Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

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gaz
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by gaz »

Al - Sorry to hear about the incident, wish you a speedy recovery.

A whole raft of information on pothole related incidents here, including many court cases if you follow links therein.

Not so many years back one of Kent's Highwaymen advised me that 85% of pothole related compensation claims fail, glad you had insurance.
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by al_yrpal »

Rode it again today on my tourer. Within tbe long pothole there is another repair its like a mini ski jump. When I hit it on my tourer at speed it almost twisted the bars out of my hands. On the Mercian with its rock hard 23mm front tyre perhaps this is what threw me off. Of course I do look at the road ahead, around here you would be in trouble every 100 metres if you didnt. But, on a sunny day with trees overhead and a dappled road surface with light and dark patches its not so easy to see everything. I do ride around all sizeable defects.

Martin advised that CTCs solicitors were correct, a judge wouldnt uphold my complaint. Looking at pursuing the claim myself its quite involved requiring medical reports and all sorts. I think I will just try to chill, repair the bike myself and put it down to experience. Thanks to all.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
Bicycler
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by Bicycler »

Nice of him to respond so promptly. Can't be too many QCs doling out free legal advice.

Hope you get the Mercian back on the road soon.
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fausto copy
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by fausto copy »

Sorry to hear about your suffering Al and hope things improve (however slowly, at our age :roll: ).
Regarding the "measure" of defects, when I worked for BT the local authority highways inspectors issued us with defects once a 10mm difference in levels had been reached.
I'd certainly try and pursue it as a defect.
Good look, fausto.
Pete Owens
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by Pete Owens »

While, you probably won't succeed in claiming any damages for yourself (it is unreasonable to expect a highway authority to spot such a subtle defect) you could help the next cyclist.

If you report the fault to fillthathole - and explain why it is dangerous even though it doesn't look much - and what happened to you then they ought to fix it. And if they don't then they won't have an excuse to refuse to compensate the next victim.
reohn2
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by reohn2 »

Pete Owens wrote:While, you probably won't succeed in claiming any damages for yourself (it is unreasonable to expect a highway authority to spot such a subtle defect) you could help the next cyclist.

If you report the fault to fillthathole - and explain why it is dangerous even though it doesn't look much - and what happened to you then they ought to fix it. And if they don't then they won't have an excuse to refuse to compensate the next victim.

Pete
Have you been down the Cheshire lanes recently?
You'll need a note book about about 4inch thick to report all the defects.
I kid ye not,but some of the bridleways and towpaths I ride are in a lot better condition :?

The road notwork in a 50 mile radius of Warrington is a complete disgrace especially the minor routes.
I now find I'm driving around potholes in my car they're so bad,let when riding my bike :?.And the repairs being carried out are so poor I'll give them one winter before they'll need doing again,to say it's false economy would be a gross understatement.
It reminds me of when I used to travel in the Eastern block before the wall came down.
It's hard to think we're the fifth richest country in the world.

Apologies for the rant but I couldn't help myself :evil: .
Last edited by reohn2 on 22 Aug 2014, 6:57am, edited 1 time in total.
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mjr
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by mjr »

No notebook required: phone apps and mobile websites like fixmystreet.com are available.

Yes, it's tedious, but what's the alternative? Ignore it and then when a fellow rider crashes, the highway authority gets away scot free? Better to report them and nudge councils towards actually taking proper care.
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reohn2
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by reohn2 »

mjr wrote:No notebook required: phone apps and mobile websites like fixmystreet.com are available.

I don't have a phone that's APP able :?

Yes, it's tedious, but what's the alternative? Ignore it and then when a fellow rider crashes, the highway authority gets away scot free? Better to report them and nudge councils towards actually taking proper care.

TBH If I thought for one moment the councils in my area(like the police)gave a monkeys for me reporting bad and potholed roads I'd pick up the phone and ring them.
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thirdcrank
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by thirdcrank »

When I've been a party to discussions about reporting potholes, I'll admit to being one of those saying it would be easier to report the rare decent bits between them. In earlier years of filthathole, I decided to do some systematic reporting. Notebook, camera, and a detailed report of everything I saw with a pic. On some roads this was every few feet. They were nearly all in Leeds so I suspect they must have got sick of me :D but nearly all received some sort of attention. This varied from a totally inadequate shovel of tarmac to complete resurfacing. It's possible, of course, that in many cases that if something was that bad, they were going to fix it anyway. Although it was time-consuming, it was when I had some time to spare. Several things occurred to change that but also, I began to get follow up requests from the fillthathole admin wanting to know if the defects had been rectified. My first problem with that was that I didn't feel inclined to trail round them all for a second look. Beyond that, if I report a highway defect in this way, I'm only saying that I think it needs fixing. What the highwaymen do about it is their responsibility, as the professional people appointed to deal with it. If I go back then report that it's been fixed, I'm giving it a tick of approval I'm not qualified to give.

eg There have been varying opinions on the defect that prompted the thread. It's not easy to assess something like that from a single pic, but as I've already posted, it doesn't look OK to me. Others differ, and fair enough. Let's suppose Al had discovered that a defect at that location had been reported via fillthathole or similar, and the cyclist making that report had subsequently declared it "fixed."
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mjr
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by mjr »

reohn2 wrote:
Yes, it's tedious, but what's the alternative? Ignore it and then when a fellow rider crashes, the highway authority gets away scot free? Better to report them and nudge councils towards actually taking proper care.

TBH If I thought for one moment the councils in my area(like the police)gave a monkeys for me reporting bad and potholed roads I'd pick up the phone and ring them.

Sorry if I wasn't clear: don't report these things to councils directly. They've little interest in dealing properly with direct reports. If they made old reports easy to find, then people could see that the council or its agents knew and didn't act.

Report them somewhere like fixmystreet or CTC's fillThatHole that keeps an easily-searchable public record, usable by anyone else that suffers consequences of the same defect and council inaction. I'm pretty sure that the main reason a council contractor compensated me for damage and consequences was because the defect had already appeared on fillThatHole.

But yes, if you've no mobile web device, then I guess it would need a notebook until you get back online.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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bikes4two
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by bikes4two »

If you have yet to report this bad road surface, what about doing that now just to see if they do repair it? Should they do so then might that give strength to an argument that it was below standard in the first instance?

Just me mentally meandering - must get out more :cry:

And last but certainly not least, sorry to hear of your pain (to body and your new Mercian) and I wish you both a speedy recovery.
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al_yrpal
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by al_yrpal »

Thanks, for the good wishes. I did immediately report my accident to the County Council but they havent done anything. I am toying with the idea of writing to them with a claim and demanding they fix the road surface before someone else is injured. I found some s/h 9 speed levers and bars and the bike is now being fixed with the insurance money.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by Audax67 »

Ouch! I hope you get well soon and don't discover any nasty after-effects.
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mjr
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by mjr »

Very remiss of me to forget this earlier: hope you and bike both get better soon.

If you can't find an old report, I don't think you'll get compensation, but thank you for reporting it so that the next victim might.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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sirmy
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Re: Fell off on a sort of tramline - advice please?

Post by sirmy »

You don't say what the difference in level is between the road and the reinstatement. If it's less than 40mm it's unlikely that the council will do anything about it (there doesn't appear to be any appreciable width to it, that is no trench to catch a wheel in). But as someone already said if you report it and somethings done with it that will weaken any defence the council could try to make

You may find that a report made through a third party web site isn't checked either. At least on council, possibly South Lanarkshire, have said that they will not accept reports through third party websites as the information is often too vague and too much time is wasted tracking down reports, many of which aren't actionable. Best to phone the council direct, at least then you know they received the report. But as someone already said if you report it and somethings done with it that will weaken any defence the council could try to make
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