Anyone hit a pedestrian at full speed?

Horton

I have to cross a bridge every day - one side reserved for cyclists, one reserved for pedestrians, a couple of months ago, someone randomly side-stepped onto the cyclist side. I had 2 choices, one try and avoid and possibly hit the side of a bridge and fall approx 80 feet to the shallows of the avon when the tide was out, or the second (which I took) of hitting him and going over the handlebars to the safety of a newly gritted/tarmac floor. I would have come off worse had i not grabbed him on the way over and essentially used him as a landing pad. He however was whisked away in an ambulance still unconscious. Fortunately witnesses came to my rescue and no charges pressed.

cygnet

JGS wrote:

I hit a pedestrian last week after he jumped out on me to tell me not to cycle on a cycle path ... ...managed to un-clip and start slowing down before I inevitably crashed into him (swerving into oncoming traffic doing 40mph wasn't an option).

I must have hit the guy at 18-20mph...

...He still protested that I should have been cycling more slowly, to which my reply was "Why would I need to do that unless some idiot is going to jump out on me?"...

Not excusing him jumping in front of you but you might consider he had a point here:

Ride at a sensible speed for the situation and ensure you can stop in time. As a general rule, if you want to cycle quickly, say in excess of 18 mph/30 kph, then you should be riding on the road.

Local Transport Notes on Walking and Cycling - Annex Code of Conduct Notice for Cyclists - DfT

They'll have a reason for that advice. Maybe it's to reduce the impact speed (and potential injury severity) of any collisions that occur. How fast would you say you going before you started to slow down if you hit him at 18-20mph?


edit: cut the original quote too much.

Jay dubbleU

I nearly hit a ped today - I was almost alongside him when he stepped out - he must have been deaf and blind - managed to swerve around him as nothing was coming

redvee

I hit a ped crossing the road before a zebra crossing, not actually in the crossing. Hit his left leg and buckled my front wheel, luckily this was 100yds from home so rode home with brake loose and chucked a different front wheel in and sorted out the comp magnet, tyre had to wait till I got home.

leonlikestrees

Yep. I sent a girl absolutely flying one day when she just stepped out in front of me.

Unless I slow down everytime someone is on the pavement near me, I'll never manage to avoid another one like this.

Thankfully I just glanced off and didn't fall myself.

I still couldn't believe it when she started having a go at me. I don't think I was too polite back.

spasypaddy

yeah happened just last week, the guy went flying. i managed to unclip and land on my feet. Made sure as i apologised to let him know that he just stepped out in front of me. what an idiot. hope he has a massive bruises that last a while

condorman

Yup, a pedestrian who I hit at 26mph going south over Waterloo Bridge. She ran out in front of me from the non-pavement side. She went straight down and walloped her head on the road. I went over the handlebars and smacked my nose on the road. The worse thing was that the top-tube on my Condor Italia snapped with the force of the impact. My advice - wait for the ambulance rather that accept a lift with plod- the pedestrian got the first ambulance whilst mine was held up in the traffic jam caused by the accident with the result that as I "walked" into A&E rather than arrived by ambulance I was given a lower priority. Still, the police did think it amusing that she was ranting how it was all my fault despite 3 or 4 eyewitness statements to the contrary!

iain_j

Not hit any yet but had a few near misses. WHY oh WHY do they stand at the crossing, watching you approach, then step out when you're right upon them (even when there'd been no other traffic about) - then once the first one has stepped off the kerb the rest follow en masse!!

nwallace

Always Tyred wrote:

I don't know about you, but I'd much rather collide at high speed with Matt Lucas

Yes but coudl you aim do knock him cold, brain damage couldn't make his "comedy" any worse.

Greg T wrote:

Various stuff

Greg I can't decide, either you live up to you avatar or your avatar is a very accurate portrayal of you.

NGale

condorman wrote:

Yup, a pedestrian who I hit at 26mph going south over Waterloo Bridge. She ran out in front of me from the non-pavement side. She went straight down and walloped her head on the road. I went over the handlebars and smacked my nose on the road. The worse thing was that the top-tube on my Condor Italia snapped with the force of the impact. My advice - wait for the ambulance rather that accept a lift with plod- the pedestrian got the first ambulance whilst mine was held up in the traffic jam caused by the accident with the result that as I "walked" into A&E rather than arrived by ambulance I was given a lower priority. Still, the police did think it amusing that she was ranting how it was all my fault despite 3 or 4 eyewitness statements to the contrary!

actually regardless of how you get to the A&E the type of injury will depend on how quickly you are treated. just going in by ambulance does not mean you will get through any quicker. Her taking the more serious head injury would see her treated more quickly.

jedster

I don't want to preach but just a thought:

Some peds do just step off the kerb without looking.

As a cyclist you have two basic options to prepare yourself for this possibility

1. Just regard it as one of those things. Accept the risk of injury to you, the ped and your bike.

2. Cycle defensively. Your chance of avoiding the gormless ped depends on
a) how much space you have
b) how fast you are going
c) how quickly you see the posibility of a gormless ped incident

If you are filtering and there are peds about, you are in a high risk situation because you are likely to have little room for manouvre, the peds visibility of you may be more limited (not an excuse!) and peds will see the stopped/slow-moving cars as an opportunity to cross. That's one of the reasons you should be cautious about your speed when filtering. This applies just as much if you are in a kerbside cycle lane.

On shared use cycle paths or on pavement cycle paths, peds are notoriously unpredictable. IME, the speed that you can safely travel at and still give yourself time to avoid the more gormless is frustratingly slow. So I don't use them and stick to the road.

J

malky54704

Many years ago cycling full pelt. Did not see a blind man on ZEBRA CROSSING...I missed him by chance not by skill. I felt awful and changed my approach to Zebra Crossings. I can never forget how tragic it could have been and how scary it must have been for him. I was only about 13 too young to think about stoppiong and saying sorry....BUT I AM!

squired

I've actually been on the other side - I was a pedestrian hit by a cyclist. He was riding the wrong way down a one way street at night with no lights on. I can still remember the feeling as the back of my skull whacked against the road. He started shouting abuse at me until someone who'd stopped to help pointed out that he didn't have any lights on and that "you could do him for that". He made a pretty sharp exit at that point. I ended up down at the hospital, but had nothing more than a concussion. He was completely fine.

don_don

El Gordo wrote:

I rode into the side of a kid on a mountain bike who turned across my path, with no lights, on Hallowean, wearing a mask of The Scream!

I hit him doing about 20mph without braking at all. He ended up in the grass verge I sprawled down the centre of the road.

Neither of us were hurt too bad, just the usual mix of grazes and I was so relieved he was OK (despite it been his fault) that I sorted his bike out and sent him on his way before noticing that my Dyna Tech road bike had a buckled down tube.

Sounds just like my BMX lad. I wonder if he used to live up your way :roll:

toshmund

Just in case he is reading this...Many apologies to the bloke on the predestrian crossing in Breaston tonight, who I gave a bit of a scare to! It is another piece of Derbyshire County Council road planning ingenuity...The crossing is just after you emerge out of a blind bend (by the Co-op) with a junction on the lhs if you are heading from Draycott to Breaston. Car was inching out because that is the only way to see the road. No pavement and the shop frontage sits proud, so I am concentrating on the car- I did not see the bloke start from the rhs. It is a church and pretty much unlit, he was dressed in navy blue - and on his mobile. Hell, I feel vindicated now...predestrians using mobiles!?

Nasty junction - always get one of those drivers who does 20 mph to the white line, looking in the opposite direction - before slamming on the brakes and looking in your direction. Happened a few times in the last few days actually.

condorman

actually regardless of how you get to the A&E the type of injury will depend on how quickly you are treated. just going in by ambulance does not mean you will get through any quicker. Her taking the more serious head injury would see her treated more quickly.[/quote]

Judging by the ranting and raving she had brain damage before she got knocked over.

I don't think I share your rose tinted view of A&E staff - definitely got the cold shoulder (literally as well as figuratively) from the staff. Presumably assumed horrid nasty cyclist "accompanied" by two police officers must have been at fault so we'll make him wait. St Thomas' A&E was dead but they still took eternity to get round to me.

I've been in the back of an ambulance and heard the paramedic being told by St Thomas' A&E that they didn't want to accept me as I "only" had a dislocated elbow. Funnily enough, A&E was again deserted upon my eventual arrival although they did concede that it was the worst (or best?) elbow dislocation that they had seen. They're also very scissor happy - I did plead in vain with them not to cut my Assos bibshorts off! Fortunately, the scissors didn't work on the Sidis so they had to listen to the instructions on how to undo the buckles and straps.

saveswalking

I sometimes feel that once you get on a bike you don the clock of invisibility.
I was cycling east down Bishopsgate approaching a major ‘green man’ pedestrian traffic lights crossing. The lights were green for the traffic but the combination of no immediate traffic behind me and the impatient opportunism of the waiting pedestrians triggered a Mexican wave like surge of possibly 30 - 40 pedestrians (sheep ?) from the left and the right to cross the road. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea in reverse and the gap for me was rapidly diminishing but with incredible sprinting power I don’t usually need to deploy (and didn’t know I had) I managed to shoot through that final gap and emerge unscathed .

Just overheard a lone voice from the throng utter something unsavoury - (4 letters begins with a C)
Power to the people

el_presidente

saveswalking wrote:

I sometimes feel that once you get on a bike you don the clock of invisibility.
I was cycling east down Bishopsgate approaching a major ‘green man’ pedestrian traffic lights crossing. The lights were green for the traffic but the combination of no immediate traffic behind me and the impatient opportunism of the waiting pedestrians triggered a Mexican wave like surge of possibly 30 - 40 pedestrians (sheep ?) from the left and the right to cross the road. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea in reverse and the gap for me was rapidly diminishing but with incredible sprinting power I don’t usually need to deploy (and didn’t know I had) I managed to shoot through that final gap and emerge unscathed .

Just overheard a lone voice from the throng utter something unsavoury - (4 letters begins with a C)
Power to the people

Exactly the same thing happened to me on TCR the other day. I shouted EXCUSE ME as loud as I could and gestured pointedly at the green light as I sailed past. They all stopped dead and looked a bit surprised, it was most satisfying.

jedster

There is one junction with lights that I get stopped at every morning. I'm on a minor road and we get a very short spell on green every cycle. There are lots of peds about and if they decide to cross against the red man they can easily make you miss the entire light cycle. Grrr.

I end up being a lttle assertive to get through gaps (albeit slowly). The thing is that once a ped has stepped onto the road they have just a much right to be there as a cyclist or other vehicle (according to the highway code). I don't think peds are breaking the law when they cross on red.

J

DavidBelcher

Stage Fright wrote:

an extreme example - but there was a piece in C+ earlier this year about the TdF, and they mentioned a time in the 1950s when a guy sprinting for the stage win hit an official who had stepped out to take a picture (!!!) - killing the official (the magazine even ran a 'moment of impact' picture!).

That'd be Andre Darrigade, then. I think he sustained some sort of head injury himself (possibly a Petr Cech-style depressed skull fracture), not that it stopped him finishing the stage and securing the green jersey.

David

riklydon

don_don wrote:

Not a pedestrian exactly, but I had a lad on a BMX ride off the pavement right in front of me last year.

A lad on a bmx did exactlythis to me a few weeks ago (except the beurk bunny hopped as well as not looking), lucky for him I was only doing 15 mph or so and managed a bit of breaking unluckily for him i leant forward and used my forearm and elbow to cushion the blow ( but only for me obviously ) he was shocked and winded I was furious not so much that I'd hit him but at his stupidity. As itold him "lucky i wasn't a F*****ing car isn't it" lesson learned hopefully. Bike was cool, but thats why I bought a tri cross......................Oh and I always go slower on bike paths too many near misses with pedestrian roulette on them......................

riklydon

saveswalking wrote:

I sometimes feel that once you get on a bike you don the clock of invisibility.
I was cycling east down Bishopsgate approaching a major ‘green man’ pedestrian traffic lights crossing. The lights were green for the traffic but the combination of no immediate traffic behind me and the impatient opportunism of the waiting pedestrians triggered a Mexican wave like surge of possibly 30 - 40 pedestrians (sheep ?) from the left and the right to cross the road. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea in reverse and the gap for me was rapidly diminishing but with incredible sprinting power I don’t usually need to deploy (and didn’t know I had) I managed to shoot through that final gap and emerge unscathed .

This situation is so frequent I think it's strange when it DOESN'T happen to be honest we just gotta get used to it.......................mind you I nearly squashed a girl the other week luckily her bfriend was looking and he yanked her back I swerved but still brushed her at 20mph+...................... which to be fair was MUCH too fast for a city centre....we're all guilty of something eh!

wilsonianinstitute

Not me, but a friend of mine slammed into a woman who foolishly stepped out onto the street in front of him. I believe she was fine, but he broke a million bones in his right shoulder leaving him in a cast for months and multiple surgeries. Three years on, he still hasn't touched his bike
The upside: the woman was charges and his bike was unscathed.

The moral: be careful out there and trust no one (especially pedestrians).