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Police appeal for witnesses to two crashes that left cyclists seriously injured

Two men in hospital after collisions with vehicles

The Metropolitan Police is appealing for witnesses to two recent incidents that left cyclists fighting for their lives in hospital with serious injuries.

On Sunday, September 7, a 21-year-old male cyclist was involved in a collision with a bus on High Street at the junction with Richmond Road - also known as Richmond Rise.

Police and ambulance service arrived shortly after 8:45pm. The rider was taken to a central London hospital where a spokesman for the Metropolitan police said he currently remains in a critical condition.

The bus driver was not arrested and is helping officers with enquires.

In an earlier incident, a cyclist was involved in a collision with a car on Monday September 1 at Hyde Park Corner, junction with Constitutional Hill, SW1.

Police and ambulance service were called just after midnight to find the 31-year-old man suffering from serious head injuries.

He was taken by London Ambulance Service to a central London hospital where he remains in a serious but stable condition, over a week later.

The driver of the car stopped at the scene. No arrests have been made.

Both collisions are being investigated by officers from the  Serious Collision Investigation Unit at Merton. Anyone who witnessed either collision or the events leading up to them should call the unit on 0208 543 5157 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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9 comments

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balmybaldwin | 9 years ago
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It's an appeal for witnesses. I can't think of a more appropriate place to put this than in the news section.

At least the police appear to be making the effort to investigate these cases and not just taking the drivers' word for it.

I would be surprised if the bus incident wasn't covered by the onboard cameras, but perhaps they only record what's going on in the bus rather than outside it.

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HalfWheeler replied to balmybaldwin | 9 years ago
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balmybaldwin wrote:

It's an appeal for witnesses. I can't think of a more appropriate place to put this than in the news section.

At least the police appear to be making the effort to investigate these cases and not just taking the drivers' word for it.

I would be surprised if the bus incident wasn't covered by the onboard cameras, but perhaps they only record what's going on in the bus rather than outside it.

You're quite right but if I was the editor I would close comments for this article.

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nowasps replied to HalfWheeler | 9 years ago
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HalfWheeler wrote:

You're quite right but if I was the editor I would close comments for this article.

They're only closed when it's sub judice.

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harrybav replied to nowasps | 9 years ago
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Road.cc wrote:

Two men in hospital after collisions with vehicles

No comment on topic but howsabout some different but equally-concise wording:

Quote:

Two men in hospital after vehicle-bike collisions

We'd not write that a wall was in collision with a cyclist, I think, or that a person was in collision with a bullet. A deer in collision with a car? The order carries enough meaning that it'd be nice to avoid this driver-favouring traditional newspaper wording for bike and pedestrian crashes. Small point, but an easy fixer!

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raganello replied to harrybav | 9 years ago
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Quote:

We'd not write that a wall was in collision with a cyclist

I don't mean to trivialise your valid comment, but we should remember the meaning of "collision". An object hitting a stationary object is actually an "allision". See: https://twitter.com/raganello/status/447382320840843264/photo/1

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jacknorell replied to harrybav | 9 years ago
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vbvb wrote:

We'd not write that a wall was in collision with a cyclist

Of course we don't, the wall won't move so 100% of the time, the cyclists collided with the wall.

With a traffic incident, it's kind of hard to tell without some indication about who ran into who. Thus, appeals for witnesses.

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zanf replied to balmybaldwin | 9 years ago
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balmybaldwin wrote:

I would be surprised if the bus incident wasn't covered by the onboard cameras, but perhaps they only record what's going on in the bus rather than outside it.

Buses have cameras mounted out front and rear now. Its how they hand out penalty notices for driving in the bus lane.

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Riccardo_M | 9 years ago
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Why Road.CC keep posting news of cycling crash without any comment or analysis?
What is the author’s view on the event? Have local cycling groups (LCC, CTC) commented on it? Is there anything other cyclists should be aware of as a result of this crash (piece of road, a particular junction, etc..)
At the very least this web site should give a description of the dynamic of the crash so readers can at try to learn something out of it. Otherwise this is just a sterile “Cut & Paste” exercise which probably drives readership, but also has the effect to make people even more worried about cycling.

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notfastenough | 9 years ago
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You sure you want to leave comments open on this?

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