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news
Essex Potholes 4Cyclist, 83, dies after hitting pothole council knew about
An 83 year old man has died of head injuries a month after hitting a pothole as he cycled in Ramsbottom.
Roger Hamer, who cycled regularly, fell off his bike when he got his wheels caught in a pothole that had already been reported to the council.
He was not wearing a helmet, and was taken to Salford Royal Hospital for specialist head trauma on March 5th, where he died almost a month later on April 5th.
His two children said in a statement: "Our dad was devoted to his family and thoroughly enjoyed life.
"He was an amazing dad and also a brilliant granddad, who always went out of his way to help his grandchildren achieve their ambitions and goals.
"Dad lived in Ramsbottom from being a young child and was very well known to the local community.
"He had a heart of gold and would help anyone. He was known for being hard working throughout his life.
"Even at the age of 83, he was still very fit and active and enjoyed walking, climbing and being in his garden, but his ultimate passion was to cycle.
"We are devastated by what has happened and we all miss him dearly.”
Ramsbottom councillor Ian Bevan told the Bury Times: “It is with great sadness that we have heard that one of our constituents tragically died from his injuries. Roger was passionate about local issues.
“My sympathies, and those of my colleague, councillor Rob Hodkinson, go out to Roger’s family and friends.”
He added: “As Ramsbottom’s elected representatives, we have called for an immediate and full investigation into when the last routine highways inspection was prior to the accident, when the pothole was reported, when the pothole was inspected post-repair and the anticipated date for repair so that lessons can be learned.”
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14 comments
Needless loss and thoughts to family.
How come in Austria their roads manage to be nice when they have harsher conditions than the UK? Is it because we keep digging them up allowing water/ice ingress or do we use inferior materials?
As for the council if they knew about it and did nothing isn't a corporate manslaughter charge appropriate? Will it take something of that level to force authorities to adopt principles to protect vulnerable road users?
We know lobbying falls consistently on deaf ears. It's the way of the world that things only change or get improved if someone or something gets sued or if there is risk of expensive litigation for failing to act.
Guarantee that if families were able to sue the authorities over dangerous drivers who killed and maimed that we'd suddenly see a radical change in who was allowed to drive about as opposed to the legalised killing we see daily across the country.
In a perfect world potholes would not be allowed, as a roving pothole repair team would fill them in as soon as they appeared. Yes, I agree the council should have sorted this. But I am a firm believer that helmets protect the head, and I never cycle without one. I don't live in a perfect world, and accidents happen. If one happens to me, I owe it to myself and my family to do all I can to lessen the damage to my body. Ask the medical team who cared for this gentleman whether they feel a helmet is worth wearing.
Hypoxic "Yes, the roads may be poor but riding without a helmet?... What's that bullshit??"
What you call bullshit other people call looking at the facts. cyclehelmets.org
The rest of your post is of equal validity i.e. none.
Encouraging that the council didn't immediately blame his death on not wearing a helmet.
Yes, the roads may be poor but riding without a helmet?... What's that bullshit??
I can't beleive you guys in the UK still consider this issue "debatable".
Without knowing the exact details, of course... it seems to me (from the "single elderly person" involvement) this is just the situation when a helmet is of vital importance...
Low velocity (ie: not descending at 80kph), low energy... perfect for a bit of energy absorption by a helmet.
Yes, the councils are slow, bureaucratic, inefficient and generally just employment agencies for those unable or unwilling to get a real job (can you tell I dislike bureaucracy?)... seems to me even more reason to protect yourself, rather than expecting some bored out of their brains desk jockeys to do it for you.
This.
I suppose the first question is what country do you hail from, Hypoxic?
The second is, why do you think that it's appropriate to try and turn an article about an old man dying after coming off on a badly maintained road, into the usual helmet/no helmet row?
Because like all helmet obsessives, the first thing they think about in any collision involving a cyclist, is; were they wearing a helmet? Not what caused the collision, not how it could be avoided, not what action can be taken to avoid repetition.
To be fair, if it wasn't helmets, people with an obsessive personality would be obsessed with something else, but it really gets me that they ignore the evidence and keep telling me to wear one.
So I suppose you expect elderly people to wear helmets when walking about too, and blame them for head unjuries in falls if not? It would be about as evidence-based and proportionate.
If I remember rightly, you're from cycling's promised land, Oz, and got your arse handed to you in another helmet thread.
I'm sure you're about to end the debate once and for all, with, you know, evidence and that, not just via claims of being a doctor.
No, we've reached the stage where the roads are so monumentally fucked by heavy traffic and budgets so minimal that its impossible for the councils to meet their obligations.
Not giving the councils an excuse but its just reality. Major road near me (B road with tipper truck traffic) has potholes three foot long and several inches deep, and the road edges are collapsing. Will require closure to remediate so won't happen soon.
Potholes are mostly caused by water and ice damage not heavy vehicles.
Although the latter may exacerbate a damaged road they are not the primary cause.
There's a road near where I work which has a coach depot on one side of it. No other businesses, houses etc so it's only used as a cut through and by the coaches.
It is absolutely wrecked. Huge potholes where the coaches are turning and down the middle of the road where their wider wheels sit. Given that the other similar roads nearby which obviously get the same rainfall and traffic (but without the coaches) are basically OK, I'd go with heavy goods vehicles being a major cause of road damage.
As mentioned above though, the council are onto a loser no matter what. They can't afford to repair the roads, the only hope is that their wording and maintenance schedules get them out of any compensation payouts or that the insurance coughs up if they have to pay. Classic case of money going to cover the outcome rather then preventing the occurence.
Poor guy, condolences to his family.
Yb is correct. The major course of damage is caused by water. It gets into the road surface, freezes (at which point it expands) and with water being really quite dense it breaks up the road surface which then allows more water to get in which expands and all over again.
Once the surface has started to degrade then the effect of heavy vehicles comes into play. But consider a motorway, lane 1 isn't massively worse than lane 3 (hgvs/lgvs/coaches etc are prohibited from lane 3).
Also, one only needs to observe that when a motorway is re-surfaced (unless because of a diesel spill or other localised defect) they re-surface everything even the areas under hatchings which shouldn't see any traffic because the weather is the dominat factor.
Damage to a road surface by vehicles is proportional to the axel weight ^ 4, so heavy vehicles do cause very much more damage than lighter vehicles, but this should be taken into consideration and met by the design of the road, i.e. it should be designed to meet the % of heavy vehicles that would use it
Have we really reached a stage where councils will only rush to fix potholes where they (the pothole) have been implicated in someone's death?