Fall on Diesel

Theomerchant

After all this bad weather of late and Training indoors for two weeks I was very much looking forward to going out yesterday on my local club run.
It was a really good ride with good company and a few sprints thrown in for good measure.
A lad who it turns out lives up the road from me showed me a shortcut back to mine avoiding the town center which was nice.
Once he peeled off home I knew where to go and was within about a mile of home after 70 miles of riding. I went round a corner probably 1-2% too fast, my front wheel washed out on a patch of wet diesel on the road and the accident was completely my fault, now here is the intresting bit..not one, not two but three cars all stopped to help me out of the road, made sure I was ok, asked if I wanted a lift home / to hospital.
I thanked all of them and declined the lifts as I only lived down the road and freewheeled home.
What suprised me was how many different people were willing to stop and help and it just goes to show that there are still good people out there even if they are behind the wheel of a car.
After a trip to hospital later that day my knee (which took the brunt of the impact) is ok, and I am going to have to continue some physio exercises for a while which I finished only a month ago
In short it was very nice to have so many people offer their help and be concerened for my health

keef66

Fark me, who are these people who can afford to go sloshing diesel all over the road? It's bloody expensive stuff! I know, I've just been out to fill up the car.

Glad to hear about your good samaritans, and that you're OK

Pross

They probably just wanted you out of the way as you were holding them up Seriously though, the vast majority of motorists I encounter when cycling are considerate - it only takes a few to bring about the crashes and rants we see reported on here. Hope you recover quickly.

wheezee

Same thing happened to me in a supermarket car park on Christmas Eve.

Nobody paid the slightest bit of attention, cars driving around me, and pedestrians ignoring me.

Mind you, it was Morrisons.

ddraver

Don't live in London then? :P

wheezee

Hey, Bath's a big dangerous city too, you know.

Only last week there was a rumour going round that someone deliberately bumped someone else's trolley in the organic veg. aisle in Waitrose.

Bobbinogs

Funnily enough I was thinking about diesel the other day as I have noticed that on any wet run, there always seems to be big splashes of diesel visible on the road. Made me wonder if it was something other than diesel/petrol but there is always that multi-coloured sheen. I avoid it like the plague.

Glad to hear you are OK. There are many good motorists out there and it is a shame that the minority seem to stay in the memory.

rake

it could be anything really. probably not petrol it would evaporate quickly. could be any kind of oil from gearboxes and engines, exhausts tractors etc.

ilm_zero7

diesel is bad - but out here the dust is actually clay - mix that with water and its a short cut to the A&E dept.

mikeabanks

A couple or so years ago there was a diesel spill on my morning (car) commute to train station. This was something like 1.5 mile long so most likely from a bus as it was on the route. It looked like the council had tried to "clean" it up with a normal road sweeper!!! As you can imagine all that did was make the whole road a slick. I saw at least 4 cars stopped after bumps. I was lucky and had only one squeaky bum moment. I would not have wanted to be on n=bike that morning.

Wobbler72

This takes me back to my motorcycing days. Encountering diesel on the road is potentially lethal. Did you check with the Police / Council to see if the spill had been reported? If it had and they had failed to attend to it you can claim against them.

HTH

Theomerchant

I'm not going to claim, Myself and the bike are in the majority relativley ok and the fact I have made two claims against drivers who have hit me in the last two years whilst communting maybe seen as a little too often for me to be making insurance claims...at this rate I could live off them :P .
The corner I went down on is notourious to be fair, it's opposite the entrance to an industrial estate so the tarmac is worn smooooth, lovely in the dry but deadly when its wet.
Funnily enough a guy on a motorbike stopped and coudlnt stress enough how much worse off I would have been if I was on a motorbike, which was a little humorous.
Anyhoo back on the road to recovery and hopefully back to training as soon as so I can whoop everyone's ass this season :P

gmacz

Probably cyclists that stopped in the cars.