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news
Yakima rack - 1Car sent crashing off busy Newcastle road after bike comes off roof rack
A car was sent spinning off the A19 near Newcastle after swerving to try and avoid a bike which had come off a passing vehicle’s roof rack.
Footage from another driver’s dash cam published on Gazette Live shows a Citroen C3 pass by with a bike strapped to its roof.
Somehow, the bike became unfastened and came off, landing in the path of a silver Nissan Almera. That car swerved to try and avoid it. However, the driver lost control, veering across the nearside lane and off an embankment, flipping over before coming to rest on the driver’s side.
Michael Jones, who recorded the footage, said:
“I didn't pay too much attention to the Citroen as it passed, I just saw the bike on the roof and thought it was weird at that time of the morning to see someone with a bike on the road.
“The next thing I saw was the Almera braking sharply ahead of me and the bike smashing into it and then it came spinning across my lane.
“I was just hoping that I wasn't going to get caught by it. I’m renowned for being hit – I've been hit four times in two and half years. I have some bad luck on the roads, which is one of the reasons why I got the dashcam.”
Jones said that as he pulled over and phoned the emergency services, it looked like there was a plume of smoke coming from the car.
Highways England staff were working a few hundred yards down the road and they came over to try and help.
Jones said: “While I’d been on the phone the guy had climbed out of the car, which was laid on its side so he had to get out of the window. He was dazed and disorientated but he didn't appear to have any injuries. I think he was very lucky. It could have been a fatal accident, it was that bad.”
Police arrived on the scene minutes later.
“People should make sure anything they are carrying is correctly secure,” said Jones. “There are no issues with doing it but should do it correctly. If it’s not secure, don’t risk it.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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6 comments
Oh come on, one of the commonest causes of crashes! Like the journalism that is poor and I'd need hard evidence for such an extraordinary statement.
Tiny numbers of bikes carried on cars etc etc
anyway, the only load I have seen come off a vehicle was a scaffold plank from a builders flat bed at about 55mph, it bounced and span in the road on my side coming at the car could have easily been fatal but fortunately it was flat on the road when I ran it over.
no damage to the plank, as he wasn't aware of it coming off his van and had driven on without it
Bikes falling off vehicles is one of the commonest causes of crashes on the French autoroute system, I heard at a meeting recently.
Riding to the start would be good prevention obviously.
There's something odd with this.....
The story is in the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette.
It took place "near Newcastle" (not within the circulation area of the MEG, which is unsurprisingly Middlesbrough and it's immediate surrounds) - to most (99%+) people if it was south of the Tyne it'd be "near Sunderland" or "near Washington" or plausibly "near Gateshead"
Durham police don't patrol the A19 "near Newcastle" (their patch on the A19 runs out to the south of Sunderland) so what are they going to say anyway?
Edit: Finally got the video to load and it's near Peterlee (sign at 0:07 clearly shows this and Sunderland as the primary route destination)- some 25 miles from Newcastle and only 20 from Middlesbrough (13 from Sunderland)
So shoddy journalism from a local paper - shock of shocks
" ’m renowned for being hit – I've been hit four times in two and half years. I have some bad luck on the roads, which is one of the reasons why I got the dashcam.”
I'd suggest reappraising your awareness and leave bigger gaps if you're having 'bad luck' that often.
Happens to the best of us, if you read Chris Boardman's biography...
Well at one level it's 'just' another load detaching and causing an accident, however it may act as a worthwhile reminder to us to double check the integrity of the rack itself and the bikes mounted on racks before and during a journey.
A friend had his old rear mounted rack with two bikes fall onto a dual carriageway; fortunately there were no other consequences than two trashed bikes.
I wonder if football websites report on incidents where a football rolls into the road and causes a crash.