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Police tape (CC licensed by freefotouk on Flickr)Arrest made as Vélo Birmingham & Midlands marshal reportedly run over and left with broken hip
A man has been arrested by West Midlands Police after a marshal at today’s Vélo Birmingham & Midlands sportive was reportedly deliberately run over by a driver and sustained a suspected broken hip. In a separate incident, footage has emerged showing another motorist ignoring instructions of marshals at the event and moving traffic cones to drive across the route of the closed road sportive.
Southwest Birmingham local news website B31.org.uk reports that a 72-year-old male was arrested following the incident in Rubery this morning, with the injured marshal being a 59-year-old man from Plymouth.
Police have issued a witness appeal, and anyone who has information is requested to contact officers on 101 quoting the reference log 936 of 12/5, or the charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
In a separate incident, footage has emerged showing the moment a motorist ignored instructions of marshals and moved traffic cones to drive across the route of today’s Vélo Birmingham& Midlands closed road sportive.
The driver, who then mounted the pavement, has been criticised for endangering some of the 17,000 cyclists taking part in the event, as well as spectators after mounting the pavement.
The incident happened at a roundabout at Ridgacre Road in the western Birmingham suburb of Quinton.
Birmingham Live, which has footage of the incident, reports a spokesman for Vélo Birmingham & Midlands as saying: “We are aware of an incident involving a motorist disobeying our steward’s instructions and driving onto the closed roads.
“We condemn any act that compromises the safety of our riders in the strongest possible terms and have passed the footage onto the Police who will conduct a thorough investigation.
"Thankfully, no riders or event staff were harmed as a result of the driver’s actions."
Hannah Mitchell, who filmed the incident on her phone, told Birmingham Live: "We were at the roundabout in Quinton which is about ten miles from the finish line and it is all blocked off on multiple exits.
"The Mini driver pulled up to the cones and then just sat there in his car for a while. He got out and moved all of the cones out of his way.
"People were shouting at him and there were even some people physically standing in front of the Mini trying to stop him driving forward.
"Someone even put down another cone right in front of his car again and instead of moving it he pulled straight out around it. Cyclists were coming down the road really fast - there were a lot of them around at this point.
"After he pulled out, the other side of the road he wanted to get to was blocked off too so he mounted the kerb where everyone was spectating and drove straight down on the footpath,” she continued.
"We just didn't know what to do, we couldn't really stop him because we were the other side of the road where the cyclists were coming down so you couldn't just run over.
"It was really scary, just really scary.
"My partner went and stood down the road slightly and kind of waved to the riders so that they knew something was going on – I think he caught their attention but the cyclists didn't stop – I don't think they could really see."
West Midlands Police have been sent video of the incident and are reported to be investigating.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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Ninja rock to the drivers window, lean in, swipe his keys, throw them in the canal, job done.
I'm trying to think what people can actually do to stop a car, there's mention of people replacing cones, stepping in front of car etc. but the marshalls are literally powerless. A water bottle filled with acid to attack the paintwork won't even do much, shoot to kill is the only option...
In similar twattish news, there's a pub near me where I had a lovely meal last week and parted with plenty of cash. The pubs car park is often quite busy and I wouldn't take liberties but we pulled into the road at 11am yesterday with bikes on roof and parked on the road in front of the pub. Landlord came out as I was taking the bikes off asking "can i help you" to which i replied i was fine only to be asked again. I assured him I could lift the bikes and attach wheels when he asked whether I was intending to park there. I was, he told me it was a car park. It wasn't it was a road. I told him it was a road. He said the pub got really busy and there was a lay-by a few hundred yards fuirther down the road, I said that was handy for his patrons and wished him a good day. He was a pompus pillock.
In all honesty, if he'd come out and said that the road gets really busy and would I mind parking in a lay by a short distance away, then i'd have happily done so. But telling me a road is a car park - nob off!
Had a similar one at home. Having works done on the house and a trailer of junk in the drive, along with piles of materials etc. Under normal circumstances I can happily park 4 cars in the drive and get all out without moving another one, but at this point is was space for one, and that was it. A "neighbour" who didn't want to give a name called my wife to tell her we had to move our car parked on the public road as they "own half the houses in that street and their tenants need their parking"... All bar 3 of the houses down there have drives, and most stand empty and they all park on the street. I got the number they called from, called them back and in no unclear terms that as we were parked legally on a public road, there was absolutely nothing they could do, and that it would be moving back to the drive as soon as it was clear in a day or two, but in the meantime, if their tenants had an issue they were welcome to talk to us directly and I could enquire why they never use their drives.
It was notable certainly outside of the city limits they'd often parked cars 90 degrees across the roads,so it wasnt just closed but blocked,obviously not possible at every road junction and not every marshall probably had driven.
I thought that marshals could have designated powers devolved (is that the right word?) by a chief of police. I’m sure there was an article about it awhile ago. The power to stop and direct traffic and get to wear a special tabard. Presumably ‘failing to stop’ for a designated marshal would be a specific offence.
interesting slants from the different Media outlets.
While this article makes no mention of the horse related incident while BBC reports on the fatal accident involving a participent and also details the horse incident but makes no mention of the Steward being injured.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-48247437
It just wouldn't fit into the "cars good, cyclists bad" narrative that the BBC seem to enjoy. There's a war on the roads going on don't you know?
Very sad to hear about one of the participants being killed during the race. As someone who took a dive during a similar event, I can attest that it easier to do than you might expect. Condolences to the friends and family of the deceased.
The horse thing is also tragic. Something must have gone badly wrong that a vet on an emergency call could not get through. If nothing else what if it had been an ambulance attempting to reach a patient at the same address?
i honestly wish the horse thing hasn’t happened but you can’t equate an actual emergency service vehicle to a private business vehicle. A vet going to an “emergency” call has to obey all the road rules as a private citizen. And plenty of emergency (and non emergency vehicles when it was safe) were allowed through.
Yep, this as well. Even when it's closed roads, the marshals will help out when they can.
Yesterday at the Crystal Palace triathlon there were young adult males riding skateboards on the cycle route during the TS2 race. There were barriers, signs and marshals everywhere, lots of people shouting warnings of the danger, receiving nothing but the finger in return.
Different situation, same twattery.
I saw from comments on social media,so maybe take with a pinch of salt on veracity, but they did try to help and escorted the vet through. But just shows even in a fairly straightforward news story there may be lots of things that happened we dont know about.
Drivers mounting pavements, people being deliberately driven at and injured, this sounds like the first wave of gammon related terrorism. hopefully the police will be treating it as such and put in place a shoot to kill policy.
Well at least that's the myth of benign pensioners exposed. Shit people are shit at any age. Hopefully he'll get some jail time but no doubt he'll now suffer 'ill health' and it may not be 'in the public interest' to take it further.
I can't wait for the topic about the vet blocked in by the Velo and the dead horse. Could they not use any other roads?
The route went right up that road. However a quick streetview shows some stables very close to a side road. If it was them then at worst case he could have ran from his car with his stuff assuming he was coming from the Vets at Bentley. It is a tragedy and I don't like to see any animal in distress but it does depend on the route he tried to get to it from. If he approaced from the wrong side then trying to get the car down their without proper assistance could well have caused several injuries. The organisers did have motor bikes assisting with escorting traffic through the courses at other places.
Unfortunately a cyclist did die on the route. The aftermath looked bad at the time when we filtered past. Helmet in pieces (although that might have been medics cutting it off) and lots of Claret. Police are appealing for witnesses and / or Go Pro footage. Tragic accident I suspect as the roads were fast dips and steep exits so people were trying to get the speed from the one into the other. A minor brush, bump in the road even a full coming together could have happened.
Apparently not, seeing as the vet wasn't able to reach the horse in time.