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"I've never seen anything like it": Cyclists hospitalised by loose gravel crash seek compensation from council

Three Tamworth Cycling Club riders were left badly injured, one in critical care, and with an estimated £10,000 worth of damage after the crash on a road the council admits was scheduled for repairs

Last Saturday a Tamworth Cycling Club group ride was brought down by a "shocking" loose gravel surface, resulting in three members being badly injured and thousands of pounds worth of damage.

The cyclists involved told the Derby Telegraph they intend to claim compensation for the bikes that were damaged in the crash, and that things could have been "far, far worse".

Three of the 11 riders were injured, one requiring critical care in Royal Derby Hospital after suffering a broken collarbone, seven broken ribs, torn shoulder muscles and a punctured lung.

All three suffered abrasions, the second of the trio suffering a broken collarbone and punctured lung in the crash, which happened when the group hit a section of road the council admits was due to be repaired.

"Unfortunately, what looked fine was actually a top dressing of grit. It was like going through sand. Can you imagine cycling on a beach? It's impossible," one of the group, Lee Bagnall, said.

"As soon as you hit it, your path was wherever the grit wanted to take you. You had no control at all. There was nothing you could do apart from just try and stay on and see if you came out the other side.

"One fell, and then another. The cyclist at the back then went over the next cyclist and his bike. He went ploughing into everything and everyone, flew through the air and landed on his shoulder, really hard.

"It was shocking. The crash was unavoidable. If there had been anything coming down the other way it could've been far, far worse. In tens of thousands of miles cycling, I've never seen anything like it."

A spokesperson for Derbyshire County Council, who the group intends to claim compensation from, apologised about the "accident" and admitted an inspector has since visited the site and "asked for it to be swept to remove any excess gravel".

We were very sorry to hear about this accident and hope that all involved are starting to recover. One of our inspectors visited the site this week after we were told about the accident and has asked for the road to be swept to remove any excess gravel. This road had been identified for patching repairs in the near future. This was programmed just before the accident took place.

 Last Saturday's incident unfolded between Repton and Milton and saw those at the front try to warn those further back in the 11-rider group about the danger of the surface — littered with potholes, uneven sections and loose gravel — but turned around to see their club mates lying injured in the road.

A doctor and nurse from a nearby school were passing and wrapped the worst-injured rider in a foil blanket while they waited an hour for paramedics to arrive.

The remaining eight riders continued home in a "sombre and miserable" mood and now say they will claim compensation from the council for the estimated £10,000 worth of equipment damage.

Dan joined road.cc in 2020, and spent most of his first year (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. At the start of 2022 he took on the role of news editor. Before joining road.cc, Dan wrote about various sports, including football and boxing for the Daily Express, and covered the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Part of the generation inspired by the 2012 Olympics, Dan has been 'enjoying' life on two wheels ever since and spends his weekends making bonk-induced trips to the petrol stations of the south of England.

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17 comments

Avatar
The _Kaner | 1 year ago
4 likes

Welcome to every back road in Ireland, that just gets a surface coating of loose chippings (bitumen emulsion and an over abundance of aggregate chippings).

Fills in multiple potholes, evens lumpy bog roads (Oh no, It doesn't)...

It's a nightmare for cars, never mind bikes. Most of the roads around me are like this during the summer. Impossible to cycle on safely.

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didsthewinegeek | 1 year ago
2 likes

If ever there was a case to use the insurance with cycling UK, this is one. As a cycle club, I presume they all had insurance.

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HoarseMann | 1 year ago
5 likes

Found it on streetview, just at the bottom of a hill and on a tight turn, nasty.

https://goo.gl/maps/aWvvLNTPtQSQNVKu8

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brooksby | 1 year ago
13 likes

Council thinks, "well, it won't affect a motor vehicle so let's leave it alone".

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hawkinspeter replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
6 likes

brooksby wrote:

Council thinks, "well, it won't affect a motor vehicle so let's leave it alone".

Let's hope the council ends up paying compensation and takes more care in future to avoid expensive payouts

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Awavey replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
4 likes

Had anyone reported the loose gravel surface ?

I suspect the council would only pay out if they couldnt be bothered to defend against it, because the cost of defending the case would exceed the payout, not because they accepted any fault whatsoever.

As for the road itself,come to East Suffolk plenty of worse looking roads with loose surfaces than that, all the gravel and flints get washed out of the fields onto the roads when it rains heavily.

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hawkinspeter replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
8 likes

Awavey wrote:

Had anyone reported the loose gravel surface ?

I'd expect that the loose gravel should be treated differently to a pothole which would need reporting to the council. A pothole is damage to a known good surface, so a council wouldn't have a reason to go and fix it until it had been reported (assuming that councils do ever fix potholes). Putting gravel onto a road is creating a hazard and is typically accompanied by signs, so putting in place a dangerous, slippery surface without sufficient warnings is clearly negligent.

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Awavey replied to hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
3 likes

Id accept different councils might run things differently, but certainly in Suffolk we can report any highways issue to the county council via an online system, be that potholes, road defects, signs missing/broken, overhanging trees/bushes and loose gravel and they arent treated differently, they might not get fixed any quicker but its then logged on their system to deal with, and in a case like this theyd have a much harder time claiming it was a new unknown problem they didnt know about.

certainly when its surface dressing time of the year, and theyve done the quick bodge version assuming the traffic will sweep the road clear for them, which on some rural roads could take months, Ive reported loose road chippings as a hazard as have many others and theyve then had to send a road sweeper out to clear the debris.

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hawkinspeter replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
10 likes

My point is that the council (or sub-contracter) would have put the gravel there, so it's not an unknown problem as they specifically created it.

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brooksby replied to hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
1 like

Maybe.  There's a run of gravel about five feet wide which goes from a farm gate to the road, on the cycle path alongside the A369 between Abbots Leigh and Pill.  It has a clear run through the middle about six inches wide where cyclists have worn a path clear.  Every few months it gets cleared off by council street cleaners, and then within a few days has reappeared.  My point: the gravel clearly gets carried off the field by farm vehicles. 

Was the gravel in the article maybe farm debris? (like mud or cowsh!t?)

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hawkinspeter replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
2 likes

From the description, it sounds like quite deep gravel, so unlikely to be farm debris.

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ktache replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
5 likes

I reported a mains water leak a while back and was pleased to see it had been marked out on Wednesday and a hole dug on Thursday. Finding out what water authority was more difficult than reporting it.

Also reported a fly tipped mattress that had been removed too. Fly tipping can be somewhat contagious.  Once there is something, it can become many things quite quickly.

Whenever I have reported a downed tree on the Basingstoke canal, the towpath will have been cleared that very day.

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SimoninSpalding replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
3 likes
Awavey wrote:

surface dressing time of the year

Ah yes gravel Fairy season. I must admit I keep an eye for which roads they are intending to ruin, and try to choose different routes until it sorts itself. Obviously that doesn't work for the commute...

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eburtthebike replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
5 likes

Awavey wrote:

Had anyone reported the loose gravel surface ?

As I recall, there are specific rules about surface dressing which mean that the loose stuff has to be swept up promptly so that it doesn't form deep drifts.  If they didn't do that, then they will almost certainly be liable.

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iandusud replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
1 like

eburtthebike wrote:

Awavey wrote:

Had anyone reported the loose gravel surface ?

As I recall, there are specific rules about surface dressing which mean that the loose stuff has to be swept up promptly so that it doesn't form deep drifts.  If they didn't do that, then they will almost certainly be liable.

I'd be interested to know the source of the gravel. If it is surface dressing there should have been warning signs in place, usually with a speed restriction. That's what they do in North Yorkshire and then think it's ok to leave it like that for as long as they like!

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HoarseMann replied to iandusud | 1 year ago
1 like

iandusud]</p>

<p>[quote=eburtthebike wrote:

Awavey wrote:

Had anyone reported the loose gravel surface ?

I'd be interested to know the source of the gravel.

I had a look on fixmystreet and there'd been no reports on that road. It could have been reported directly to the council though.

I don't think surface dressing is the issue here. The council have said work was due to be carried out, so not done yet. You can also see old pothole repair marks in the photos, which would have been covered up by the bitumen layer for surface dressing.

It's likely the gravel is just from the crumbling road surface. Possibly also debris washing down from the high mud bank to the side of the road. Looking a bit further up the road at some of the unsurfaced lay-bys, they seem to also have a lot of gravel in them. I doubt the council would have filled them with gravel, so it's possible the local soil has a high gravel content.

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HoarseMann replied to iandusud | 1 year ago
2 likes

Well according to this soil map: http://www.landis.org.uk/soilscapes/
the geology of the area turns to sand for a short section where the incident occurred. So a combination of sand washed down onto the road from the bank and gravel from the soil/crumbling road surface, would be the likely culprit.

The soil type is the same as that found at Woburn Sands. I can confirm that is extremely loose and slippery when it encroaches onto the road.

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