lanes need revising.”
Stuart Elms said: “Regular users of this section of the seafront cycle path will know that the narrow width of the path with its tight bends as at Brooklands and elsewhere, coupled with the shingle that is blown onto it, has long made it an accident waiting to happen.
“Despite many more people of all ages wanting to be able to cycle safely off-road - whether for leisure or commuting - and the prime minister and leading medics trumpeting the benefits of cycling, sadly Worthing Borough Council or West Sussex County Council appear to show little urgency for upgrading from Shoreham through to Goring despite there being £200,000- plus of developers Section 106 contributions for community benefits mostly stipulated as sustainable transport improvements.”
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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21 comments
Surely on a blind bend you should give warning of your approach?
Still not a nice thing to happen to anyone, no matter where the blame lies.
Surely on a blind bend you would follows the norms of riding on the left and not cross the theoretical centre line.
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I appreciate that these are norms and not rules or laws, but people would move more easily if they stayed on the left at all times, except when overtaking, and without going into detail applying certain rules from the highway code/common sense. Obviously, because there are no set rules to follow one can do whatever the f*ck one wants and screw everyone else! And if there is an accident it's clearly your fault...
Judging by the way that some folks ride on the shared paths near me, it was only a matter of time before we saw a bike on bike accident. There are some really selfish and stupid people out there.
I've made comments in reply to posts on here, no idea why they've not linked to those posts.
Helmets & speed are not the issue here, a poorly laid out path with sharp narrow bends, views obscured is the issue.
If you ride round a sharp bend & someone/something is laying across the path chances are you're going to hit it.
The article makes it sound like something that could have been avoided, head on collision? Coukdnt have been anything further from that
Oh dear …………..
Speed always plays a part in "accidents" and especially around pedestrians. On this particular path there are a number of riders who appear to treat it like a race track even where it passes within feet of beach huts, coffee bars and the sailing clubs.
Dogs, children and the elederly all add to the melee. If you can't stop in the event of the unexpected, you are going too fast, ride on the road, not the pavement.
Peculiar comment from the article though: “If we get the path up to DfT standards we will create a better experience and help reduce A259 congestion.”
Cyclists do not cause congestion on the A259..cars lorries and buses do. Traffic lights, and roundabouts add further obstacles to traffic, not cyclists.
Assume they mean that if they improve the cycle path, more commuters will switch to cycling instead of driving, thus reducing the amount of traffic on the A259.
Was the injured cyclist not wearing a helmet?
What ever the width of the path, no doubt excessive speed played a part in this collision. Had one party been travelling too fast then a collision would have been highly likely as neither party would have been able to avoid each other and thus collided as what happened. Crash.
Hope the injured guy heals quickly.
have you never walked down the pavement moved to the side to avoid someone and had them move the same way? Speed is irrelevant.
narrow path, two riders clip bars, down you go. As for the helmet, your point? helmets aren't miracle workers, they have a very specific range of capabilities and it is not hard to crash and exceed them.
The issue is simply a crap path, no more no less.
I don't think so.
Speed is not irrelevant. Too fast means inability to stop hence a collision.
and crap riding by at least one and probably both of them. If the path is that narrow then slow down. Stop if you have to.
I wouldn't accept the argument if two cars collided on a narrow lane that the road was the only problem. The road may be narrow but then I'd expect drivers to drive on it like it's a narrow road.
The path should be widened as that is the best solution and helps cyclist travel more quickly and safely but the path doesn't make people crash. Riding too fast on a narrow path by at least one of them is the cause.
Neither rider was wearing a helmet, but in this case that is totaly irrelevant.
The elderly gentleman had a cardiac arrest & was on the ground, on a blind bend when the other rider came round the corner. He could not avoid him. He would most likely have sustained the same head injuries if he had been walking & fell to the ground.
You sound just like a car driver whose been driving too fast …….. I went round this bend and there he was in the road, I had nowhere to go, so hit him. Well had you been driving/riding at a more appropriate speed for the road/path then you should have been able to stop and avoid a collision. Period.
No, I sound like a cyclist pointing out that your comment about helmets was totaly irrelevant.
I ride that path every day, the point where the accident occured is on a sharp bend, the view ahead obstructed by fishermen's huts on the beach, regardless of what speed anyone was going at, you come round there & someone on the ground you're going to hit them.
and it's irrelevant in most cases as well. The Netherlands has a huge proportion of adults riding bikes. Hardly any wear a helmet. Some would have you believe that A&E departments in Dutch hospitals would therefore have a huge number of head injured cyclists queueing outside and yet.....
Not exactly what you think of by reading the headline, then, guys... One cyclist hit another who was already down, not a "head on collision".
even though it could be illegal, I will treat these stupid shared lanes as two way ones with a median line down the middle. I will however move over onto the official cycle part when I encoun ter pedestrians in the pedestrian part if it's on the side I'm currently in...
Many's the time the cycle and pedestrian figures on the lane are worn out or badly sited so that it's not immeduately obvious which side is which when you're joining from a side path...
Probably the best way to deal with it. Depends on how busy it is with pedestrians, though. I often go over the Avonmouth Bridge cycle path (M5, in Somerset) and that is divided into two lanes of equal width, one side for pedestrians and the other for everything else (that path is also open for motorcycles under 50cc and mobility scooters, as well as bicycles).
Since I can count on my fingers the number of times I've met pedestrians on there, I just treat it as if it is a two-lane road, keeping to my left, but moving over if I meet pedestrians...
Seems like common sense, surely.
As usual, cyclist get inadequate facilities to use. It the "lets get by with doing the minimum". Until the numpties who come up the this scheme, who probably haven't ridden a cycle for years, get realistic then this will sadly re-occur.
The Bristol 2 Bath path has a narrow section near Easton that is barely wide enough for 2 bikes but its sandwiched between the rail track and a walled car park so I don't know what could be done about it if there was a desire to.
In your case, simple, compulsory purchase part of the car park, you know it would happen if this was a road being discussed. But as it is a cycle path well it doesn't matter.