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news
Police tape (CC licensed by freefotouk on Flickr)Four cyclists in hospital after driver hits group ride from behind
Four cyclists in Somerset needed hospital treatment last week after a driver hit them from behind while they were out on a ride near Yeovil.
The quartet were part of a group of five from Yeovil Cycle Club who were returning to the town after riding to the Chapel Cross Tea Rooms at around 1pm last Thursday, reports Somerset Live.
One of the cyclists involved, Martin Wills, said: “The first I knew, was a heavy blow to my right buttock. This sent me off balance and I fell heavily with my bike landing on top of me.
“Propping myself up, I found I was looking north along the road we had come down.
“One of the riders was lying in the road a few feet away with her wrecked bike next to her. Another rider, who had miraculously escaped injury was putting my wife, who was unconscious, further up the road, into the recovery position.
“A few metres beyond them, another one of the riders was lying in the road.”
He said that three people from cars that had stopped at the scene near the village of Mudford were trained in first aid and helped treat the other victims, all of whom were female.
“As I was speaking to my wife she regained consciousness but had no recollection of what had happened or where she was,” Mr Wills said.
“Two people were attending to another of the riders so I had a look at one of the other riders, who was in shock and shivering violently.
“Her bike lay behind her completely wrecked. A lady from a following car covered her with a coat and stayed monitoring her.”
Emergency services arrived after a quarter of an hour, with the four injured cyclists taken to Yeovil Hospital.
Three returned home the same day after being treated for minor injuries while the fourth was taken to Dorchester Hospital to undergo surgery.
Mr Wills said that he sustained cuts and bruises, while his wife suffered “a broken finger, cracked ribs, a bump on the back of her head and various bruises.”
He added: “As I was at the front of the group and we were hit from behind I did not witness what actually happened to my companions during the crash.”
A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Constabulary said following the incident: “We were called to reports of a collision involving five cyclists and a car at just after 1pm.
“The driver is being treated as a witness. Our enquiries are continuing.”
In a similar incident last week, four cyclists in West Yorkshire were hit by a driver who turned across them, with two of the riders seriously injured.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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31 comments
It's going to great use in the world of cycling then...
Agree Kiloran, there are times on the bike where I'm struggling to see 20 feet in front but you know what I adjust my speed, take extra care pulling out at junctions. The trouble is that the majority of drivers with a 20 minute commute will leave themselves less than 20 minutes to do it in regardless of conditions. They don't adjust for heavy rain and a slippery surface so they won't adjust simply due to impaired vision. They've got a huge safety rating, airbag and insurance to sort that out.
Having had the killer of a colleague be acquitted on the low winter sun defence I'm cautious riding in those conditions - you need a very high intensity rear light to make any difference to getting the attention of a driver (NB - if you're looking and driving to the conditions you'd always spot the cyclist, but this is the real world and drivers are perfectly happy to drive at speed into spaces they can't see).
Two extremely close passes this morning despite running a 600 lumen photon vomiter at the rear, compounded by a ped stepping onto a cycle path (not shared use) without looking - he was so surprised he dropped his coffee...
Conditions were particularly challenging - sun in just the right place, lots of surface reflection from that lovely mixture of moisture and salt
What this article does not say that is reported in our local press is that the driver was only caught after a police chase.
"The incident, which took place at around 1pm, resulted in a police chase and arrest, a source has said."
http://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/reports-five-cyclists-hit-driver-822436
That makes what was already a serious incident even worse.
I hope that this driver was legal and had insurance, but the fact that they were driving so badly and left the scene suggests otherwise. And I'm sure that the police will be extremely diligent in checking the legality of every last detail of this driver and their car.
I also hope that the cyclists have the free services of a legal team as a result of belonging to a club e.g. CUK, as this is going to end up in a very expensive legal bill for someone, with significant damages.
“The driver is being treated as a witness."
I can't help thinking that the value of a witness who can't see what is right in front of them might not be all that wonderful. Unless the point is finding out that he can't of course.
This is one of the main reasons I am very nervous as a new rider about going out in the Winter Sun. If I can’t see where the hell I am going then it is easy to see how a car can get caught in the same position and accidents like this happen no matter how careful the driver is. Unless it’s cloudy I now opt for a Zwift session until the sun starts to sit higher in the sky, which is shame but I think old age makes you more aware of your mortality. I want to ride to enjoy myself, not to scare the hell out of myself or get killed.
I get the gist, and understand your nerves... there are times in awful weather that I have to remind myself just how unlikely it is that I'll be rear-ended, and I've been commuting for years.
BUT - a careful driver, who can't actually see, pulls over and rectifies whatever the problem is, or slows to enable them to react in time. If you chance it and take out a cyclist because the sun was in your eyes, you're really not a careful driver.
I think the issue is presumed liabilty and more to the point if we had it and drivers were actually being blamed for these incidents the insurers would have to stump up cash.
The insurers lobby the goverment hard btw.
This has 'staring at smartphone' written all over it.
Shame none of the riders, especially the one at the back, had a rear-facing camera. Not that the police would care about it, anyway.
This is the one thing that worries me about riding on the roads - not being able to see someone coming from behind and therefore no chance of taking any avoiding action.
I've tried putting mirrors on the bike, but they weren't much use - they tend to have a very limited field of view and you have to move your head a lot to see them, thus taking your attention away from what's in front for too long.
Hope they recover but the psychological repurcussions of being hit from behind are very hard to get over let alone the farce of a system they're about to be put through.
The ONLY way the police will take (be forced to act) in such scenarios is to claim you heard the driver shout an islamic phrase as they hit you. Yes I may be panned for this but that way it has to be classed as a terror incident and cannot be brushed under the carpet.
If that's what it's going to take for the judiciary to offer us any form of justice then I'm afraid that's what I'm going to claim I heard before I was hit. Without such additional merit you'll just be another unimportant statistic to be ignored as quickly as possible so that the driver can be returned to the roads with the minimum of inconvenience.
Nice idea, but the fact you're lying from the outset brings anything else you might say into doubt and a decent defence will be all over you, meaning the driver will be returned to the roads even quicker. It might even result in you being the subject of charges of perverting the course of justice and/or sued for libel by the driver (or whatever - I'm no legal expert).
Quite right. the sensible approach is to wear a tutu and therefore any collision is a transgender hate crime, which ranks above Islamic terrorism in police and CPS rankings.
Low winter sun m'lud
"Treated as a witness"? So if I go on the rampage with a gun/van/bomb in, say, London, I'll be treated as a witness?? This is news to me, I assumed I'd be shot/arrested/banged up for years. So WHY is an idiot driver not arrested, and jailed till he posts bail, and appears in court? The law is a very sad joke for pedestrians and cyclists in this weird country
How difficult is it to actually miss a group of cyclists?
Very judging by the number of reports where drivers do not manage it.
Come on...how can we expect drivers to do everything here...they are on their phones, drinking coffee, eating breakfast/lunch...they can't possibly pay attention as well...as cyclist we should be getting right out their way
Don't forget shaving or putting on make-up.
It always amazes me that in a ten, twenty, or thirty minute commute, a driver can't take five or ten seconds to give way to someone more vulnerable.
Quite easy :-o
About 4 years ago I was in a pack of 5 or 6 when a driver came into the side of us. It was pitch dark (no street lighting) but folk had magicshine lights etc. The blokes on the front managed to slam on their brakes and swerve and us following riders were taken out by that but it could have been a lot worse. The bloke at the front corner was really apologetic at having slammed on his brakes so hard but as I told him its better that than dead and the only person who needed to apologise was the driver, who of course had sped off into the darkness :-o :-o
Very, if any of the local club runs I've seen at night are anything to go by. One was like watching a scene from Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind.
That is horrific. Wishing everyone involved a speedy recovery.
What is so complicated about braking and steering round a person, or group of people on bikes?
I cannot imagine, barring some medical or mechanical problem, how this cannot end in a careless or dangerous driving charge.
Sadly I can.
Our police forces can't find anything careless or dangerous about driving two tonne metal objects into human beings at speed.
The courts think that where the police have managed to prove careless or dangerous driving, it is a benign enough offence to warrant little to no punishment.
That our representatives in government prioritise so lowly the safety of human beings who happen to be astride a bicycle should tell us all we need to know.
The £60 victim surcharge if the driver is found guilty of careless driving will come in handy though...
The money from the victim surcharge is not given to the victim of an incident, it is used to fund services which help victims in general.
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/about-sentencing/types-of-sentence/...
I fear another driver awareness course.
Wish the riders a prompt recovery.
"Ok people, if you could just pay a bit more attention and avoid smashing into cyclists in the future, that would be super, Okkkk? Lovely!"
Not being treated as the suspect in a crime them?
More likely to co-operate if police (publicly at least) call them a witness. Name them as suspect and they will most likely clam up and lawyer up.
Speedy recovery to all. Sounds horrific.
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