Worst accident... scott free, a scratch, or a collision?

webbhost

Ok i know this kind of subject has been bought up before, but I wanted to know exactly how bad we are for our crashes.. (Particually cars... We hear so many posts about collisions, but how many of us have actually been in a collision?). Anyway I wanted to set this page up to get a general idea Please fill poll and post if you like

Just figured it would be interesting to see what the UK is really like if you get what I mean!

webbhost

I started off with mine.... the shameful hitting a parked car lol.

pedylan

I wonder what proportion of accidents are simply early clipless pratfalls. Mine were.

geoff_ss

In 1990, I had a collision with a cat. It ran straight into my front wheel and I did a forward roll over the handlebars ending up lying on my back, feet facing the direction I had been going unable to move and unable to tell where my right arm was. It was very scary as although I couldn't move voluntarily my body was twitching. I had suffered spinal shock.

I'd been knocked off a few months earlier and had bought a helmet just for commuting and fortunately I was on my way to work. I was off work for 3 months. I lost about 10% of my leg muscle use and a lot of upper body strength because of nerve damage. I also get continuous chronic pain in my arms. My hands don't work properly either.

So I now always wear a helmet (most of the club bought helmets too!), use low gears and flat bars. The frightening thing is how instantly I went from being very, very fit to being unable to move.

My advice is to enjoy life to the full - you never know what's round the corner. That's why I retired early at 55

Geoff

webbhost

pedylan I should probably have added that as an option lol.. Ah well, guess I cant get em all lol!

Thats 1 thing that I have "not" done yet.. althrough I dont use the clipless shoes to go with alot of the time, and I have had 1 near fall, ive never "actuallly fell".

I guess Ive just dropped myself in it now through lol.

Gavin Gilbert

Worst so far was the car pulling out on me during an Audax ride in May 2004. The little old dear behind the wheel "wasn't wearing glasses as it was only a local journey" and so didn't see the 90kg of beefcake in flo-green lycra rolling down the road she wanted to pull onto.

Broken collarbone, broken ribs, dead bike.

The most recent was more prosaic. February 19th 2008, hit a patch of diesel on a corner I've taken every commute for the past 7 years. Fractured elbow, dodgy knee and a sprained ankle that's still too swollen to get shoes on.

In terms of time-off-bike and the potential for future pain and suffering I think both rank fairly equally. To keep things in perspective, people I have been close to have suffered life-changing injuries.

lateralus

In 5 years London commuting and casual riding I've had 3 crashes of note, none of which quite fit your categories. Luckily no major injuries, just scrapes and bruises. In two of them I hit my (helmeted) head hard enough to have blurry vision for a few minutes, and was glad to have had the lid on:

1. got doored when passengers decided to jump out of a car which was stopped at a pedestrian crossing and I was filtering on the left (I now go down the middle in that situation!)

2. rode into the back of a car when it braked sharply for an orange light while I was looking over my shoulder to change lanes (felt a bit sheepish after that one!)

3. wiped out on a patch of diesel on a roundabout.

Red Rock

First bad fall was about 18 years ago when I came off my mountain bike at speed. Hit the ground really hard and split the helmet. Instant short term memory loss and a visit to A&E for an x-ray. Luckily nothing broken, just a very sore head.

Two weeks ago was my worst fall. Out on my new road bike and came off landing on my right shoulder and head. Trashed the helmet (again), but this time I damaged the AC joint in my shoulder, have loads of bruises and minor muscle injuries and won't be riding for a good few weeks.

Red Rock

portuguese mike

Got hit by a car turning right across my path (apparently they didn't see me because the sun was behind me). It was my right of way obviously so i was going at a fair lick (about 20mph). i hit the front wing on the passenger side and headbutted the corner between the a pillar and roof edge. I landed in a heap and miraculously was unhurt. my bike however was well and trully fooked - i've never seen such a hilariously buckled wheel before and the forks and left crank arm were quite bent. As for my helmet (so glad i wear one now) it was split in three places.

The driver totally accepted responsibilty and paid for all the damage (incl a new helmet) she was quite young and i think she was more shook up than i was.

i have also been hit by a car whilst running although that was completely my fault and i broke my right anke and tibia which is now held together with a variety of plates and screws. i dont run much anymore. Fortunately i made a full recovery, in fact i was running on it again in 3 months.

tyskie

6 months ago had a driver hit me side on whilst they were turning right (although it was more of a straight on for them as my road, which had right of way, was on a bend). No recollection of the smash and no memory of about the following 5 hours. The policeman who took the car away told my girlfriend that he had to bend his head sideways as he got in the drivers seat as I had squashed the roof down so much. At least I wrote the car off as well. :twisted:

Broken femur, severed quad tendon, a couple of broken metacarpals and numerous cuts and bruises. The light at the end of the tunnel is coming into view and I have my eyes on a very expensive and stunning looking bike, probably for next spring.
Any suggestions?

The recovery was made easier by having a loving girlfriend (now fiance) to bath me, dress me, cook for me etc. in the first couple of months. Thank goodness that I can take over the cooking again now though. :shock:

OUCH

marmitecp

Worst one was a car pulled out on me and I wnt over the bonnet. Frame, forks and front wheel were damaged beyond repair. Broke a bone in my hand and severely knackered my shoulder as it took the cars mirror off. Still haven't got full use of the shoulder 2 years on.

Last month got shunted from behind in Manchester city centre whilst waiting at lights. Sun was in the drivers eyes. Only low speed but still broke the mudguard and damaged the wheel.

So thats 2 accidents in the 3 years since I started cycling again and about 10000 miles.
I haven't had an accident in my car for over 100000 miles.

Lagavulin

I've had some fat clown climb up through the sun roof in an old fiesta and launch what I believe was an orange at me. It clipped the top of my shoulder blade and then thudded into a parked Mercedes.
I'm not sure what I was more shocked at. Someone throwing fruit at me or that the fat bastard doing it could a) fit partially through a sunroof and b) had a piece of fruit on him (if it'd been a pie or something from Greggs I'd of kind of expected that).

I nearly once got into it with a Tesco home delivery van driver who took badly at having to slow down.

Touchwood, no accidents, crashes or falls to date. Other than one in the house while practicing I made a very smooth transition from toe clips to SPDs.

I just hope if/when something does happen I'm on my Allez and not the Izoard at the time.

redddraggon

portuguese mike wrote:

Got hit by a car turning right across my path (apparently they didn't see me because the sun was behind me). It was my right of way obviously so i was going at a fair lick (about 20mph). i hit the front wing on the passenger side and headbutted the corner between the a pillar and roof edge. I landed in a heap and miraculously was unhurt. my bike however was well and trully fooked - i've never seen such a hilariously buckled wheel before and the forks and left crank arm were quite bent. As for my helmet (so glad i wear one now) it was split in three places.

The driver totally accepted responsibilty and paid for all the damage (incl a new helmet) she was quite young and i think she was more shook up than i was.

My story is nearly exactly the same, except it was a middle aged bloke.

I took the bike to the LBS, so I could get it to be done properly, charged me £160 (on a £270 bike) to fix/replace front wheel, bar tape and large chainring. The guy paid up, but I was rather disappointed that the LBS fitted a £60 (what?) chainring that didn't even match the rest of the chainset - I could have replaced the whole chainset and BB for that.

caretaker42

Good friday just past riding along main road plenty of room lit up like a xmas tree i had some idiot in an escort got so close his / her left wing was directly under my right leg
i went absolutely flying , bit of road rash leg shoulder forearm , one knackered helmet after my head contacted the curb, other than that i walked away , most importantly though the only damage to the bike was my rear mech hanger ( thank goodness for replacable dropout
the worst part was not a single motorist stopped when id finished tumbling in the gutter

Old Holdie

First broken helmet, clash of wheels on a club run with a chap behind me, result - broken collar bone each, bikes ok though.
Second broken helmet, trying too hard on my mtb following another chap closely - he jinked to one side at the last sec around a hump which I couldn't avoid. What goes up most surely comes back down again. Hard. Broken collarbone (again), full AC dislocation to left shoulder, knocked out for about 10 mins, rode to the hospital as well after that!
Third broken helmet, slipped on ice while commuting one morning. Went down so quickly still had my hands on the hoods. Just a bloody knee that time.
Fourth broken helmet, most relevant to this post. Commuting home this time, downhill at about 35mph, a chap with his entire family started crossing the road from my right (no cars about) without having seen me. I sat up and shouted, did they stop? Did they bo**ocks! About 8 of them strung out across the road at just above walking pace, the chap at the front with a pushchair, which I just clipped. I then remember waking up facing the fence about 50 yds further on. AC dislocation to right shoulder, hell of alot of blood from gaping holes on elbow and knee, fairly knackered bike. Big dent in the iron railing fence that I hit with my head. The chaps wife who watched this from 3rd in line was 7 months pregnant and fainted - down like a stone. The kid in the pushchair had a big red mark on his forehead where I'd nicked him with my pedal. Could have been alot worse methinks!

bonk man

Lots and lots of crashes out on the lanes on clubrides etc, usually funny..

One right turning 4X4 resulting in a broken collar bone.

One not landed stupid MTB leap..broken collar bone

Arse over tit down one of the ramparts of British Camp hill fort in front of a party of sniggering school kids

Drunken Xmas crash in an alley, trashed knee

Fell off in front of a police road block near Stonehenge in 1986 [they refused to get out of the way.....but did pick me up off the road then let me through...... :? ]

And the last one I hit a cat during a time trial last summer, cartwheeled about 20 yards clipped in on one pedal. Took a big piece of skin off my hip and couldn't walk for 2 weeks due to torn groiny bits....... the cat didn't die but it deserved to
:evil:

MacPee

January '06, was hit head on by an Audi A3 driven by an American woman who'd forgotten which side of the road to drive on. Tibia required plates and screws wich are still there, bike a write off as was my helmet. The metal work in my leg makes things mildly interesting at airport security though.... Just had the pay out from her insurers, doesn't make up for permanently damaged knee and wasted quads, but could have been worse given the damage to her car.

portuguese mike

MacPee wrote:

January '06, was hit head on by an Audi A3 driven by an American woman who'd forgotten which side of the road to drive on. Tibia required plates and screws wich are still there, bike a write off as was my helmet. The metal work in my leg makes things mildly interesting at airport security though.... Just had the pay out from her insurers, doesn't make up for permanently damaged knee and wasted quads, but could have been worse given the damage to her car.

That's interesting the metalwork in my leg doesn't set off the detectors at airports - wierd

portuguese mike

Reddragon: did you you get hurt during your altercation with a car?

BUICK

Wow! A lot of terrible crashes and people still riding bikes I presume? I've done a comedy fall at the lights losing a trackstand and clipping in accidentally as I lost control - and the same again rolling up my own driveway. Fell off racing on a corner (racing a pal home not proper racing) with no helmet on and suffered severely grazed buttocks and left tufts of hair (off my head - not my buttocks) at intervals along the road where I'd bounced. Longer ago commuting I suffered sudden brake failure putting pressure on to stop in the wet and went right up the backside of a police car that was stopped at lights, at speed - they just shook their heads at me out of the back window! Most recently, had a woman drift sideways into the cycle lane and pin me against the kerb - got dragged along for about twenty feet or so before she stopped by which time her door was pretty dented and my left pedal was mostly gone. Apart from that there wasn't any real damage to me or the bike. I think the scariest incidents for me have been the near-hits where I have escaped by a whisker one of those, high speed bicycle vs right turning traffic, totally ignoring your prescence

redddraggon

portuguese mike wrote:

Reddragon: did you you get hurt during your altercation with a car?

Not seriously, I've got a 2.5in scar (because of infection rather than it being a serious cut- didn't even damage my tights) and I was a bit shaken, walked away fine.

Your description your accident is near word perfect to mine (bar the description of the driver).

CHRISNOIR

pedylan wrote:

I wonder what proportion of accidents are simply early clipless pratfalls. Mine were.

Mine too - although it's rare I manage a weeks cycling without some verbal abuse from chav boy-racers.

Alex_Simmons/RST

I've had most of those listed so I picked Other.

I've been hit by two cars (both the driver's fault) and fortunately for me no great injury although my bike was written off on one occasion. That bike was three weeks old and I'd waited eight months for the custom build! :evil:

I hit an unsighted solid steel boom closed across a bike route and the resulting injuries meant an amputation of lower left leg. So now with the prospect of prosthetic riding I get to play with more funky carbon and titanium bits than your average bike rider.

term1te

My worst crash was on an old Raleigh Arena in about 1984. I was in the third gear (of five) had just gone over the crest of a small hill so pushed the gear changer hard down, along with my foot on the pedal ready to accelerate. Except for some unknown reason I pushed the gear leaver the wrong way and moved it to the biggest, not smallest cog. Lack of resistance on the pedal caused me to lose balance hitting the road with my left knee. It was the first time I saw one of my own bones.

Salsiccia

webbhost wrote:

I started off with mine.... the shameful hitting a parked car lol.

Yes - especially shameful when you have to climb off the top of the roof when the occupants are getting out of it...

I was doing about 30mph, tail wind, head down and rode straight up the arse of a parked Ford Sierra when the occupants were checking a map. My only excuse was that I rode down that piece of suburban street virtually every day, and I had never come across a parked car on 'my' side of it (it had a single yellow line). Thankfully it was a Sierra hatchback so I could roll up the back of it rather then come to a dead stop head first (no helmet - no-one wore them back then :oops: )

The result:
1 x broken arm (painful)
1 x Peugeot 531Pro with fully chromed sloping top crown and forks folded up (even more upsetting),
1 x Sierra tailgate badly dented by said arm - my watch left a big black mark, but strangely enough wasn't damaged

One thing though - it helped me appreciate the engineering genius that is the spoked wheel, as even though the frame was folded at the head, top and down tubes and the fork steerer, the front wheel was perfectly true!

Needless to say, the accident didn't really help me with the GCSE exams I was in the middle of...

ColinJ

My worst crash came during The Duncroft Avenue Sprint Time Trial in 1969. Don't bother trying to look it up though folks - it was only me and a bunch of teenage mates messing about...

We were bored of hanging about the local streets so someone suggested that we have a bike race. The trouble was, we only had one bike between us - my short-arse mate's 5-speed/1-speed racer. It was 5-speed in the sense that it had 5 sprockets and a derailleur to change between them. 1-speed in the sense that the gear cable had broken and was wrapped round a seat stay and held in place by a clothes peg. Improvised British Engineering at its finest!

Anyway, the race was on but since we only had one bike, it had to be a time trial. Duncroft Avenue is slightly uphill and there is line-of-sight for a couple of hundred yards. The start line was at a lamppost at one end of the road, the finish line in front of a lamppost at the other end where stood both the starter and timekeeper (a single spotty oik with a wristwatch).

Each competitor would line up at the start and wait for the starter to wave him off. The starter transmogrified into the timekeeper by the time each competitor got to the finish.

The first few rounds were close-fought and eventually it all came down to one last race. I think I should have been awarded the win there and then because the bike was far too small for me. I'm pretty much like Big Mig, Sean Yates, and Tom Boonen - in height, just minus the muscles and talent on a bike. But no, we had to have one final round didn't we... !

My mates put up PBs and I was last off. I hurtled from the start at the kind of speed that only an over-sized teenager on an under-sized bike can manage. Surely the win was on? Well it might have been, but a minor rut in the road surface had other ideas... I hit the rut while powering at full-speed out of the saddle and felt a shockwave judder through the frame of the bike. It was all too much for the temporary clothes-peg gear-repair...

My memory of events goes into Sam Peckinpah slow-mo mode here :shock: ! The clothes-peg fell off and there was a twanging noise as the severed gear cable came loose. The chain lost tension as the rear derailleur went walkabout. My body became weightless for a few moments as I launched forwards. In mid-trajectory I smacked my right knee into the handlebar stem but ignored the pain of that because I was rather more concerned with where my helmetless-head was going. In fact it was destined for a close-encounter-of-the-tarmac-kind but fortunately I seem to have a thick skull. Emergency braking was now required so I dug my left shoulder down hard onto the road surface and that eventually did the trick. I actually slid across the finish line but the damn timekeeper was distracted by my screams and forgot to look at his watch. Drat - I could have had 'em all :evil: !

I was helped to my feet my mates. They were all looking at my shoulder in a "so that's what they're made of!" way which I found distracting so I took a look myself. Once I came out of the faint, my mates were kind enough to help me to my feet again and then... a strange wailing sound erupted from my body. It was pretty scary, I can tell you!

Being a fickle teenager, I'd completely lost interest in the results of our race by then. I decided instead to play a new game called Let's reduce a big strong 13 year old man to a lanky little boy crying for his mummy - I was good at that!

So there I was with my shirt ripped off and covered in blood. It would be a major understatement to call my injuries road rash. I looked like a specimen from The World's Most Gruesome Autopsies - Ever! A big flap of flesh was lolling to one side of my shoulder and revealing some white bits with sort of gory red stuff on them. I've no idea what all that was but it seemed like a good idea to frighten my mother with it so I ran home and got her to take a look. She was so impressed that she wanted to show it off to people at the local hospital's A & E (or Casualty Department as they used to call them in those days) but I told her that it wasn't necessary. She tried to persuade me to go but I didn't want to so she cleaned the wound out with hot water and sterilised it by tipping a bottle of iodine into it - would the fun never stop!

My shoulder hurt for months after that so I wouldn't be surprised if I'd actually cracked a bone or two as well. I've got some nice scars to show for it.

Jez mon

Had lucozade thrown all over last winter

Crashed in a race, people went down in front of me-I go over the top of the handlebars, collarbone in four pieces!

Latest crash, went down after rain when leaning the bike over a manhole cover, put a dent in my bike top tube and horrible road rash down my left side.

gazza_d1

Jees. I should count my blessings, as I've never had any major arguements with anything else or seriously damaged myself. I've had a couple of interesting near misses though.

First one was desending the col de vars in the french alps. Doing about 45 around a long left hand bend when my handlebars broke next to the stem. Dunno how but I managed to slow the bike, and somesault onto the verge on the outside of the bend. landed on grass inches away from a large drop onto concrete. Not sure I'll be that lucky again.

Also once riding tucked in behind a "mate" cracking back home after a long ride doing bit and bit at close to 20 mph, he suddenly forgot about me just behind him and slammed his brakes on hard. I slammed into him and we both ended up in a heap. Then he got up walked back behind me, picked a vey scabby looking bit of roadkill (pheasant I think) muttered that it wasn't worth stopping for and chucked it over the hedge, bastard!. I had the last laugh though, both his expensive new wheels were completely written off.

Bronzie

I ticked "I have had a serious collision with a vehicle which has resulted in injury / broken bones" although the vehicle in question was another bike ridden by a muppet. Ended up with 2 falls, 1 broken collarbone (mine) and a submission.

topcattim

I ticked "bump with moving vehicle" because my only collision so far has been with another cyclist. I was going along a quiet country road, saw two MTB riders come off a track and straight onto the road, without looking. This was about 50 metres ahead, so I slowed down to avoid any other pillocks in their group. Was going pretty slowly by the time I got to the track, and was walloped in the side by the next in their group, again didn't look where he was going. If I'd been a car, he'd have been seriously injured, and frankly while I don't want to wish ill of anyone, it would have hardly been undeserved, given that this group appeared to pay absolutely no reference to other road users.

It shook me up quite bad, but the shock enabled me to get home ok before my shoulder seized up. Broke my helmet and gear hanger and because I was so shocked I didn't get his details...

shockedsoshocked

When I was about 9 I came off while charging around an old all weather pitch (sand stone) topless during summer.

Bled from head to to toe. When I shaved my legs last year the scar on my shins were still very evident. Ah, good times.