Cyclist dies after hitting seven year old pothole

We sometimes have a knowing crack at the sergeant major type on the club run or chain gang.  In fact we had one along on Tuesday night.

Then we came across the incident above, rode by in some denial as we saw the row of bikes, ambulances and the medics giving CPR.

As it sank, in I said to the shouty type,  we might the the p1ss mate but you keep us focused and get us to communicate.

I'm not saying at all that  that wasn't happening on the ride above, but it's still worth remembering -especially on night time rides- the more aware and communicative the group are the better, and ensuring the hand signals go all the way to the back of the group is equally essential. 

So sorry for Ralph's family and friends. It could happen to any of us. Chance is one factor. Holes in the roads we pay for is something more than chance.

Car sized potholes do indeed take priority and cyclist deaths on smaller potholes are factored into costs as incidents that can be contested in court. That's how insurance risk assessment works for councils. They will not reduce speed limits on roads until ITO reports at least one death at a location - so potholes that come and go are even more easy to shrug off.

The article has the emphasis that hitting the pothole had the direct effect of killing the unfortunate Mr Brazier, and you can see why the connection is made. But I think that the ambulance comment is valid. He may have hit the pothole, but died of a cardiac arrest, not a head injury, or internal bleeding, so I think some enquiry is required. If one good thing comes from this, and it is but a crumb, and that is the pothole gets properly dealt with. 

My thoughts go out to his family. He sounds like a good man.

So sad for the family’s loss. Such a waste.

But please everyone report the pot holes on fillthathole web site. 

In Lancashire they are variable at fixing them but too often they just do a quick fix. If you report on the LCC website you see no history, hence please use the fillthathole website as you can see the history of a pothole. I have some I report every year as they fail again and again. So if the unfortunate happens to you on one of these potholes you have a better claim (I don’t like the claim culture though).

I’m in the process of being paid for wheel repair I had before Christmas, but I have reported loads of potholes down this lane over the years.

This is such a poorly written report filled with contradictory and distasteful speculation masquerading as fact.

RIP Mr Brazier and my sincere condolences to your family and friends.

Roads round here haven't really recovered from the floods of two winters ago. Council comes out and patches stuff and the hole is back in a few weeks. Such a major effort to get a closure to do it properly it would seem - they took 6 weeks to lay about a quarter of a mile 2 or 3 years ago and even that's already breaking down.

I'm guessing the weight of the average family car has increased significantly over the last decade but then so has tyre width and wheel size. Can't all be down to weather and HGVs though, bearing in mind traffic is only just getting back to pre-credit-crunch levels.

The equivalent hole in auto terms, might be a 3 x 1 ft long gash appearing in the fast lane of a motorway. Just imagine a lesion in the road surface that is sufficiently dangerous to cause a car travelling at 70 mph to crash into the central barrier, or career into other lanes. Now try to imagine such a hole remainging untreated for seven years. Is that how little our lives are valued?

Hole filled in with 24 hours? While investigation is ongoing? Sounds like destroying evidence.

The problem here is that pot holes are not fixed correctly.  They just dob a bit of tarmac in there (which then creates the opposite to the hole  - a bump).  The tarmac then breaks up and the hole re-appears.  

There appears to be no standards, no pride in the workmanship and no responsibility for the council to check the repair.

Obviously I dont know the full details  of this chaps death but no-one should be dead as a result of hole in the road!

Worth mentioning that councils appears to be massively keen on spending cash and wasting tarmac to lay sleeping policemen speed bumps all over the shop but ironically ignore the 6 inch pot hole 2 feet away.

What a disgrace.  I'm not one for encouraging suing public bodies, but I'm getting to the point where I believe its the onl thing that will make them sit up and take notice.

If the family are persuing this in the legal system, I would happily donate to a fund to support this.

If it keeps reappearing after being filled in surely its not a 7 year old pothole?

Ambulance Service comments are odd - why make assumptions as to how he ended up fatally injured?

Probably over-sensitive but given the recent comments from another ambulance service about helmet-wearing why suggest it was a medical issue rather than the pothole? Certainly not qualified to comment one way or the other - that's the coroner's job