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news
Lorry (by-nc-sa 2.0 licensed by David Basanta:Flickr)Cyclist survives slide under lorry, which then starts to reverse
A Kenilworth man had a lucky escape when he slid under an HGV, which pulled out in front of him and then started reversing, on the Coast to Coast cycle route in Cumbria.
Father of two, Sam Vernon, was riding at about 20mph with friends on the main road into Kendal when a lorry pulled out in front of him. He realised the driver hadn't seen him, applied the brakes and flew over the handlebars and underneath the lorry.
Vernon was thankful for his helmet which, he said, cushioned the impact of his head hitting a tank on the vehicle's underside. The lorry driver started reversing after he realised he had hit something, and Vernon was lucky to get out with a fractured wrist before the vehicle's wheels could make contact.
Vernon told the Leamington Observer: "I thought, if I don’t move now, I’m dead."
Fortunately a policewoman and first aid team were in a lay-by opposite the crash site, saw what happened and came to help.
Vernon said: “It felt like I’d done my shoulder, collar bone and wrist. The bones are fragmented in my wrist so I’ve had five wires put in to keep it all together.”
The Observer reports the driver of the Lithuanian lorry was reported to Cumbria police for driving without due care and attention.
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
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14 comments
Scarey for me to think I was doing the C2C through this route last week
Lucky guy in all senses of the word. What are the odds of going under a lorry opposite a Police officer and a first aid team? I think there needs to be a PC and a first Aid team on standby in every layby in the country. Another undelivered pledge by this dreadful Tory government that no one we know voted for..
Well bang on only 32% voted for them. Once you remove all the members of the party including their politicians, family, and friends etc. Added to the fact many of them cycle or did (still sickens me the most that) statistically speaking really no one did vote conservative. The opposition has just got more fractured and the non voters were still not mobilised. All of which works perfectly for the ruling party.
Oh, give it a rest. The left wouldn't be whining about FPTP if they'd won.
Awesome stock photo chaps!
The stock imagery on here is getting rather tired...
'The Observer reports the driver of the Lithuanian lorry was reported to Cumbria police for driving without due care and attention.'
Who then went off back to Lithuania never to be seen on these shores again.
Should confiscate his licence and impound the vehicle. Fine him then send him on his merry way.
It's not clear what the relevance of the driver's nationality is here - but if he felt compelled to leave the country, then it's quite possibly a better punishment than he'd get through a legal route...
I don't think they mentioned the nationality of the driver, just the lorry. We want to be run over by good British lorrys like Leyland, none of this foreign muck...
Its pretty hard to write or say anything these days without showing some kind of bias. Just be glad this wasn't you.
But no mention of how he wishes he had learnt to quick stop to avoid endoing.
Sometimes you aren't given the time, merely the choice of what you would prefer to hit. Presumably, with the witnesses, this driver will be done for Careless Driving?
And the award for the most sanctimonious post of the day goes too…
Should be charged with DANGEROUS driving!
He thought he hit something so started to reverse without even checking?
"I've just run something over, so errrr, yeh, if I drive backwards I'll unrun it over"
Complete fuckwit. The cyclist was very lucky he didn't kill him in his reverse.