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Ambulance bonnet (http://flickr.com/photos/gwire gwire)Farmer fined for hiding ramp that injured cyclist
A farmer who covered a safety ramp with wood chippings has been fined after a cyclist was left with horrific injuries when he couldn’t spot it.
Martin Kearney, who runs Lundie Farm in Angus, laid an irrigation pipe and covered it with a bright blue ramp.
But when motorists complained that the gradient was too steep, the farmer covered it in wood chippings and stones, effectively camouflaging it.
Cyclist Scott Crowe failed to see the ramp as he approached and was thrown off his bike, suffering a punctured lung and shattered collarbone.
Kearney, 32, was fined £950 at Forfar Sheriff Court.
Depute fiscal Isma Mukhtar told the court: "He required surgery and intensive rehabilitation as a result.
"He was thrown from his bicycle and landed heavily on his left shoulder.
"He got to his feet eventually and called his wife who summoned an ambulance.”
According to the BBC: “Ms Mukhtar said that police contacted Angus Council's roads supervisor, who told them he had not been informed about the work being carried out.
“The supervisor told police that if he had come across the obstruction he would have had the road closed immediately so it could be removed.”
Defence solicitor David Cairns said: "He had instructed a contractor to lay this pipe on two previous occasions but had had complaints about the gradient of the ramp put over it causing damage to cars those times.
"On this occasion he took it upon himself to place hard road planings over the ramp.
"He did that to decrease the gradient on the ramp and received no further complaints from motorists, but it appears to have disguised the ramp from the cyclist.
"There was certainly no malicious intent."
Sheriff Pino di Emidio told Kearney: "This is an offence that perhaps doesn't often come before the court.
"This incident caused significant injury to the cyclist."
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14 comments
C'mon, mattsccm, admit it: you're a farmer, aren't you?
I'm struggling to picture what has happened. A ramp suggests a fairly sizeable object.
I'm presuming its those thick plastic duck boards, put over the pipe. I guess that if they were too steep then cars were maybe bottoming out on the top? So obviously you'd start laying stuff across them to make the rise more rounded off rather than buying longer plastic boards l?? After all: farmers really are the altruistic salt of the earth in all things, aren't they?
Sorry but I see both sides. If you can't deal with a hazard in the road then you are riding in an inappropriate manner and the farmer had done his best to satisfy the majority users who had asked for this.
The cyclist should have slowed to the point where they could have ridden over it. I will not aknowledge the dea that something static cannot be forseen. Ride slowly! Deer yes. Ramps, oh come on.
As for mud. Wellthe bloody farmer has a damn site more right to his business that those of us out wasting our toime enjoying ourselves. If its in the country you know the roads will be less than perfect. Unfamiliar ground? Drive accordingly.
Sadly , as people have mentioned this sort of fine is not passed down to drivers. The propsed mobile phone penalty is disgusting. Should be an automatic ban, no exceptions and 5 digit fine.
So he roads are paid for by taxation on all but it's OK for one group to turned a safe mettle surface into a mud track? Whu are construction frims obliged to minimise mud and clran the road, but farmers are not?
As for the rap issue it seems like court does not agree with you. Although I do agree to some point, the ramp may have been hidden but there wasa pile of something across the road why did he just plough through it at speed?
But it was basically camouflaged, allegedly. I'll be honest, that I never ride as if the invisible man is going to jump out in front of me at any time. Do you?
Not on the *public* highway, he doesn't.
Don't know about the incident itself, wasn't there, can't picture exactly what happened, but this bit of your comment makes little sense.
Farmers are _paid_ for their work, they aren't doing it as a favour to the rest of us. What other businesses should be allowed to damage or deface public property as long as they are making money for themselves while they do so?
And why the assumption that anyone cycling is doing it 'for fun'? Rather than, you know, as a means of transport?
How is it a waste of time enjoying yourself? And why does the farmer have more right to use the public road for work than anyone else for whatever they're doing? This makes no sense.
Why don't you see fines like that in situations where a driver intentionally, maliciously causes injury to a cyclist?
I love that farmer trick of pulling out of a field and leaving thick layers of mud for miles and occasionally maybe leaving a hand-written cardboard 'mud on road' sign somewhere near abouts. They should have to leave proper reflextive hazard signs if they are doing it near bends and the like.
They should also have to clean it up asap. It's (rightly) illegal to leave mud on the roads.
That would be ideal, it's not unusual for mud round here to contain flints, which the mud supports in an upright position, as effective as leaving tacks on the road.
Bit steep that!
Hey, but at least no more cars suffered any damage...