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news
Broken bike (CC licensed image by garryknight, www.flickr.com)Cyclist dies following crash in Manchester city centre
A cyclist has died following a collision with a car on Upper Brook Street in Manchester city centre on Tuesday 13th January. Police are now appealing for witnesses of the collision to come forward.
In a statement published on its website, Greater Manchester Police said:
At around 7.36am, Mr Artur Piotr Ruszel, aged 45, was cycling along Upper Brook Street towards the junction with Brunswick Street, when he collided with a Honda Jazz travelling in the adjacent lane in the same direction.
A police officer and paramedics performed CPR until an ambulance was able to take him to Manchester Royal Infirmary, where Mr Ruszel sadly died later a few hours later.
His family have been informed.
Sergeant Paul Higgins, of the Serious Collision Investigation Unit, said:
“Our thoughts are with Artur’s family at this desperately sad time. We have specially trained officers working with his family, who will be on hand to provide the support they need during this process.
“We need the public’s help in ascertaining the exact circumstances of this collision. Given this was during a busy time when lots of people were travelling to work, I hope that some people will be able to contact us with details of what they saw.”
Anyone with information is asked to call the SCIU on 0161 856 4745 or the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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21 comments
Oxford Road is no bloody picnic though. Europe's busiest bus route, with all the unindicated cutting in, tailgating by monstrous vehicles, and pointless driver impatience that that entails.
Heading southbound on that stretch of UBS is bloody horrendous too. Quite often you are faced with two lanes of traffic all swinging left on to Plymouth Grove with a paltry bit of green paint directing cyclists straight in to the left hook zone.
Manchester City Council were told, time and time and time again, by many people that this stretch of road is simply deaths waiting to happen. As Some Fella said above, they, Manchester City Council, have this mans blood on their hands. I don't think this will be the last death on that road either.
RIP poor chap.
As for Upper Brook Street, that's a pretty shocking state of affairs re the 'encouraging cyclists away from UBS' - since the works, from Hathersage road onwards I would be taking primary because the lanes just aren't that wide.
As should have said in my earlier post, RIP. There but for the grace of god and all that...
My advice would be to avoid UBS from Hathersage Rd north now. Safer, and often quicker due to no signals:
Right up Hathersage, left onto Carmoor Rd, right at end, left at end, coming onto Plymouth Grove. Left, then carry on until turning right on the cycle track immediately after Legh St. Then straight on, brings you to Grosvenor St. Sounds more hassle but its far less dangerous and often quicker.
An absolute tragedy - it is nice to see so many people offering their condolences here. My thoughts are with his family.
As some have suggested, MCC focus in recent years have been on Oxford road - notably the new priority package scheme. As part of that package they had to widen, and reformat Upper Brook Street - A great opportunity to place cycle lanes. They failed to do so. Upper Brook Street is a mess, poor layout, dangerous pinch points for cyclists considering the speed limit. Interesting a few months back I spoke to a councilor about this road, "the intention is to push cyclists onto Oxford Road where there is more infrastructure capable of supporting them"
Funny how it's pushing people off one road by making it worse, rather than pulling them onto another by making it better.
How are you supposed to know that you're a frog being slowly brought to boiling point?
Strangely enough, your first comment made assumptions about what happened, even though it seems you didn't see the incident, just the aftermath.
I completely agree with some fella. Manchester council has deliberately made changes to Oxford road essentially making upper brook street a cyclist free zone.
Meanwhile the changes to oxford road leave us sharing the road with just the company of taxi and bus drivers... So that's alright then.
That will be the changes to Oxford road that haven't happened yet, and when they do force cyclists off the road anyway.
To be fair, I think it is billed as a Bus Priority Scheme.
Elsewhere in the city, TfGM are doing this;
http://madcyclelanesofmanchester.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/city-centre-tram...
Won't it be fun to have trams tailgating you, for a change?
I've already experience that along Eccles New Road, much more polite than your typical white van man.
That will be the changes to Oxford road that haven't happened yet, and when they do force cyclists off the road anyway.
"Mr Artur Piotr Ruszel, aged 45, was cycling along Upper Brook Street towards the junction with Brunswick Street, when he collided with a Honda Jazz travelling in the adjacent lane in the same direction."
The above does rather make it sound like the cyclist rode into the car, and I suspect it was probably the car that drove into the cyclist.....
Whilst the description may be correct I suspect that if someone punched the writer in the face he wouldn't describe the incident as "my face collided with a fist"...
The weird thing is, they sometimes argue that collision is a neutral word, showing two parties making contact. But they (including road.cc, incredibly) always put the cyclist first. Your face/fist thing is spot on.
Apart from anything else, it's a bad case of driver perspective - implicit in the order is the notion that a cyclist has interceded upon a vehicle's normal behaviour. See also "fly collides with windscreen". You can bet the fly wouldn't word it that way.
Totally agree, who ever has written this (well copied and pasted from the local rag I suspect) at roadcc should read this.
https://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/newspaper-clippings/
Actually, that's not terribly pertinent. This one is rather more so.
https://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/when-words-collide/
Returning to the original report, I find the following part of the police statement notable: "he collided with a Honda Jazz travelling in the adjacent lane in the same direction". Ordinarily I'd consider "collided with" to be the usual casual approach to the semantics of that word, but the detail of the "adjacent lane" casts it in a rather different light. It will be interesting to see what details emerge of this case, and potentially how that statement looks in light of them.
Some Fella - 'Anyone with information is asked to call the SCIU on 0161 856 4745 or the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously on 0800 555 111.'
Unless of course you know sod all about how this happened?
I think you are confused - i'm someone speaking in general terms about infrastructure at this location as opposed to someone who is speaking in specific terms about the details of this accident. Easily done.
As im sure many other Manc readers will soon chip in - this accident was entirely avoidable and sadly inevitable.
Manchester cyclists (including myself) have been moaning about Upper Brook Street for ages. It has recently had bazillions of pounds spent on it and 'upgraded' with absolutely no new cycling provision included.
It is a heavily used road by cyclists and is incredibly wide. There was a huge opportunity to include decent infrastructure and many people pointed this out during the 'consultation' but the opportunity was missed. It was predicted by some during the 'consultation' that safety for cyclists wouldn't be improved and in fact some of the changes endangered cyclists even more than before. Needless to say they were ignored and someone has lost their life within months of the work being completed.
It is a disgrace.
I challenged a council officer about why no cycling infrastructure was included in the work at another 'consultation' recently (for the Oxford Road dogs dinner they are serving up) and they claimed it was to 'encourage' cyclists to use other routes.
Manchester City Council cant be trusted to deliver decent infrastructure and people will continue to die needlessly. They have blood on their hands.
That is quite shocking. The only way they're encouraging us to use other routes is by allowing us to discover how lethal UBS is. They're relying on natural selection: if all the users of Upper Brook St are killed, injured or simply terrified there'll be none left to get in the way of the ever so efficient motor car. Pardon the french but that's fucking sickening.
Very sad.
Incidentally was queueing at the lights at this junction yesterday morning. Big delays given the incident. Huge police presence, lots of flashing lights, taped off area. Very sorry-looking bike in middle of lane etc.
...and another cyclist sailed through red, narrowly avoiding a nasty crash. What more incentive do people need not to put themselves in danger?