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1 cyclist a week killed or seriously injured due to potholesPothole (copyright Simon MacMichael).jpg

1 cyclist a week killed or seriously injured due to potholes

10 cyclists have lost their lives in past five years in crashes caused by road defects
by Simon_MacMichael
Mon, Nov 18, 2019 12:05
11

One cyclist a week is killed or seriously injured by defects such as potholes on Britain’s roads, according to the result of a Freedom of Information (FoI) request.

The request found that during the past five years more than 250 cyclists were killed or seriously injured due to crashes caused by poor road surfaces, reports The Sun.

In all, 10 cyclists were killed while a further 262 were seriously injured, according to figures from the Department for Transport.

In September, a coroner’s inquest heard that 47-year-old Alison Doyle of Maghull, Merseyside was killed in August last year when a pothole caused her to veer into the path of a car in Aughton, Lancashire.

> Cyclist died after pothole crash; council says it had no record of defect despite receiving four complaints

The inquest heard that Lancashire County Council, which filled in the defect on the same day as the fatal crash, had received four complaints about potholes in the location in the previous year.

The FoI request comes at a time when cash-strapped local authorities are struggling to repair road defects and are having to decide where to focus their resources.

Last week, for example, East Lothian Council decided that only potholes likely to result in death or to cause extensive, permanent harm would be treated as the highest priority, meaning they needed to be fixed inside 24 hours.

Earlier this year Cycling UK, launching its inaugural Pothole Watch Week, said that pothole claims from cyclists cost councils 25 times more to settle in terms of compensation and legal costs than ones from motorists do.

> Pothole claims from cyclists cost councils 25 times more than those from drivers (+ video)

It said that the average claim from a cyclist cost £88,000 to settle, with £45 million in total paid out during the past five years.

The average amount paid to motorists was £338 while for cyclists it was £8,825, with drivers being more likely to claim for damage to vehicles while in the case of bike riders, claims are more likely to result from bodily injury or even death.

Cycling UK has called on the government to focus on repairing existing roads before building new ones.

Speaking earlier this year, its CEO, Paul Tuohy, said: “Cyclists are running the gauntlet when riding on British roads following a decade of underinvestment leading to the poor state they’re currently in.

“Potholes aren’t just an expensive nuisance, they are ruining lives.”

He added: “Cycling UK wants government to adopt a ‘fix it first’ policy. Let's repair the local roads first – the ones we all use in our cars and on our bikes everyday – before building new motorways.”

The charity is also encouraging all road users to report road defects through its Fill That Hole website and app, which automatically informs the relevant highways authority of where defects require fixing.

Potholes
Pothole Watch
cycling uk
Simon MacMichael

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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11 comments

Avatar
Sriracha | 5 years ago
0 likes

Hmm. So cyclists are lobbying for more spending on roads?

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to Sriracha | 5 years ago
2 likes

Sriracha wrote:

Hmm. So cyclists are lobbying for more spending on roads?

https://roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/

Avatar
Andski808 | 5 years ago
0 likes

This is all a bit more complicated than first meets the eye I'm afraid.

First, councils can only repair potholes they know about. And even then I think I'm right in saying they have a 'reasonable' time to do so. So it's perfectly possible for a cyclist to be injured but for a Council not to be legally liable. 

If they've done the job badly as the post above says then that's different of course.

Second, it isn't just traffic that causes potholes otherwise all roads with heavy traffic would be full of potholes all the time, which they're not. It's a mix of various factors - In the UK winter ice causes a lot of road damage. So you're going to get resistance from business when they're not really responsible.  

Im not saying it's not a problem - it obviously is - but legally it's not as simple as it might seem. 

Avatar
hobbeldehoy | 5 years ago
4 likes

I crashed in July 2018 after hitting a pothole filled in with gravel. I went over the handlebars breaking my elbow and spent 3 nights in hospital. Luckily I had my helmet on which split and I could've been looking at a fractured skull and a brain injury in addition to the broken elbow. Throwing gravel down seems to be the new quick fix for roads but it's lethal for two wheeled transport and if government wants to encourage cycling then it has to look at road maintenance more carefully.

Avatar
PRSboy | 5 years ago
5 likes

Also, hold the companies (usually Utilities) that dig up the roads to account.  Make them log where they dig holes, and if the surface deteriorates, then they come and sort it out properly at their expense.

Avatar
brooksby replied to PRSboy | 5 years ago
4 likes

PRSboy wrote:

Also, hold the companies (usually Utilities) that dig up the roads to account.  Make them log where they dig holes, and if the surface deteriorates, then they come and sort it out properly at their expense.

Now this one is something that I would be fully behind.  Badly/quickly covered trenches for cables, etc, are bl00dy dangerous surprise

Avatar
zero_trooper replied to PRSboy | 5 years ago
1 like

PRSboy wrote:

Also, hold the companies (usually Utilities) that dig up the roads to account.  Make them log where they dig holes, and if the surface deteriorates, then they come and sort it out properly at their expense.

I'm pretty sure that this is already the case. It's a matter of council enforcement. Or rather, lack of it.

Avatar
brooksby | 5 years ago
2 likes

If the story is in the Sun, are they blaming immigrants, Kerry Katona, or Jeremy Corbyn for this state of affairs? 

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to brooksby | 5 years ago
7 likes

brooksby wrote:

If the story is in the Sun, are they blaming immigrants, Kerry Katona, or Jeremy Corbyn for this state of affairs? 

Yes.

Personally, I think the cost of repairing roads should be partly charged to the large haulage companies that have heavy lorries carrying stuff around. They cause a disproportional amount of damage to the roads and the tax-payer ends up subsidising the big companies. If we had vehicle tax proportional to the fourth power of their weight, then it'd provide an incentive for companies to use several smaller vehicles and thus there would be much less damage to the roads.

Avatar
brooksby replied to hawkinspeter | 5 years ago
0 likes

hawkinspeter wrote:

brooksby wrote:

If the story is in the Sun, are they blaming immigrants, Kerry Katona, or Jeremy Corbyn for this state of affairs? 

Yes.

Personally, I think the cost of repairing roads should be partly charged to the large haulage companies that have heavy lorries carrying stuff around. They cause a disproportional amount of damage to the roads and the tax-payer ends up subsidising the big companies. If we had vehicle tax proportional to the fourth power of their weight, then it'd provide an incentive for companies to use several smaller vehicles and thus there would be much less damage to the roads.

Whilst I do agree with you that Something Needs To Be Done, and it seems sensible to consider increasing vehicle tax on the vehicles which weigh more and which therefore cause most damage to the roads, I can see a couple of problems (maybe).

(1) Having multiple smaller vehicles might increase emissions, etc (if electric, might increase haulier costs which I'm pretty sure would get passed on to the consumers); and

(2) Mightn't this open up the "Road Tax" can of worms again ("I pay more, so deserve more rights/priority - I don't see you cyclists paying!").

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to brooksby | 5 years ago
1 like

brooksby wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

brooksby wrote:

If the story is in the Sun, are they blaming immigrants, Kerry Katona, or Jeremy Corbyn for this state of affairs? 

Yes.

Personally, I think the cost of repairing roads should be partly charged to the large haulage companies that have heavy lorries carrying stuff around. They cause a disproportional amount of damage to the roads and the tax-payer ends up subsidising the big companies. If we had vehicle tax proportional to the fourth power of their weight, then it'd provide an incentive for companies to use several smaller vehicles and thus there would be much less damage to the roads.

Whilst I do agree with you that Something Needs To Be Done, and it seems sensible to consider increasing vehicle tax on the vehicles which weigh more and which therefore cause most damage to the roads, I can see a couple of problems (maybe).

(1) Having multiple smaller vehicles might increase emissions, etc (if electric, might increase haulier costs which I'm pretty sure would get passed on to the consumers); and

(2) Mightn't this open up the "Road Tax" can of worms again ("I pay more, so deserve more rights/priority - I don't see you cyclists paying!").

Increased costs should be passed onto the consumers which may in turn affect the profitability of large companies. It could shift the profit margin towards using local producers rather than bring in everything from other countries and distribute it around the country.

The weight tax would be unlikely to affect personal cars - they don't really do much damage to the roads.

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