Mother who repeatedly fell cycling her children to nursery was told cycle path didn’t need to be cleared

mr_pickles2 wrote:

There's one single bit of cycle infra in my town – a shared use path on the 40mph single-carriagway main road out. It's the only way out without going up a massive hill, but the path is always narrowed by overgown foliage (the location varies seasonally) in several places and fallen branches after winds. In some places it's only 50cm wide, and there's a lovely permenant puddle in which all the leaves fall and form a nice little bog that's perfect for your road bike tyres. 

I've reported it to the council multiple times (to the point where anymore would probably get me blacklisted from the mailbox), but very little is done. How hard is it to make sure the one, measly safe route out of town is passable? 

Have you taken it to your local councillor, the councillor responsible for transport, the chief executive and the local media?  Get the local cyclists' rights group to support you.

Rendel Harris wrote:

Perhaps they could draft in some "experts" from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea - a regular feature of the commute these past few weeks.

Best eastenders accent "Leaf it aaaht"

"Threatening legal action" is rarely a motivator for local authorities.  They employ large numbers of lawyers to deal with the hundreds of threats and law suits they receive every single day - folks seek to sue "the Council" for everything:  dodgy kebabs, broken paving slabs, poor education, sub-standard care home chairs etc. etc.

Threats & law suits are business as usual, in addition, compensation payments are typically trivial compared to their budgets.  Those delivering a public facing service will be delighted to have a complaint moved from their desk to a lawyers in-tray.

I think you are more likely to achieve success through persistence, contacting Councillors, appealing to reason, gaining an understanding of their processes and, perhaps most significantly, contact with the appropriate service managers.

By all means sue, if compensation is the outcome you seek and deserve, but threats to sue are usually ineffective at motivating change.

Doctor Darabuka wrote:

"Threatening legal action" is rarely a motivator for local authorities.  They employ large numbers of lawyers to deal with the hundreds of threats and law suits they receive every single day - folks seek to sue "the Council" for everything:  dodgy kebabs, broken paving slabs, poor education, sub-standard care home chairs etc. etc.

Threats & law suits are business as usual, in addition, compensation payments are typically trivial compared to their budgets.  Those delivering a public facing service will be delighted to have a complaint moved from their desk to a lawyers in-tray.

I think you are more likely to achieve success through persistence, contacting Councillors, appealing to reason, gaining an understanding of their processes and, perhaps most significantly, contact with the appropriate service managers.

By all means sue, if compensation is the outcome you seek and deserve, but threats to sue are usually ineffective at motivating change.

Fair pont well made....

FrankH wrote:

Quote:

“Last week I fell off my bike quite badly on two separate days because there were leaves all over the path and it was really slippy.

“Luckily myself and my children were not hurt, but it has made me go a lot slower on the path.”

Why didn't she slow down the first time she fell off? That's what a sensible person would do, isn't it?

Her statement doesn't preclude that she did. She was going MUCH slower after the second fall

You're not looking that closely -  under the no entry sign is a blue circular sign indicating that the road is open to cyclists and pedestrians.

I see the other sign.  What that says is that the space beyond the sign is a route for use by pedal cycles and pedestrians only.  The top sign says no entry for any vehicle (which includes bicycles).  If they had meant to say no entry for motor vehicles then there is a different sign for that - the car with the flying motorbike in a red circle.  

In fact if they had meant to say no entry for motor vehicles they could have saved themselves twenty quid, as the blue sign also says that.

biker phil wrote:

There's a shared path on my way to work which goes underneath a railway line. It's a small tunnel which dips, and has an acorn drain at both sides of the bridge. After heavy rain and flooding back in March, I reported it to Lancashire County Council as the drains had become blocked with mud and silt and the tunnel was flooded. Nothing was done.

Every time it has rained heavily, the tunnel has flooded and taken days to drain away.

Fast forward to now, and, due to recent heavy rain the path has been under about 5 inches of water for the past month or so. The whole of the tunnel was under water, some pedestrians started to put logs and bricks in the water so they could walk through, this meant that cycling through was dangerous as the bricks were underneath the water surface. I must say that there are signs stating that cyclists must dismount, but, faced with getting very wet feet, cycling through was the only solution. Recently some fuckwit ripped a 7ft council wooden post down complete with a metal public footpath sign on it, to use as a bridge of sorts. This meant that the metal sign stuck out of the water like a shark fin.

It was treacherous so I called LCC again on Weds afternoon and told them that it was dangerous and if someone fell on the metal sign there would be a hell of a claim.

Two days later and it has been cleared, the drains unblocked and jetted clean and the public footpath post has gone.

So, in summary, when it was just blocked nobody seemed to give a fuck, but 8 months later when there's a chance someone could claim against the council, it is cleared ASAP.

But thanks to the council for a very good job, finally.

Well done!

I had something similar a few years ago, when the local council was doing some road works near the Severn Bridge, so they decided that the cycle path tunnel was a good place to dump the gravel, covering most of the path.  They weren't interested in clearing it until I explained that an Audax was going through there in a couple of days and if any of the 200 cyclists fell off on their gravel, I would make very sure that they were sued.

Councils have duty to make the highways safe for all, but apparently that doesn't cover cyclists unless you threaten them with legal action.

Couple of things. First of all it's 'too busy' not 'to busy'. Second, council employees pay for their own pensions from their own salaries and not from 'our money'. 

Council workers include teachers, refuse collectors, housing caretakers, social workers, care workers, youth workers etc. None of them really earn that much. (if you cared to take your head out of the Daily Mail and went and checked)

As we are going for accuracy ... the vast majority of schools in England are now academies who receive their funding directly from the DfE, not the local council. Your other point about pensions is well made though. Yes, as a teacher, I have a good average salary pension to look forward to, but it costs me more than 10% of my salary every month. 

Jetmans Dad wrote:

As we are going for accuracy ... the vast majority of schools in England are now academies who receive their funding directly from the DfE, not the local council. Your other point about pensions is well made though. Yes, as a teacher, I have a good average salary pension to look forward to, but it costs me more than 10% of my salary every month. 

Well, if we're going for accuracy, the majority of secondary schools in England are Academies. That's not true for primary schools.

The original point still stands though. The employer pays a significant sum each month in addition to the employee contribution - typically between 2 and 3 times the employee's payment.

As a quick approximate mental exercise. Work out what your expected yearly pension, at todays prices will be. Multiply by 40 and that is ever so roughly what your pension fund would need to be to sustain said pension and provide for an inflation matching increase each year of retirement.

Does your 10% of salary contribution create such a large fund?

Guess where the rest of it is coming from.

Gold plated council employee, teacher and other public servant pensions are well deserved and part of the agreed remuneration package to which you signed up. But don't delude yourself that you are paying for it.

If it was a road that was so slippery it was dangerous, it would be cleared.

Advanced nations lknow treat clearing footpaths and cycleways of ice is more beneficial than roads, as injuries create a greater impact on society.

But here even with a reported, problem - nothing to see here from the council

"Why don't these cyclists use all the facilities that are provided for them at great expense? "

would she though ? councils dont grit pavements and ice is arguably more of a problem than leaf mulch. I mean leaf fall can happen literally overnight, especially when its windy,rainy or the temperature drops rapidly, and councils dont employ teams who at the drop of a hat can deploy to cover a whole areas paths that might be affected by it. I think the courts would treat it as a common sense issue, unless the council had failed to maintain the path in a obviously negligent manner, its clear wet leaves are slippy and so its your responsibility to take the necessary care around them, which might mean dismounting and using the bike to keep you upright.

I dont know, Im not a lawyer, but I always approach wet leaves treating them that I own the risk, and not expecting the local council to do a whole heap about them.

Awavey wrote:

councils dont grit pavements and ice is arguably more of a problem than leaf mulch. I mean leaf fall can happen literally overnight, especially when its windy,rainy or the temperature drops rapidly, and councils dont employ teams who at the drop of a hat can deploy to cover a whole areas paths that might be affected by it.

Most paths don't get a thick carpet or pile of leaves overnight. In my experience they build up over days or weeks, it's the fact that feet and cycle tyres aren't enough to sweep them aside or break them up so they get washed away.

Every council has a duty of care and if an issue has been reported then it should be investigated. As others have reported and I've found too, this doesn't happen readily when it is cycling infrastructure.

I reported significant piles of leaves on a shared path nearly 3 weeks ago. It needs sweeping at this time every year due to the long line of beech trees. Within a couple of days I saw a road sweeper cleaning the road along the kerb, which wasn't necessary, but the shared path remains a hazard. I'll be reporting it again if it's still there on Tuesday. I'm using a different route and have advised my daughter to use a different route to college until it has been swept.

well I said literally can to highlight the fact its not something a council can reasonably schedule in advance over all the area they control, because leaf fall is random, and even if they cleaned a path one day, the very next day it might be back to the same state. Ive seen places try and cope with autumn leaves and it becomes a near daily job for hired gardeners for the best part of a month forever chasing leaves around with leaf blowers, its just not practical, it would be cheaper long term for the council just to cut the trees down if you put that obligation on them to keep them clear like that.

and as I say they dont go round gritting pavements, or cycle paths for that matter when its icy, which is a far bigger slip & injury hazard.

It sounds in this case the problem was reported, the council investigated and concluded it wasnt an issue, presumably had they thought it was an issue theyd have done something about it, but I do think there is a personal responsibility for our own safety that people need to take more of sometimes

Awavey wrote:

It sounds in this case the problem was reported, the council investigated and concluded it wasnt an issue, presumably had they thought it was an issue theyd have done something about it, but I do think there is a personal responsibility for our own safety that people need to take more of sometimes

I wouldn't presume that they had investigated. It is possible that they looked at it or considered the report and decided not to act.

Also, yes of course each of us has responsibility for our own safety but that doesn't negate that otherwise good facilities require attention. It's why councils have a reporting mechanism for everything from fly-tipping to faulty street or traffic lights and blocked drains.

Awavey wrote:

would she though ? councils dont grit pavements and ice is arguably more of a problem than leaf mulch. I mean leaf fall can happen literally overnight, especially when its windy,rainy or the temperature drops rapidly, and councils dont employ teams who at the drop of a hat can deploy to cover a whole areas paths that might be affected by it. I think the courts would treat it as a common sense issue, unless the council had failed to maintain the path in a obviously negligent manner, its clear wet leaves are slippy and so its your responsibility to take the necessary care around them, which might mean dismounting and using the bike to keep you upright.

I dont know, Im not a lawyer, but I always approach wet leaves treating them that I own the risk, and not expecting the local council to do a whole heap about them.

fresh leaves are rarely slippery, it's the ones that have been allowed to decompose for weeks that become a problem, also most footpaths/cycle paths will remain leaf covered through the winter, unless cleared by the wind, while most leaf fall has finished in November.

hawkinspeter wrote:

the council are responsible for keeping the path swept and usable. 

Budget is probably for one cleaning pass per year!