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news
Stop sign stockParents of cyclist killed on charity ride told to remove 'distracting' roadside tribute
The parents of a cyclist killed during a charity bike ride have been told to remove a roadside tribute to their son because it was 'distracting' motorists.
University student Pathushan Sutharsan, 20, sadly crashed into the path of a lorry during the London to Brighton ride after trying to brake on a steep section of gravel track.
Following his death a coroner warned the signs in place on the route alerting riders to the 'immediacy' of the upcoming A281 near Rudgwick were 'inadequate'.
Mr Sutharsan, from Morden in Surrey, was cycling on the stretch of the Downs Link from Cranleigh towards Southwater when he was killed.
> Death of student on charity bike ride leads to calls for better warning signs
Flowers, mementos and photographs were left at the roadside where the collision occured.
A year later, his grieving family has been asked to remove the tributes as West Sussex County Council say they are causing a 'distraction' to passing traffic.
Pathu’s mother Shobana Sutharsan said her husband continues to lay flowers at the crash site every week, The Argus reports.
“As a mother, I don’t want to go there,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like my son is still with me.”
Pathu, an architecture student and Sri-Lankan musician, was cycling in aid of children affected by the civil war in Yemen when he died.
His brother Shobihan, said keeping the roadside tributes would be “greatly appreciated so we can pay our respects”.
“I believe we should keep some of his mementos and tributes as a way of remembrance to all the locals and also to us,” he said.
“Remembrance to how he has left this earth doing something so charitable and heroic and also as an inspiration to anyone passing by.”
According to the council, members of the public raised concerns the memorial was causing distractions to road users.
A highways officer visited the site and confirmed the concerns.
“Safety is always of paramount importance, so we had no option but to ask the family to remove the memorial so it can be placed elsewhere,” a council spokesman said.
“The question of roadside tributes is always a very sensitive one to resolve, which is why we introduced a policy called ‘roadside memorials and tributes’ some years ago.”
The policy states that permanent roadside memorials are not permitted on the county’s highways.
“It includes a series of guidelines that try to balance the need for people to have a period of grieving against instances where very legitimate safety concerns might arise - in which case we ask families to please remove the tribute,” the spokesman added.
“We appreciate what a difficult time this is for Pathushan’s family and friends and would like to convey our condolences to them.”
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33 comments
God forbid that anything should remind road users to drive safely.
It's always possible to get round the bureacracy - with money. (Hence distracting adverts are OK - even the distracting ones on people's phones in their cars...). It may be possible to work with the council if you fund the work. Local case of a guy killed in his car after a crash caused by a joyrider followed the pattern. A temporary memorial morphed into a shrine, which after some time was torched by vandals. However now this has become a memorial bench.
I definitely have sympathies as often the function of these memorials is to be distracting. In the case I mentioned it was partly a "shame memorial" because no-one seemed (to the family) to be doing their utmost to bring the perpetrators to justice. For ghost bikes it'd be great if they were noticed and this woke up the odd motorist (unlikely). I think they're more like those memorial plaques you see on some mountain routes - reminds you that others have died on bikes here as can you...
I'm kinda split about these memorials.
On one hand, they serve as a reminder of someone's passing at that point.
On the other hand, they can become an eyesore with tatty banners, scarves, bits of clothing, etc.
I think that the 12 months the council have allowed it to be up for is long enough; surely a more permanent and fitting memorial is the gravestone or marker in the garden of remembrance, and the whole 'distraction to motorists' is a polite justification to have it removed.
I have nothing against roadside tributes unless they are allowed to grow into a shrine. Also, it surprises and saddens me how many tributes I see in the form of bunches of flowers on posts which are not removed once they have died, leaving a rotten mess and paper and plastic litter. The people leaving them should return a fortnight later and collect the resultant litter.
Agree - these things often become tatty (plastic) messes. Having sympathy for the bereaved though (a) some may not want to be revisiting the scene - at least not immediately (b) alternatively some people find it difficult to "clear things away" after death - even things that weren't actually owned by the dead person.
If I'm squished no plastic or flowers please. Just a simple large hole in the carriageway will do for me - say 4 x 3 x 1m deep, and cover it with some plain, tasteful boards (painted to to look like tarmac) with a maximum bearing weight of say 200kg (I've nothing against tandems)...
I was thinking that if the road surface could be painted blood red at the scene of every death, people might get the idea.
Every day people who may not have been trained in 60 years are being handed a lethal weapon.
Alas not going to help. Many urban junctions will be a mass of red - which like the ASLs will be hidden beneath vehicles because "busy junction". In the countryside you'll occasionally come across a red splash as you motor at 60+ which might well be more "distracting" than useful.
Part of the issue is at junctions drivers can easily become overloaded so extra info probably isn't a help. In less busy environments we do already have a version of this e.g. "think bike" signs for motorbikes. Many places have "x deaths and injuries in the last year" signs that are put up before you enter a particularly dangerous stretch of road.
Slight aside but as to "where this happens" and "who kills who" I recommend this excellent visualisation (also here).
I was really thinking that almost the entire surface would be red in urban areas.
That's truly excellent, thanks for sharing. Particularly powerful on the collisions involving pedestrians.
I'm afraid the difference between a tribute and a shrine is lost on me. Perhaps you could explain the difference and why you object to the latter but not the former.
Well, you see, a "tribute" sounds a lot more English, doesn't it? Shrines are what they have in those foreign places.
Apologies for the sarcasm regarding what is a very sad topic. This is clearly still a very raw and painful experience for Pathu's family. Has better signage or a gate been installed since the Coroner's Report? If not, why not?
Did anyone see the other article on the Argus about cycling?
Is the theft issue so bad in Brighton judging by the comments?
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/19655817.uber-eats-rider-bike-stolen-jubi...
It's a double university town - of course bike theft is an issue.
While no-one wants to distract motorists, I can't help but wonder at the double standards of most councils, which are happy taking money for adverts on roundabouts, which are deliberately designed to distract at the most dangerous junctions in the road system. I don't know if Sussex County Council takes money for them, but most councils do; perhaps someone who lives there could tell us?
Personally, I think that there should be a memorial at every site where someone has died on our roads, especially a pedestrian or cyclist, as a reminder to drivers that it's their responsibility not to kill people. I remember one council leaving crashed cars where they were, as long as they weren't obstructing anything, which dramatically reduced collisions.
The council sub-let out all the roundabouts advertising boards to a private company for a set figure and then that company sells the boards for whatever they can get.
So yes, it's all about the money and not safety.
Thanks for the info. Have you contacted the council and asked them why it's ok to have adverts on roundabouts, but not memorials to people killed on the roads? Maybe if the council charged people for the memorials to their loved ones they would allow it?
If the council are really concerned about safety, they'd do something to slow traffic down, at that point - and maybe arrange the gates, so that cyclists couldn't crash into the path of lorries. Maybe even put a signal controlled crossing.
I've only ridden it once, and didn't consider it too busy, but that may have just been down to the time of day.
I do drive that way, a handful of times each year, and always watch out for cyclists.
As per other comments - if drivers are being distracted by floral tributes, heaven knows how they deal with the various signs, along that road, for schools, nursing homes, fishing lakes, airfields, farm shops, pubs, business parks, kebab vans etc.
(And the cricket matches on the green, must be responsible for regular pile-ups).
EDIT: I now think that the poor chap may have been coming down the bridleway on the right, rather than on the downslink itself, as the former has no gates at all, and the latter does
That's an excellent idea.
When I was in Oz a few years ago, they had black posts where people had died and red ones for serious injuries. I found it quite sobering.
Sadly both East & West Sussex County Councils make money from their roundabout adverts..
Has anyone pointed out how utterly hypocritical it is to demand that roadside memorials be removed while they make money from deliberately distracting drivers themselves?
Doesn't look particularly distracting, I think it's just the case that they have a blanket ban on permanent roadside memorials.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0857825,-0.4446356,3a,75y,283.16h,74.77t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfUYsP6tcDZsWpmdgQzxiDA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Judging by the pictures in the article, it has grown a bit since the Streetview images were taken in July, possibly with some additions on the road side of the fence.
(I'm still doubtful that it's really that distracting though.)
Jebus. It's a bit OTT but I've seen roundabout signs almost as bad. If it wasn't for the council's hypocrisy I would agree with them. Everyone grieves in the own way but I'm with the mother in this one. Time to replace it with a ghost bike.
Any chance of a photo of the site so we can make up our own minds?
It depends on the nature of the memorial but unless it's a grotesque monument to grief I'm struggling to see how it can be distracting to those poor deprived motorists.
An alternative place might be a smidge up the lane that the poor lad barrelled down. It could do double duty as a warning sign.
The source Argus article (link above) has pictures (albeit not the view from the road).
Personally, I can't really see how it would be any more distracting than, say, an advert for the local pub, or myriad other signs, etc. that litter the roadside.
The 'distraction' thing sounds like a convenient excuse because they don't want to just say that they don't want a proliferation of these appearing.
Frankly, if drivers are so easily distracted, they probably shouldn't be on the roads.
I'll say "good".
These "memorials" are an eyesore and nothing but litter. Sympathies for families etc but why put them where the rest of the world can see them? I can think of half a dozen within 5 miles of where I live. Everyone could be behind a tree not in front of it.
Maybe, but if that's the reason they could be honest about it, instead of hiding that debate behind dubious statements about distracting drivers.
Where I live all the memorials are to the "good lads" who ended up as fatalities because of their belief in their invulnability. If people want a shrine to their loved ones, there is a place for this, it's called the graveside. I know this might sound callous but in most cases, in this area, the shrine only serves to make a victim out of the deceased who were the perpetrators of their own demise. Strangely enough the only "distracting memorials" that are removed are Ghost Bikes.
There was a stretch of road near where I lived in the Highlands with regular memorials along a few miles. The number of these suggested that at least there it didn't have any deterrent effect. I guess you could argue from that that the presence of these were causing more crashes but if I recall they weren't clustered around a single location.
Thinking about it, the two nearest me are of a lad who crashed into a tree and died whilst speeding, and another who crashed and died when forced off the road after a supposed drugs deal gone bad. And today on the way home, spotted these have been joined by a 16yo motorcyclist that tried to overtake an Audi in a 40mph zone and went head on into an oncoming car.
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