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RideLondon 2024 (Ben Queenborough for London Marathon Events)Police investigate RideLondon incident as cyclist seriously injured in collision with driver on closed road course
Essex Police has called on RideLondon participants who may have witnessed a serious collision during the event to come forward with camera footage or information. The appeal comes after a cyclist taking part in the sportive was involved in a collision with a motorist driving on a road that was supposed to be closed to non-event traffic, the driver then leaving the scene.
The cyclist suffered four fractured vertebrae when they were hit on Ongar Road in Fyfield at around 10.25am on Sunday 26 May, around 34 miles into the 100-mile route.
It is believed the vehicle being driven on the road closed to non-event traffic was a silver Ford Focus that had entered the course, the driver then involved in a collision before leaving the scene.
Essex Police said: "We believe there will be a significant number of people who will have witnessed what happened and we need them to come forward. If you have any information, CCTV, dash cam or other footage in relation to this incident, then please get in contact with us. Please quote incident 369 of 26 May.
"You can let us know by submitting a report on our website or by using our online Live Chat service available Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays) between 10am-9pm. Visit our website to find out more about our website reporting services. If you would like to make an anonymous report you can contact independent charity @Crimestoppers, by visiting their website or by calling 0800 555 111."
The event was moved to Essex in 2022 after Surrey County Council withdrew its support, councillors expressing a desire to host "less disruptive events". An SCC survey found that a "significant proportion of respondents were strongly opposed to the event", largely due to roads across the county being closed for almost all day on the Sunday it was held.
RideLondon moved to Essex and now also involves the three-day Women's WorldTour RideLondon Classique, this year won by a dominant Lorena Wiebes who took all three stages on her way to victory.
The transition to Essex has not been without issue. Ahead of the event making its debut in the county in 2022, two cyclists reported being assaulted while riding the route of the upcoming sportive, a driver in a black Ford pickup truck having pulled alongside them on the Epping New Road, near the Wake Valley car park, before throwing drawing pins at the cyclists and along the bike lane.
"Whilst in the cycle lane, a black Ford pickup truck pulled alongside us and threw several handfuls of drawing pins in our faces and along the cycle lane," the cyclist said. "Luckily we had sunglasses on so we were not injured and our bikes came out unscathed. I'm not sure why but I suspect it may be a local who is upset about the upcoming road closures."
> Is Essex ready for RideLondon? Police defends silence over road safety issues
Last year, an Ongar town councillor called the sportive "restrictive" due to the road closures residents were subject to and said the event was not wanted because locals "can't get out of their own road".
The event's organiser London Marathon Events said that despite the early wet weather on the morning of this year's edition, more than 21,500 cyclists rolled out from the start at Victoria Embankment to tackle one of the three distances (100, 60 or 30 miles) all taking riders from central London into Essex before returning to the city for the Tower Bridge finish.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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19 comments
'the event was not wanted because locals "can't get out of their own road".
it's not their road though is it?
Living in Essex, as I have for the last 56 years, it is the one place I know where a significant number of people really believe the misquoted Thatcher phrase, "There is no such thing as society" they also like the "greed is good". This manifests itself in total abhorence to anything that may be slightly inconvenient for them, even though it lifts the spirits and benefits the vast majority of fellow citizens.
I also saw a thread where a "local" was whinging abour being "locked" in their homes and how local businesses were suffering in his area. There are two local business in that particulr village, a coffee shop and a pub, both have altenative routes to access them and if they had their heads screwed on they would have been making hay with the spectators.
Oddly enough the local worthy didn't respond when this was pointed out to him. Bit of a cock really!
Yes, I've seen the "but our small businesses will suffer!" line too. If one day's reduced trade will scupper your business, you've got bigger problems than a one-day event coming through your village. If you can't figure a way to take advantage of hundreds of potential new customers coming to or through your village, your business deserves to be scuppered.
That line was played for the smaller Etape Caledonia and debunked. A few hours road closure v 1000s of extra people in the region
Blimey 56 years I bet you've seen some changes?
I visit the area regularly and got to be honest I wouldn't fancy cycling around there as Essex seems to be well above average when it comes to the psychopath behind a steering wheel ?
The impression of the County is one of the issues Essex has which is why Ride London is such a good event. Many people equate Essex as Chigwell and Romford plus the commuter belt running 5 miles north of the Thames, East-West. The vast majority of Essex is beautiful country lanes, small hamlets and reasonable drivers. It also has more coastline (it is a big sailing area) and golf courses than any other county. I live an hour and 20 minutes from Central London in the 12th least populated council area in the country. Essex is a rural county, slightly spoiled by a minority of people who have moved from London "because of the foreigners" and insist on voting for fascist politicians!
Anyway you'd think they would have got used to being locked in their homes after being literally locked up for 2 whole years just a while back. And at least this time no one's trying to implant mind-control chips or test experimental vaccines on them.
May explain why Farage has chosen to stand for election in Essex!
More of the 'I'm all right Jack', and less of the wish to be a helpful member of the community.
The local rag couldn't even bring itself to use the term driver, so it must have been an autonomous vehicle.
Hopefully the scumbag will be caught and given the mandatory stern talking to that befits an upstanding motorist caught out by the insidious cycling-normative society we live in.
Its quite astonishing what sad little lives people lead to get their noses that bent out of shape by something like a bike race. I can't imaging what life would be like to be so small minded and self centred.
I've been having a debate elsewhere on the internet with a gentleman from Essex (a cyclist himself, naturally), who claims to have been "trapped in his house" by the road closures because he was unable to drive his car that day.
The idea that having been given months' notice he could have left his car elsewhere, or perhaps even left his house without using it, simply did not compute. The event is just selfish cyclists (specified as being clad in lycra, of course) expecting everyone else to kowtow to their fun. My suggestion that it would be better for everyone if cyclists could expect to ride around London and Essex on any day without being put at mortal risk by people driving cars was even less comprehensible.
a gentleman from Essex (a cyclist himself, naturally)
But you missed out 'DM reader'!
I'm very much with you except for the notice point - roads near me are frequently disrupted by closures for e.g. marathons, concerts, football, and with a knock-on effect of punters taking the resident-only parking. We don't get a handy fixtures list to plan around!
How do the punters buy tickets if it's not known where or when an event will take place?
I was getting emails about this year's RideLondon pretty much as soon as last year's was over: even if the route wasn't 100% signed off at that point, residents must have been aware that it was likely to happen again.
I thought also that councils were required to publish road closure info? I can't imagine they'd bother pinning details to local lampposts if they didn't have to.
This is my point - the punters are probably more likely to know about it than residents. As cyclists we're interested in events like this and so are likely to see a lot of the publicity. Likewise, anyone interested in seeing Taylor Swift or Cardiff Blues play will know that it's happening in advance. But I'm not, so I don't. It's not like they do a mass letterbox drop for local residents (but maybe for RideLondon they do, I don't know).
I hope that said punters get enforced upon.
Satisfyingly, yes.
Recently read that in Bogota, Colombia, the roads are closed to vehicles every Sunday! Locals love it. Imagine the outrage here.
I live on route. With 3 leaflets put through the door between Jan and April plus huge signs on every local junction, nobody can say they weren't aware of the closures in advance but lots of people are completely restricted as public transport is disrupted and with no pavements outside of the villages, walking isn't a feasible option either for any journey of more than a few hundred metres.
London Marathon events don't help themselves imho. I am a aware of two local "crossing points" that were advertised as allowing vehicles to cross the route in a controlled and supervised fashion, albeit with a bit of a delay, that simply didn't operate on the day, meaning residents who had forward planned and located their car so that they could get out as needed ended up being trapped. One allegedly left a vet unable to access emergency callouts and the other definitely left one of my neighbours unable to get to work. That's just two examples of people unnecessarily inconvenienced. I have no issues with Ridelondon, I rode it in 2022 and enjoyed my day out enormously mainly because it was a closed road event. In my experience 99% of locals have no issues, they just want to be able to plan their day reliably and enjoy the spectacle.