The family of a triathlete who was killed when she was thrown into the path of a car after hitting a pothole have been awarded damages of almost £400,000.
Kate Vanloo, aged 52 and from Napton, Warwickshire, was fatally injured in the collision involving a Toyota Yaris car as she retuned home from a training ride with Rugby Triathlon Club in January 2016.
The Mail on Sunday reports that a High Court judge has now authorised that damages totalling £388,000 be awarded to her three sons – two of them aged under 18, hence the need for court approval – following a settlement agreed with Warwickshire County Council.
A coroner’s inquest in September 2017 heard that the four-inch deep pothole that she hit was concealed by a puddle that extended across the width of the road and that due to oncoming traffic, Ms Vanloo had been unable to avoid riding through it.
The pothole, however, but had been identified by contractors Balfour Beatty in 2015 as a category 2 defect that needed mending, meaning it should have been repaired within 28 days.
But it was three months before the council, the responsible highways authority, gave the go-ahead for the repair, following a backlog earlier in the year of defects needing remedying.
A worker from sub-contractors CR MacDonald who went to fix it in November 2015 could not find the pothole at the location given and instead carried out repairs to another defect three miles away, amending the paperwork accordingly, but neither the council nor Balfour Beatty were notified of that.
Subsequently, the council insisted it had “significantly improved” its process for identifying and making good road defects, and that the system now gives priority to those that are close to the 28-day limit.
> Worker repaired pothole three miles away instead of one that then caused triathlete’s death
Earlier this year, Cycling UK launched the inaugural Pothole Watch Week, and highlighted that pothole claims from cyclists cost local authorities 25 times more than those from motorists, because they were more likely to result in death or serious injury.
> Cycling UK launches Pothole Watch week
The charity’s CEO, Paul Tuohy, said: “Cyclists are running the gauntlet when riding on British roads following a decade of underinvestment leading to the poor state they’re currently in.
“Potholes aren’t just an expensive nuisance, they are ruining lives.
“The government is going to spend £25 billion on maintaining and building new motorways, while effectively each year it finds some loose change for the problem of potholes on local roads,” he continued.
“Cycling UK wants government to adopt a ‘fix it first’ policy. Let’s repair the local roads first – the ones we all use in our cars and on our bikes everyday – before building new motorways.”
He also urged road users to report defects requiring attention through Cycling UK’s Fix That Hole app and website, which automatically notifies local authorities of issues needing attention.
Glad I never lent him my bike.
Comment to win you say, hmm I wonder what to write?
Seems the only reason to be bothered by this is if you're branding-conscious and don't want to be seen on Tiagra, which is by all accounts...
50kmh is 25% faster than 40kmh, obviously a ludcrous and typo-caused improvement.
It feels to me like the door is being left open for some new entrant in the bike component market. A manufacturer of 10 speed mechanical shifting...
I once knew some weight lifters and they said this was pretty common. Like you I left mine when I could have fixed it earlier. Finally did...
Know what you mean. Out round the paths this evening, people moved thickly, cats didn't trot aside and even the birds seemed lazy.
Don't hold your breath waiting for the police to take any interest or action in that part of the world. They don't give two sh*ts about cyclists. ...
I've already made his acquaintance!
Not really a cycle lane though, looks more like the area of the road you shouldn't cycle in, to be safe please cycle further out than this green patch