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news
oxon travel cycle lane picture - via twitter.PNGCars damaged and abandoned after drivers smash through newly installed protected cycle lane
Middlesbrough Council has been forced to erect signs and barriers warning motorists about the installation of a new cycle lane in the town, after car bumpers – and even entire vehicles – were left strewn across the road by drivers ploughing straight on through the protected infrastructure.
The recently built bike lane was installed as part of plans for Six Centre Square, a new office block on Middlesbrough’s Grange Road.
According to the planning application, employees of insurance firm AXA UK will only be able to access the building by car from the adjacent Melrose Street. While previously Grange Road ran through the middle of a bike path, a section of the road has now been closed to motorists to allow for the installation of two planters protecting either side of the cycle lane.
The plans state that the changes will improve the situation for both pedestrians and cyclists in the area, allowing for the creation of a segregated connection between the cycleways on both sides of the road.
However, the new road layout and planters clearly weren’t enough to stop some seemingly unsuspecting motorists from driving straight over the cycle lane, damaging their cars in the process.
> Cyclist says motorists should be prevented from parking in bike lane “before someone gets killed”
Teeside Live reports that car parts, including a bumper, have been left chaotically strewn across the road in recent weeks, while another car was abandoned entirely after its driver smashed over the new planters, ridding the vehicle of much of its front.
The hastily discarded car then suffered the indignity of having its wheels removed and windows smashed in. It has since been taken away.
In response to the recent spate of car-planter collisions, Middlesbrough Council has now set up plastic barriers and road closure signs around the cycle lane, with the aim of preventing drivers from mistakenly using the entire length of the road.
“The Grange Road scheme has been installed in line with the design set out in the planning application,” a council spokesperson said.
“However, to assist during the early implementation stage, temporary signage and barriers have been put in place to help make motorists aware of the changes.”
> Extension to Middlesbrough protected cycle lane set to be scrapped due to safety concerns
The Grange Road cycle lane isn’t the first piece of protected cycling infrastructure in Middlesbrough to prove a hazard for other road users in recent months.
In January, the planned second phase of a protected cycle route in the town was scrapped due to safety concerns following several incidents in which pedestrians were injured after tripping on the Orca dividers that, together with wands, provide protection for the lane on Linthorpe Road.
Pedestrians who have sustained injuries after tripping on the dividers as they attempted to across the road include a 78-year-old woman who broke her wrist and was left with two black eyes after a fall last September, and Samantha Skene, aged 27, who fractured her elbow on a night out despite being, as she put it, “the most sober of the group”.
Besides pedestrians, a cyclist also sustained injuries when he was thrown over the handlebars of his bike after he clipped a divider.
> Pensioner left with broken wrist and black eye after tripping over cycle lane separator
In response to these safety concerns, the council, which insists the cycle lane was built in accordance with national guidelines, has begun replacing the Orcas with wands to minimise the chances of people tripping over as they cross the road.
But last month the borough’s mayor Andy Preston indicated that he has now withdrawn his support for the planned extension of the cycleway, which he voted for in April last year.
“I halted plans for a further extension of the cycle lane,” he said. “It’s officially been paused but there is no timescale to reintroduce it.
“Personally, and I think most people would agree, I’m struggling to see why we would extend it further – so it’s very unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- brooksby 1 hour 24 min ago
They haven't been seen for ages- did they get banned?
- eburtthebike 1 hour 30 min ago
They prefer their alternative facts to real ones. They believe something, therefore it must be true.
- Spangly Shiny 2 hours 41 min ago
Sorry, no idea what you are on about.
- ktache 2 hours 44 min ago
For double that you can' get a Pedro's vise whip Ii. Or half, the reportedly excellent decathlon thingy. And Sigma has the Silca for only £150.
- KDee 2 hours 50 min ago
I'm no detective, but the "NOAHFAST" decal vertically stickered on the headtube is a little bit of a clue.
- Spangly Shiny 3 hours 10 min ago
I remember my driving test examiner, straight after congratulating me for having passed the test said, "Don't be a twat and have that as your best...
- Bigfoz 5 hours 18 min ago
Did they think it was a drive thru?
- Rendel Harris 5 hours 28 min ago
As a teacher's husband, I'm allowed to watch up to 50km out (unless it's a big mountain stage when I can only watch up to the start of the first HC...
- PoorInRichfield 8 hours 3 min ago
I thought wide rims and tires were marketing hype until I bought a bike in 2019 that had both... 700x32C tires on a 25mm internal width rim. Now I...
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25 comments
Vigilante action?
Wonder how long it was stationary before the wheels had gone and it was on bricks? I notice they took the headlights as well - people must be commended for their keenness to recycle without prompting up in Middlesbrough.
I'd guess that the others were simply unfit to stand / walk?
And these are the people who have sat a test to prove that they are safe to be in control of a motor vehicle. God help us.
I wonder how many have drivern around it over the pavement. This is just evidence of the couple idiots that didn't even see it.
Needs more bollards. Bollards are always the answer.
Can we just weld them to the motor vehicles though so they're not in my way when trying to access the cycle facilities?
Aren't they just called bull bars??
Teesside
At least it didn't say "Middlesborough".
Satnavs continue to show roads open long after changes have been made. Maybe there is a " follow the blue line" mentality.
Already covered this in "The Real Highway Code"
https://road.cc/content/forum/real-highway-code-299003
so it must be true.
But last month the borough’s mayor Andy Preston indicated that he has now withdrawn his support for the planned extension of the cycleway, which he voted for in April last year.
“I halted plans for a further extension of the cycle lane,” he said. “It’s officially been paused but there is no timescale to reintroduce it.
It must be so wonderful to live in a place which is so forward-looking and progressive, not irredemably rooted in the 20th century.
We need some marketing genius to come up with something that sells cycling as the latest, coolest, most modern, desirable means of transport. Obviously being green, cheap, healthy and non-polluting isn't enough.
Just checking - it's the motorists who are trained and licenced and insured, isn't it?
So, they can presumably read?
Yes, but they may need to move their mouth whilst doing so
Yes, of course they can read. How else do you think they manage to read their phone in their lap whilst 'in control' of a moving vehicle?
They're supposed to be licensed and insured, but often aren't.
When taking my (then just-introduced) theory test, the assembled candidates were asked if they had any questions. One guy raised his hand and said "what do you do if you can't read?"
I don't know what the outcome for him was, but he definitely wasn't just told to leave because basic literacy is a prerequisite for navigating a tonne of metal around an environment full of written instructions.
A tonne of metal? Is everyone driving lightweight sportscars from the 80s? The average new car in 2020 was 1.9 tonnes.
If the theory test was "just introduced" then this story didn't happen in 2020.
And there are plenty of small cars that did - and still do - weigh around one tonne. The best selling car in the UK in 1996, when the theory test was introduced, was the Ford Fiesta Mk4 which weighed 924–1,058 kg (depending on spec). The current Mk7 remains one of the best selling cars and weighs 1,113–1,207 kg.
As others have noted, this was not in 2020 but in 1996. Fiestas were, round my way at least, very much the sort of car one might get on first passing one's test. Getting one from the 1980s was by no means uncommon.
But remember, most people drive huge SUVs now, 2-3 tonnes. Whilst I hold that thought, it mainly seems to be small blonde females behind the wheel of Range Rovers, BMW X5s, Audi Q7s. Has anyone else noticed?
Having took the wrong exit off a roundabout while taking my HGV1 back in the early 90s, I was told by the Examiner that it was not a test in my comprehension or understanding of verbal English commands.
I still passed my Class 1 with no faults.
An interesting loophole, if you have good local knowledge of the roads. Examiner is trying to send me down this area which I know to be difficult, lots of people pick up minor faults down there. I'll just take this other simpler road instead.
Was he definitely asking because he couldn't read or was he just interested in the (apologies) theory of the test? In any case, it's surely possible to drive without being able to read. People do it all the time when abroad, even in places where they can't recognize the alphabet. The only thing that's really likely to cause a problem is finding the right town...