Severn Bridge Road Race fatality

IanLD

http://road.cc/content/news/77430-rider ... -abandoned

Not good at all...

saprkzz

Not good at all! so sad , just read his twitter page:
"I did SP today,came 2nd after forcing the selection. Racing Severn tomorrow, can't wait!"

My club's race team were racing it today, it happened on the 2nd lap apparently, sinks my stomach.

Richmond Racer

That poor poor lad and his family

Rest in peace, Junior

Pumpkin Positive

Desperately sad.

I spoke briefly with him yesterday before the Springtime Pursuits race in Exeter. I don't know him but he came over as a really decent friendly chap.

Life can be cruel. My thoughts are with his family

alanjay

23 no age at all. A sad sad day for all involved. RIP Junior.

disgruntledgoat

Horrible news. I'm sure we've all seen our share of near misses etc but you never think it'll end up like that.

RIP

specialgueststar

A sad day

LutherB

Sad news RIP

Herbsman

As if this wasn't bad enough

"Rider left paralysed after crashes force cancellation of Magherafelt GP
Posted on: March 3rd, 2013

The Ulster, and indeed national, cycle community is digesting some very tragic news today after it emerged veteran rider Ted McKibben had crashed at the Magherafelt GP and been paralysed from the waist down.

It appears the Dromara CC rider managed to avoid a crash in the group he was in but then hit the windscreen of an oncoming car. He was treated at the scene and taken by ambulance to Antrim Area Hospital."

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news ... rafelt-gp/

shazzz

Very sad news.
My condolences and thoughts go out to all involved.

Neil Buckley

Thoughts go out to all concerned in both, just sharpens the emotions and thoughts about this sport we do and love. Stay safe out there peeps.

dave_1

that is terrible news. Very sorry for that 23 year old and his close ones..

dab_32

This is terrible news but how does this happen? I know these are amateur races but do they not close roads whilst riders come past? It seems incredibly dangerous racing on a road with cars on it. Excuse my naivety, I have no experience of amateur road racing.

Herbsman

No, too much 'red tape' and money would be required.

Richmond Racer

I heard a bit more detail on what actually happened via a mate who knows one of the Rapha guys who was alongside Junior when it happened. The bunch were strung out, high pace, Junior went over the wrong side of the middle white line on a blind bend and straight into the car head on.

EDIT:

Some riders go over the boundaries of what's safe in an open road race, and in yesterday's race there was some crazy stuff going on by all accounts. As long as open road racing's the norm in this country, if everyone doesnt chill there'll be more tragedies.

To make rolling road closures possible, I think it might require new legislation to give NEGs more to hold up/control traffic, as per Belgium etc?

frenchfighter

Poor guy.

Some of these roads are very narrow and the risks taken are too much. It is difficult to remain withing the limits of the lines when you are understandably racing for a result. I wish they could close roads or find safer roads - in France, even the smaller races have closed roads, even through towns.

disgruntledgoat

If that's what happened then it's something that I'm amazed doesn't happen in every road race at every level. Doesn't take away from what is a massive tragedy and is something that everyone who road races will have done but it is crazy dangerous and wen you're young and in total control of your body, you just never think it will be you.

Seeing people do stuff like that is what made me stop road racing, when you're younger you can just shrug it off, but I've seen kids using an oncoming tractor to launch an attack on the wrong side of the road (reasoning afterwards that nobody would follow him) and a 15 year old nearly wipe out on a 40mph descent on the wrong side of the road when a car came up. My bottle totally went after those.

At some point, you have to take an evaluation of what 5 BCF points are worth to you.

greeny12

Wise words indeed Mr Goat.

Car vs cyclist is never a fair fight and incidents like this should give pause to anyone who treats open road races like a closed-road event.

RIP lad

IanLD

Hope that there is not a backlash against road racing as a result.

If the circumstances above are correct then very sorry for the driver too if they were a totally innocent party.

Hope all family and friends can take some comfort from thinking that they were doing what they enjoyed.

dab_32

I'm not saying open road racing should be banned but what responsibility do the organisers have for the safety of the participants? Surely if they organise an event, they have a duty of care for the riders?

Do riders get disqualified for going on the wrong side of the road? I assume there are as fewer junctions as possible on a route? What happens if a race does meet a junction?

I don't want to get all 'health and safety' but this seems a crazy situation if riders risk their life to gain an advantage in a race that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

disgruntledgoat

dab_32 wrote:

I'm not saying open road racing should be banned but what responsibility do the organisers have for the safety of the participants? Surely if they organise an event, they have a duty of care for the riders?

Do riders get disqualified for going on the wrong side of the road? I assume there are as fewer junctions as possible on a route? What happens if a race does meet a junction?

I don't want to get all 'health and safety' but this seems a crazy situation if riders risk their life to gain an advantage in a race that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Taking your points in order

Firstly, organisers risk assessments, agreed with BC and the local police, will include riders not going over the lines, where they are painted. Common sense should dictate that going over to the right is not sensible after that. In every pre-race briefing I've ever been in they say that anyone spotted crossing a white line will be DQ'd, I've never seen anyone pulled for it though, the nearest was the organiser slowing the bunch to a crawl and blasting the front few riders out of his car that he would call the whole thing off if it kept up.

As to your second bit... Riders are the same as most people in cars. They never consider anything bad can happen to them, and in a race common sense is even further diluted.

EDIT: I should add that further to "In a race" I would say that this is due to riders fighting for wheels to be at the sharp end of the race. There's a finite amount of space and, therefore, risks get taken to move up the bunch.

prawny

Very sad.

As disgruntled has said I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. Back before I started riding I was forced to swerve onto a grass verge and stop to avoid half a peloton who had spread across the road on a dead straight section. They could see me coming in the car but none of them were in the mood to give way. This was a small regional race too, not exactly premier calendar or anything.

It's one of the main things that puts me off racing all together. Some people have no regard for safety in a race situation, It was similar when I was canoeing as well with narrow boats at canal bridges and the like.

RIP Junior.

graeme_s-2

RIP, poor guy.

Not intending to comment on this incident specifically since we only have one 3rd hand report about what happened, but it does sound like riding on the wrong side of the road is an issue in general.

Maybe it does need the commissaires to really crack down on crossing the line at all? I was chatting to a tri friend of mine recently who was saying a friend of hers was recently outright disqualified from a triathlon after he'd finished it. He finally discovered the reason he'd been disqualified was because he had apparently been seen crossing the centre line of the road during the bike leg. He couldn't even recall doing it, although assumed he probably had done at some point. I'm sure I've done it before (while overtaking another rider on a clear road, or while passing parked cars for instance) and my friend and I thought it seemed excessively harsh at the time.

Maybe a zero tolerance approach is the way to go to stamp out this behaviour.

chrisaonabike

IanLD wrote:

If the circumstances above are correct then very sorry for the driver too if they were a totally innocent party.

+1

We're very quick to vilify drivers who are at fault, but if this is as it seems, there's one innocent driver that will be pretty traumatised.

I'm completely ignorant of amateur racing, I'm amazed that there isn't a rolling road closure system.

LeicesterLad

I think racing on open roads is ridiculous really, surprised it's not caused more chaos and accidents havn't happened before this. I know closed roads cost money and it's not the fault of organisors, but surely racing on open roads is just as inconvenient to public/drivers as a closed road would be (especially a rolling closure).

Racing on open roads is just like the local chaingang arseing around trying to get the jump on eachother to be the first to the cafe stop.

Don't think it should be allowed. I wouldn't stop for a game of tennis on my local A road.

prawny

Graeme_S wrote:

RIP, poor guy.

Maybe a zero tolerance approach is the way to go to stamp out this behaviour.

There will always be accidents though. From the 3rd hand report he went over on a corner, that's just one of those things, wrong place wrong time, it's happened to me before on a sportive and I've only done 3, just got caught out. I was more agreeing with disgruntled about the general race mob mentality that can crop up.

Generally speaking if you're riding in a peloton it will fill up to the white line all the time, it on;y takes a pot hole for you to be forced over the line if you're on the outside, it's be a harsh dsq for that, you also might have people deliberatly forcing people over the line if they're worried they won't be able to take them in a sprint.

bigmat

Its easy to get pushed out wide and not always easy to push back in, inevitably people aren't always willing to hit the brakes and pull in at the back of the bunch. The road races I have done have been really well organised with marshalls effectively closing the roads at junctions, outriders keeping an eye on everyone etc. Even so, I can recall one guy getting clipped by an oncoming car (on our side of the oad I should add) and the potential danger is always very much in evidence. Even circuit racing scares the hell out of me if there's a big group and a few reckless riders. I don't take risks (unless you count racing at all as a risk) as the consequences just aren't worth it.

Back to the main subject, RIP to the young guy. Really really sad.

dodgy

First of all, RIP Junior, I know some other Herbalife riders locally and this has hit them hard.

Back to the issue of racing on open roads, I've just discovered how ignorant I was on amateur racing, I thought races were held on either closed circuits (Oulton Park, Marsh Tracks in N.Wales and similar) or on small closed road circuits.

This has opened my eyes. It's a bit like these well established TT courses on the A1 and similar busy dual carriageways, that still surprises me today.

Pross

First of all condolences to all involved - Junior's family, the other riders who witnessed the incident, the car driver and also the organiser who is no doubt having all his paperwork ripped apart to ensure he had all the relevant signage and was generally in compliance with his risk assessment.

Unfortunately as soon as I first saw this yesterday I knew it would bring people out of the woodwork who have never been involved in amateur racing in this country calling for a ban - I didn't expect it to include people who claim to love the sport though I have to admit. I think there is a slight misconception on the part of some here that you just send a bunch of 80 riders out onto the road with a lead car and a commissaire. That simply isn't the case - you have to provide signage warning vehicles travelling behind and towards the race, the race convoy will usually include 3 lead cars to cover breaks as well as the main bunch then 3 following cars with the commissaires plus medical backup and possibly a broom wagon and service vehicle. The NEG will escort the race and, whilst they don't generally have the power to stop vehicles (Essex and the Welsh forces being the only ones enlightened enough to hand over those powers so far) they will generally wave down oncoming traffic and traffic at junctions. In addition junctions will generally be marshalled although again only accredited marshalls in certain areas are legally allowed to stop traffic but it is incredibly rare for drivers not to stop when asked to (in my experience). In Wales we are lucky that the roads are as close to being under a rolling closure as you can get but ultimately there is always some risk. Riders are warned in the riders' briefing not to cross a solid white line and to avoid crossing the line at all if possible, the comms here are certainly tough and I have seen races neutralised and riders DQd for crossing solid lines or persistently going on the wrong side of the road.

Whilst this accident is tragic it is also a very rare occurrence, I can't recall it happening in the 20 odd years I've been involved in the sport (the closest I can think of is a motorbike outrider getting killed on the Kellogs Tour), the important thing is to learn from it and see what can be done to prevent it happening again. However, this mustn't include a knee jerk reaction to ban racing on the open road - there's not enough as it is and the future Wiggos, Geraints and JTLs just won't make it on a diet of track racing and circuit racing alone. We are not alone in having racing on open roads, even some top continental road races are basically the same open road system just with police escorts.

disgruntledgoat

I agree with Pross that there isn't enough racing on the open road.

the bikeradar report on this states it was on a descent, the description of that makes me wince. There is only so much, as Pross points out, that organisers can do and I feel that organising a road race is already an onerous task. There has to be some way to reduce the risk of oncoming traffic, but the real risk on this for me is riders disregarding safe practice.

frenchfighter

Good post Pross.

What is the upside for the organisers who go to all this effort before and during the race and then have idiots going against what they ask? Not sure they are really in it for the money?