A car driver has damaged bike racks installed outside a church in Oxford, just a week after they had been put in place, with the local councillor saying the racks’ placement made “no sense for any road users.”
The recently installed Sheffield bike racks in Old Headington were struck by an unknown driver, leaving one of the protective bollards damaged.
Labour city councillor Mary Clarkson criticised the scheme, arguing that it was poorly thought through. She wrote on NextDoor: “OCC removed a car space at a pinch point & installed bollards & bike racks. It’s lasted a week. There may not be an obvious alternative bike location here, but this makes no sense for any road users.”
She added that similar proposals elsewhere had already raised concerns.
“Recently, the Marston Labour Team persuaded Oxfordshire County Council not to remove a parking space outside Cherwell Drive shops to create more bike spaces.
“Fearing damage to both cars and bikes, as well as the loss of a well-used parking space, we were unable to get agreement to have more spaces on the raised track between the service road and bike lane instead.”
However, other residents argued that it was driver behaviour that was the primary issue. On BlueSky, Peter Wells said: “If they can’t see a bollard or bikes far enough in advance to avoid it on a small slow road like that then they should probably hand their driving licence back.”
Sharon Curtis agreed, saying, “Absolutely. It’s an instance of people paying different amounts of attention to different hazards. Like the ‘sorry mate, didn’t see you’ that people on bikes often get.
“Though in this case, it’s the same positioning and amount of hazard, so they should be paying the same amount of attention!”
Report of damage to newly installed on-street bike parking in Old Headington….
— Oxford Pedestrians Association (@oxfordpedestrians.bsky.social) 18 March 2026 at 13:07
Danny Yee also highlighted the necessity of the bike racks in the area, saying, “I’ve lost track of the number of times I would have stopped at those shops if there’d been free cycle parking but didn’t.
“Apparently, removing one of the two dozen car parking places in front of the shops will cripple the local businesses.”
> Large vehicle may have crashed into controversial bike hangar, council says
Yee also criticised the councillor’s comment, questioning why she opposed having cycle parking for the nearby pub.
In response, Cllr Clarkson said: “In Marston, Mark Lygo & I persuaded the County to place extra cycle racks on the raised section at Cherwell Drive rather than remove a parking space. Safer for cyclists and drivers. I’m a pragmatist. Don’t turn everything into a binary car/bike ideological battle. It rarely works.”
However, Yee noted that placing cycle racks on footways would inconvenience pedestrians and require cyclists to ride on pavements, adding that cycling groups Cyclox and OxPa favour carriageway-level parking.
32 thoughts on “Driver crashes into new bike racks just a week after installation”
Why not widen the pavement to where the racks end noiw, put the racks at the wall side angled, take up less space, and hopefully safer from useless drivers
Presumably because that would have been a lot more expensive than just whacking the racks and a couple of bollards in an existing parking space.
The article says an ‘unknown driver’ collided with the bollards. Well we know what car they drive as it’s in the picture!
Looks like the car hit the bollard to me. Possibly driven by an unknown person?
“OCC removed a car space at a pinch point & installed bollards & bike racks.”
So cars used to park there but that didn’t cause a problem?
Use bollards with a car shaped profile and they might never notice the difference.
Honestly, that’s probably the answer. I wonder how many times a driver has managed to hit a car parked in that space.
Stevenage old town had many car shaped cycle parking spaces along the high street. Everyone of them were hit and replaced several times by incompetent drivers before eventually , they were all removed. 😟 equally frustrating and sad.
Were the bollards or the drivers removed? Hopefully the latter.
The driver would have been condemned to hell and back if they had hot a parked car.
Bikes are invisible you see.
Exactly. Silly Mary’s argument is totally illogical from the outset.
hit not hot.
Well done that bollard – took one for the team there in removing a dodgy driver from the roads.
They might even have been intoxicated, to have left the scene like that.
The bollard is a cycling hero, took a idiot driver out for the team, well done 😁😁😁😁
One of the great things about bikes is that they have such great flexibility on where they can be safely left: lampposts, graveyards, inside the church hall, pedestrian areas etc. I’m not sure using up space on a street that is already too narrow or taking up a car parking space, let alone both, is wise. It just inserts bikes into what was already a heated argument and that does us no favours.
It’s not ‘taking up a car parking space’. It’s in space that just happened to be previously allocated to parking. There’s no innate ‘parkingness’ about that space. And if the rack had been placed on the pavement (or if people had locked their bikes to lampposts and the like), there would equally have been complaints about ‘taking up pedestrian space’ (with rather more justification, since pedestrians are already forced into a much more restricted space to start with).
Also, the street is not too narrow – it’s just obstructed by all the cars that are /already/ parked there.
* previously allocated to /motor vehicle/ parking
It is, of course, still allocated to parking – just parking for a different type of vehicle.
The bollard came out of nowhere.
The sun was in my eyes.
It wasn’t wearing hi-viz.
Have you considered being a defence lawyer. Though you missed a couple. I don’t see a helmet on the rack and your client is of good character and runs a business employing people. Its a slam dunk.
You still forgot to mention the ferrets.
How often were cars parked in that space crashed into?
“Labour city councillor Mary Clarkson criticised the scheme, arguing that it was poorly thought through. She wrote on NextDoor: “OCC removed a car space at a pinch point & installed bollards & bike racks. It’s lasted a week. There may not be an obvious alternative bike location here, but this makes no sense for any road users.”
So the driver would have been able to avoid a car parked there, just fine?
Maybe reduce the pinch point by removing the parking from the other side of the road?
@belugabob yep, pretty much the definition of “but bicycles”, her reply. Or perhaps “but one less car!?!”
There is one “sensible” reading though – albeit depressing: that we’ve simply given up on the idea that motorists will look out for anything other than other motor vehicles. And that the only “logical” response is not to limit the paths of drivers, but to move everything else out of their way…
Its the classic answer to everything in todays society. Its not personal responsibility, its bad design. Its someone elses fault. Its just the logical extension of how we treat dangerous drivers. The paradox of not prosecuting drivers who pay no attention under the undue care and attention driving laws because…they weren’t paying attention.
If 10 drivers plough into a big red bollard its clearly bad design because people weren’t expecting a big red bollard despite the idea that as a driver you should be paying attention at all times and perceiving unexpected hazards. Pedestrians and cyclings don’t take up known positions. You need to pay attention and if you are such an inattentive/shit driver that you don’t see a fucking bike rack you shouldn’t be anywhere near our roads in a car.
Well obviously it’s too visible and is inducing target fixation. It’s not that they weren’t paying attention – they were paying /too much/ attention. They can’t be blamed for that…
“well used parking space”. What are the criteria for using a space well? I’m almost surprised she didn’t call it “much loved”.
In another tweet of hers that I saw she claimed that cycle parking was “forcing” drivers to mount the “historic” pavement with all the damage that would entail. She didn’t go into detail as to how when cars were parked there drivers weren’t “forced” to drive on the pavement…
You’re missing the point. I didn’t say that it was taking up parking space. I said that to do that is not a way of making cyclists or cycling popular, which is therefore counterproductive IMHO. Surely there are ways of making cycling better without making life worse for those who need to drive?
Surely there are ways of making cycling better without making life worse for those who need to drive?
No. Pretty much everything that can be done to help cyclists will be argued against by at least a sizeable minority of drivers- that gives the answer. Devotion to the ease of driving has been the dominant feature of traffic planning for at least 75 years, and they’re not about to relinquish their pampered, privileged and subsidised status without a struggle. What we don’t want is any more subsidy for driving during the impending oil crisis
Firstly, that bike rack is not “making life worse for those who need to drive” because before the bike rack was there there would be a car parked in that space so nothing has changed bar the loss of a single parking space. As for the wider implications of your point, you’re simply being absurd. If “will this make cyclists unpopular” was a criterion for planning considerations for cycle infrastructure literally not one yard of cycleway would ever be built. A substantial majority of drivers simply hate cyclists and hate anything which involves sharing “their” roads for which “we pay road tax.” Distributing the available road space equitably between all types of road user should be done practically, rationally and with due consideration of the cost/benefit equation, it shouldn’t be a popularity contest.
before the bike rack was there there would be a car parked in that space so nothing has changed bar the loss of a single parking space
Yes, that’s it!- the loss of a single parking space is viewed by The Dim, a group which unfortunately includes a Labour councillor, as Armageddon and the End of Days. So much for the cyclist empathy of those who ‘need to drive’
Um…
But if you weren’t saying it was doing it in the first place, then how is that even relevant?