Phinney disqualified from Tour of Britain for crossing railway when the barriers were coming down

alansmurphy wrote:

Yup, again Daily Heil type comments on here, if the lights just started and you're flying, sometimes attempting to stop is worse.

I suggest that your public road skills need revising if you find yourself "flying" in the approach to any set of lights, let alone a level crossing.

daturaman wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

Yup, again Daily Heil type comments on here, if the lights just started and you're flying, sometimes attempting to stop is worse.

I suggest that your public road skills need revising if you find yourself "flying" in the approach to any set of lights, let alone a level crossing.

 

Erm... I would still be flying less quickly than the majority of the cars approaching the crossing. If I'm doing 22mph and the lights start flashing when I'm 10 metres away, what do you suggest?

 

Are you just upset because you're slow?

alansmurphy wrote:

Yup, again Daily Heil type comments on here, if the lights just started and you're flying, sometimes attempting to stop is worse. Obviously those in charge of the race have to think of the example it is setting to others. Paul C, there's a few issues. Taking the time off wouldn't help if he was part of a team plan and the advantages of drafting etc.

This is based purely on what is in the article, but taking the tweet at face value, he says himself that he was "disqualified from the Tour of Britain for crossing a railway while the gates were coming down". 

So presumably the lights were flashing for some time before the barrier started to lower.  Where I am there's not many level crossings but the couple I do come across give lots of time before the gates come down.

Again, purely from the article, if he'd crossed while lights were flashing but before the gate started moving, he'd still have fallen foul of the revised rule: "It shall be strictly forbidden to cross level crossings when the barrier is down or closing, the warning signal ringing or flashing."

 

Leviathan wrote:

He is in a 'bicycle race,' there are going to be risks and edge cases. I didn't see the incident so I don't know how split second the choice was, but my first question has to be, why is the Tour of Britain crossing a level crossing? Really how can they allowed this to possibly happen? Level crossings are really quite rare in this country, especially on main roads.

Au contraire. On recent rides out East of Sheffield, I have been crossing them on a very regular basis. In factt he area of Wednesdsay's stage. On some of these wiggly rides I may cross a railway 3, 4, maybe 5 times. In fact it's rare I don't cross a  line out that way. Possibly never, as there are a fair number of railway lines criss crossing the country. There are a few in and around Sheffield too. So not as rare as you think. For obvious reasons main roads avoid them normally with bridges. And for obvious reasons, cyclists also avoid those sorts of roads.  
As it happens I also know someone doing research on crossing safety. If it wasn't so late I would ask him how many there are.

 

 

imajez wrote:

Leviathan wrote:

He is in a 'bicycle race,' there are going to be risks and edge cases. I didn't see the incident so I don't know how split second the choice was, but my first question has to be, why is the Tour of Britain crossing a level crossing? Really how can they allowed this to possibly happen? Level crossings are really quite rare in this country, especially on main roads.

Au contraire. On recent rides out East of Sheffield, I have been crossing them on a very regular basis. In factt he area of Wednesdsay's stage. On some of these wiggly rides I may cross a railway 3, 4, maybe 5 times. In fact it's rare I don't cross a  line out that way. Possibly never, as there are a fair number of railway lines criss crossing the country. There are a few in and around Sheffield too. So not as rare as you think. For obvious reasons main roads avoid them normally with bridges. And for obvious reasons, cyclists also avoid those sorts of roads.  
As it happens I also know someone doing research on crossing safety. If it wasn't so late I would ask him how many there are.

 

 

When we were on a cycling holiday in that area there were quite a few times when we had to go across a road with a level crossing.

Leviathan wrote:

Level crossings are really quite rare in this country, especially on main roads.

Come to the east of the country, from Northumbria to Essex (and maybe even Kent?), where most of the land is pretty flat and level crossings are everywhere. There's one road in Ely (admittedly a B Road) that has three seperate level crossings in just over 500m. The A10 has level crossings at Foxton and Littleport, there's multiple crossings on the 125mph east coast main line through Cambs and Lincs.

Leviathan wrote:

He is in a 'bicycle race,' there are going to be risks and edge cases. I didn't see the incident so I don't know how split second the choice was, but my first question has to be, why is the Tour of Britain crossing a level crossing? Really how can they allowed this to possibly happen? Level crossings are really quite rare in this country, especially on main roads.

in this case the ToB was crossing a level crossing so that the race could pass Bamburgh Castle, providing the necessary tourism friendly camera shots. Once you are north of Morpeth it is incredibly hard to plan a west east route that doesn't involve a same level crossing of either the A1 or the ECML, or both. That accounts, too for the lopsided shape of the route on Monday - four or five really good hills in the first half then a pan flat dash down the narrow corridor of coast between the ECML and the North Sea.

Far from being scarce there are a huge number of level crossings in Northumberland - the ToB on Monday crossed at least three (the one towards Bamburgh, Bebside and Newsham). We have the ECML (north south) the Tyne Valley Line (east west) and the AB&T (north east of Newcastle), all of them Victorian layouts that depend on inexpensive level crossings.

Leviathan wrote:

He is in a 'bicycle race,' there are going to be risks and edge cases. I didn't see the incident so I don't know how split second the choice was, but my first question has to be, why is the Tour of Britain crossing a level crossing? Really how can they allowed this to possibly happen? Level crossings are really quite rare in this country, especially on main roads.

Becasue actually it's an interesting tactical move - there are rules in place as to what happens if/when a rider or group of riders is stopped by a level crossing and the very presence of one in the race will help shape some of the tactics used.

Also, sometimes you just can't avoid them. ToB works by getting towns to bid to host a stage start and a stage finish and it's then a case of linking those towns up somehow, ideally via a route that looks good on TV, plays to the desire of the race organisers (hilly, flat, past a major sponsor's site) and the rest of it (level crossings, motorways etc) comes very much further down the list.

TP was off the back, in amongst the convoy of cars so it would have been relatively easy for him to stop for the level crossing then sit in the convoy of cars to regain position.

Leviathan wrote:

He is in a 'bicycle race,' there are going to be risks and edge cases. I didn't see the incident so I don't know how split second the choice was, but my first question has to be, why is the Tour of Britain crossing a level crossing? Really how can they allowed this to possibly happen? Level crossings are really quite rare in this country, especially on main roads.

One would think that a police motorcycle would be stationed before any railway level crossing, so that riders never need to make any 'split second' decisions!

Apparently it's more fun(?) for it to depend on who's around at the time or if it's caught on film & what the race jury might decide afterwards.

I love my bike wrote:

Leviathan wrote:

He is in a 'bicycle race,' there are going to be risks and edge cases. I didn't see the incident so I don't know how split second the choice was, but my first question has to be, why is the Tour of Britain crossing a level crossing? Really how can they allowed this to possibly happen? Level crossings are really quite rare in this country, especially on main roads.

One would think that a police motorcycle would be stationed before any railway level crossing, so that riders never need to make any 'split second' decisions!

Apparently it's more fun(?) for it to depend on who's around at the time or if it's caught on film & what the race jury might decide afterwards.

Which would introduce another layer of complexity without guaranteeing any greater safety.

 

Incidentally many of the escort bikes on the ToB are volunteers from the NEG, not police officers, so not sure why you;re onbsessed with it being a police bike. On Monday's stage, just before the Taylor Phinney level crossing, two of the police bikes were out of action because one went down in an unplanned excursion on top of Lyham Moor. How would you manage to ensure that a police bike was available, and knew where in the convoy the stragglers like TP were?

[/quote]Which would introduce another layer of complexity without guaranteeing any greater safety.

 

Incidentally many of the escort bikes on the ToB are volunteers from the NEG, not police officers, so not sure why you;re onbsessed with it being a police bike. On Monday's stage, just before the Taylor Phinney level crossing, two of the police bikes were out of action because one went down in an unplanned excursion on top of Lyham Moor. How would you manage to ensure that a police bike was available, and knew where in the convoy the stragglers like TP were?

[/quote]

 

I'm not 'obsessed' with it being a police bike, as I meant escort bike. But really, anybody with the authority to stop riders from crossing when barriers are closing (or whatever is deemed the limit). Trains are timetabled & their progress tracked online, so it could be organised.

Not having a perfect solution for every situation, shouldn't mean that something better isn't put in place.

Paul_C wrote:

Obviously not 'tweaked' enough... had he stopped until they went back up gain, would the stoppage time have been deducted from his overall time? If not, then the rules need revising. It's a bit like that stupidity the other week when the leading group weren't allowed a head start when the bridge reopened after a piddly little boat went through... for a start, the bridge-master should have held the bridge down until after the race had gone through... that boat was not under sail power and so could have easily waited. After all, they hold motor vehicles back until the race has gone through with a rolling road closure.

 

No. That would be considered a race incident.

If a leading group is ahead by at least 30 seconds and the barriers come down and allow others to catch up, then the race is nuetralised and the gaps restored. If the gap is under 30 seconds, its considered a racing incident.

Moronic cyclists that go through train barriers during a race should be prosecuted, as the general public are.

 

Kadinkski wrote:

Moronic cyclists that go through train barriers during a race should be prosecuted, as the general public are.

 

Looks like we've got a bona fide white van driver on the forum

SingleSpeed wrote:

Kadinkski wrote:

Moronic cyclists that go through train barriers during a race should be prosecuted, as the general public are.

 

Looks like we've got a bona fide white van driver on the forum

 

Also for riding more than 2 abrest, littering, holding up the team cars, riding on the wrong side of the road - thank the lord they're wearing helmets...