Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

news

Pothole that caused 75-year-old cyclist to crash not deemed a “critical safety defect” by council

“It makes me wonder how they judge ‘critical’. How are they able to say in advance that a child on a bike might not break his or her neck by cycling over this?”

A 75-year-old cyclist has criticised the City of Edinburgh Council for dismissing his concerns over a pothole that left him “shaken and bruised” following a crash earlier this week.

Stuart Robertson fell off his bike on Monday morning after hitting the pothole on Paisley Crescent, to the east of Holyrood Park. The pensioner says he suffered scrapes and bruises in the crash, and swiftly reported the subpar condition of the road to the council through an online form.

“If I was wearing shorts and t-shirt – which I could have been – it would have been a lot more serious,” Robertson told Edinburgh Live.

“I'm a 75-year-old pensioner, retired, and I cycle regularly. The accident left me bruised and shaken although, thank goodness nothing more serious. I usually cycle down Paisley Crescent relatively slowly due to the state of the roads.”

After reporting the incident online, the cyclist was told that the road surface issues on Paisley Crescent were not deemed to be a “critical safety defect”.

> Couple in hospital after they both crash in huge pothole 

After failing to receive a follow-up response, Robertson told Edinburgh Live that he feels as if his concerns have been dismissed, while the road’s proximity to a nearby primary school could result in another, more serious, fall.

“As you can imagine, I reported the accident to the council in the hope of saving other cyclists from a similar accident, so I was more than surprised to learn that the hole had been judged as ‘not being a critical safety defect’,” he said.

“It makes me wonder how they judge ‘critical’. How are they able to say in advance that a child on a bike might not break his or her neck by cycling over this?”

> Cyclist wins four-figure sum from council after pothole crash 

Scott Arthur, Edinburgh Council’s transport and environment convenor, says that the local authority will continue to monitor the state of Paisley Crescent.

“It is always great to see older people cycling in Edinburgh, so I was particularly concerned to hear about this incident,” Arthur said.

“Council staff undertook an inspection of the carriageway on Paisley Crescent within a day of Mr Robertson’s report. I understand the inspection, which is in line with the council’s risk-based approach to safety inspections, did not identify any actionable defects, though the council will continue to monitor its condition.

“In the coming months the council will review its approach to road maintenance, and this experience will very much be in my mind when this comes to the Transport Committee.”

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.

Add new comment

13 comments

Avatar
Safety | 1 year ago
0 likes

Just think how many potholes EH council could have filled in properly if they had used their budget wisely and got the Leith Walk cycle lanes right first time instead of three or four goes and still to crack it.

Avatar
Cycloid | 1 year ago
0 likes

Each Local Highways Authority (LHA) has considerable freedom when it comes to road maintenance. In my area the LHA outsources pothole management to a third party company. 

Every road in is inspected for defects on a regular schedule, Important roads get looked at twelve times a year, down to twice a year for minor roads and cycleways

Identified defects are given a rating on a five point scale depending on the IMPACT/SEVERITY that could result from an incident, this is then enterered into a matrix which takes into account the PROBABILITY of something happening. Thus a dangerous pothole on a main road could get a 12+ which warrants urgent action, but the same pothole on a country lane could get a rating of 1-4 which means "Put it on the do later list". This explains why the roads we use as cyclists are getting worse.

The Local Council Claims page seems quite  proud that they pay out on very few claims. - to paraphrase: "Potholes are a fact of life" - "We have robust procedures in place" - "You have to prove we were negligent" - "By not paying out we are saving taxpayers money"

What's not to like?

Avatar
CyclingInGawler | 1 year ago
1 like

A risk comes from a combination of a hazard (pothole) and potential consequences (as said below, anything from road-rash to death). If the council is relying on the fortunate outcome of this particular event to declare that the risk is negligible, then woe betide them if someone else has a similar fall but this time is run over (and doubly so if a child is involved). (I realise this is a simplification, but....) how much can it really cost to send someone down there to chuck a bucket of tar in to fill the hole? Compared to the potential law suit (not that I'm suggesting someone should take a ride down there and have a similar fall from hitting the pot hole, of course) I'd suspect it would be a few quid well spent.

As also said below, the risk assessment is probably based on potential claims for damage to motor vehicles, against which the minor issue of a potential KSI stat is small beer (at least, until that law suit hits their desk).

BTW, for comparison, a number of years ago my wife wrote off two car wheel rims when she hit a pothole at the edge of the road. The council denied liability as they didn't know about the pothole, but it was repaired the next day!

Avatar
SlowOldSteve | 1 year ago
7 likes

Most Highway Authorities work to a 50mm depth criteria for a carriageway defect to be  classed as safety critical and hence require say a more urgent repair. This could be a 2hr or 3day response depending on location and circumstances which would be risk assessed by the Highway Inspector in accordance with their written Highway Management Plan. As a any cyclist knows, such a defect could have you off and the consequences range from road rash to death. Unfortunately,  the criteria are based on insurance/Court  outcomes and avaible budgets. Given the poor state of our highway network, we know only too well how a small surface defect can rapidly turn into a large pothole. I spent 43 years in Highway Maintenance and sadly have only seen the situation deteriorate. My only advice is to keep a good lookout when riding and report defects, all local authorities have an online reporting system and refer to the defect as"hazardous for cyclists". This makes it very difficult for them to then deny that they were aware of the issue. 

 Happy and safe riding all!

Avatar
OnYerBike | 1 year ago
1 like

I've cycled along Paisley Crescent on occassion. I don't know which particular pothole this gentleman came a cropper on, but my recollection of the road is that it's not too bad. Certainly there are many, many roads in Edinburgh with more frequent and more substantial potholes than I can recall seeing on Paisley Crescent.

Avatar
chrisonabike replied to OnYerBike | 1 year ago
0 likes

Seconded. We've everything from the "third world cobbled together from different surfaces" effort of West Granton Road to apparently good topping which suddenly disappears dropping you into a pit next to a metal access cover now standing proud of your level. Throw in the tramlines (new and old) and the gravel craters or wash out lanes of winter or flood and it's a cyclo-cross paradise!

Avatar
steaders1 | 1 year ago
2 likes

Any pothole is a danger to a cyclist and a pothole only gets worse so the council should be repairing it, but maybe they see that as an admission that it is an issue?

Avatar
Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
1 like

A picture of the offending hole would be helpful.

Avatar
David9694 replied to Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
7 likes

Two men from Road.cc are looking into it.

Avatar
Bentrider replied to David9694 | 1 year ago
0 likes

https://youtu.be/k-oqgIZGhbU

The old ones are the best, eh?

Avatar
steaders1 replied to Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
6 likes

 

A picture of the offending hole would be helpful

Avatar
rct | 1 year ago
6 likes

No risk to safety of motorised four wheeled vehicles!

Avatar
brooksby replied to rct | 1 year ago
3 likes

That right there is the criterion used. "Will this road defect damage a car?" If yes, then it's critical. If not, meh...

Latest Comments