A cyclist from Hereford has spoken of how he was impaled on the brake lever of his bike after a rat-running motorist knocked him off it.
Dane Phillips, aged 45, was riding to a supermarket on Monday 28 January when a motorist hit the front wheel of his bike, sending his bike into the air, reports Metro.
It landed on top of him, impaling his right leg, which necessitated fire-fighters to cut the handlebars off the bike. He was rushed to hospital, where he underwent surgery to remove the handlebars and brake lever.
He said: “I was on my way to Aldi and cycling the route I’d done a thousand times before when this car came out of nowhere. ‘It all happened so fast, it clipped my front tyre and the bike just flew up 10 feet in the air.
“I was lying on the ground and the bike landed on top of me with the handlebars through my leg.
“At first I didn’t initially realise I had been hurt, and then I saw that the gear and brake levers on the handlebars were stuck deep in my leg.
“The handlebars had to be cut off my bike by firefighters using specialist equipment at the scene and then I was taken to hospital to have them removed from my leg.”
He said that the street layout in the area where the incident happened were dangerous for cyclists.
“It was not a one-off, the narrow streets in Whitecross in Hereford are used as rat-runs by drivers looking to get in and out of the city,” he explained.
“It could have been a child that was hit,” he added. “It was a big car and it could easily have been a fatal accident. I’d just like to raise awareness, in the hope that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
While cyclists being impaled on their bicycles is thankfully a very rare occurrence, it does happen now and again.
In 2015, we reported how a cyclist from Leeds needed surgery after his leg became impaled on his bike’s handlebars.
And last August, we reported on the tragic story of a six-year-old boy in the US who was killed in a similar incident after the handlebar tube had become exposed due to disintegration of ends of the rubber handlebar grips.
I was waiting for a cyclingMikey character to stop in the middle of the cycle route incanting "You will not pass".
Like flying the Union Flag upside-down?
There's discussion of that here: https://road.cc/content/news/uk-government-review-motorists-caught-out-c...
Also to reduce the likelihood of payments by insurance companies if they can show that a cyclist victim wasn't wearing a helmet or wearing it...
I have done it but whilst making you feel better, apart from the occasional sore hand, it always inflamed the situation. ...
There's discussion of that here: https://road.cc/content/news/uk-government-review-motorists-caught-out-cycle-lanes-308187...
Six months too long.
It's astounding that people managed to ride bicycles at all before bike fitters started selling their services to the public..
Essex campaigners welcome Extra Eyes initiative to catch bad drivers https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/24297908.essex-campaigners-welcome-e...
Yeah, I know it's not ALL about aesthetics but, Christ that looks horrible. ...