- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
Broken bike (CC licensed image by garryknight, www.flickr.com)Coroner says junction where cyclist was killed after overshooting it on descent ‘will never be safe’
A coroner in North Wales has said that a junction where a cyclist was killed after he overshot it following a descent “will never be safe.”
Dr Thomas Payne, aged 30 and described as an experienced cyclist, was killed after he crashed into a car that was towing caravan on the A493 at Arthog on 11 August, reports the Daily Post.
He was taken to by air ambulance Stoke University Hospital with head and other injuries but died the following day.
A mechanical engineer who lived in Wiltshire, Dr Payne had been on a cycling holiday in Gwynedd with his partner, Charlotte Coombs.
She told the inquest: "We'd always wanted to see Wales, we love the countryside and outdoor pursuits and cycling was a big part of our lives.
"At the top of the hill he went first and stopped half way down to open the gate and let me through.
"I stopped and shouted back to him that I'd stopped so he knew I was there.
"He carried on past me and I followed him but I took a rest because my hands were sore from holding the brakes – I'm not a good descender so I was going extra slowly, but he carried on.
"He wasn't travelling at a fast speed, he was steady and controlled,” she continued. "He was a good cyclist and bike handler.”
"I heard a noise but didn't know what it was at the time because I couldn't see the road.
"I got to the junction and saw his bike in the road and I thought it was odd, I thought maybe he'd propped it up and it had fallen over.
"I then saw the tent on the ground and he was five or six metres further up the road.
"I was in shock - there were people there who seemed to be trying to stabilise him and someone else was on the phone to the emergency services.
"I went up to him and I said, 'Tom if you can hear me then blink', but there was no response."
Coroner Dewi Pritchard Jones, said that he had previously been involved in another case where a cyclist had been killed at the same location, saying that it "will never be a safe junction."
The inquest also heard that Gwynedd Council had put up extra signs warning of the danger following Dr Payne’s death.
"The experienced and proficient cyclists were cycling along very narrow country lanes which go down to join the main road and can be incredibly steep,” Mr Pritchard said.
"This not the first fatality I have had where people on bikes have come down and failed to stop.
"This junction is particularly difficult, if not dangerous, in that the road comes down towards the main road.
"A person coming down this hill, unless they knew the road, would not anticipate that at the end of this bend there was a main road and that there is no length of road or pavement between the lane and carriageway.
"The houses either side mean cyclists or those travelling down the road would not be able to see oncoming vehicles on either side.
"In this case Dr Payne travelled down towards the broken white line, he may very well have been going too fast as it is obvious that when he reached junction he was unable to stop.
"He must have realised that a collision was possible as it appears he turned to the left because the handle bar collided with the front passenger door of the car.
Mr Pritchard Jones added: "He was thrown off his bike at this stage and probably hit the caravan and that's when the injury that led to his death occurred."
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- chrisonabike 2 sec ago
Ah but taking pictures of things to defy the man (avoid a fine) is righteous. Taking pictures of people to grass on them to the cops (perhaps...
- ktache 1 hour 48 min ago
But getting paid for it is the very definition of professional....
- ktache 1 hour 57 min ago
Never had a Shimano QR fail on me. They just work. And the top end ones look good too....
- Backladder 2 hours 43 min ago
If you're only looking at the guy in front of you then you're going to crash whatever brakes you have, you need to look beyond them to anticipate...
- jaysa 3 hours 9 min ago
As a woman, this works great for me! My chain broke once, and a kind guy stopped with a chain breaker and sorted it all out for me. We stopped at a...
- andystow 4 hours 35 sec ago
Same. I also have gone through a bunch of their tyres, and only the extralight disappointed (torn sidewall) but the standards are fantastic....
- chrisonabike 5 hours 57 min ago
Indeed - but it's no more inconsistent than our current road design - very often UK high streets are "for shopping" and also a busy through route....
- mike the bike 7 hours 28 min ago
If you ask the world's leading economic commentators how many people have been rescued from abject poverty by capitalism the average answer would...
- The Larger Cyclist 7 hours 52 min ago
loads of parking
Add new comment
24 comments
Rather sheepishly, I've actually been considering getting a pair of those disc cover things, as, over the past twelve months of owning a disc brake bike, I still haven't mastered the art of not getting soap/spray or flicks of whatever on the discs.. as of yet I've chickened out at the thought of someone else seeing them in my house.. or the looks I'd get at the till as I hid my face flicked my cashcard at them and ran out.
I'M SORRY - YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO SPEAK UP. THOSE COVERS ARE REALLY LOUD.
I know I shouldn't be by now, but I'm still shocked that the nearest A&E that could've conceivably treated him was in Stoke, nearly 100 miles away. The implication is that there is no trauma unit in north or central Wales, or in much of the West Midlands.
There is no Major Trauma Centre in Wales.
There is one neurosurgical centre. In Cardiff.
There are plans to upgrade that to a Trauma Centre soon but it still won't help anyone in North Wales.
Why would you have a trauma centre so far away from major conurbations and in the middle of nowhere, it's utterly unrealistic.
Here's a map of England and Wales showing the adult and adult/child trauma centres in green and blue. The remote location of the incident is far from being the most remote to the nearest trauma centre.
People will not put an additional 10p/£1 in tax which might actually pay for more nurses, doctors, hospitals, police, social care etc, they think there's a lovely money tree for the government to take from!
Capture.JPG
3/1 odds that Hawkingspeter owns a set of these Muc Off bad boys ...
muc-disc-brake-covers.jpg
Were they designed in the 80s?
And no, I don't have a pair. I prefer to just slosh some car shampoo/warm water over my discs when I wash my bike - it's easier and I get to pretend to be a banshee when they get wet.
Pffft! Who, apart from Brooksby and Dingaling, uses rim brakes these days?
Me.
XTR levers with Avid Ultimate v-brakes. All the power you need.
Alternatively Super Record with the blue pads on Shamal Mille rims. Front wheelies whenever you want except in the wet I wouldn't want to try.
Condolences to the family, this is very sad.
There are probably a lot of places in the UK which could do with better signage, there's a descent near me ending in a bend and a T Junction which is a bit hairy, especially in the wet. Is that the solution? Is there a better way? Why do we put signs up but not paint on the road more? Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to paint warnings on the tarmac?
Surely a sign saying stop or give way in Xyds is all that's needed before the bend?
Nobody's addressing the real killer here - bloody caravan, another reason to ban them.
Looking at the final descent before the right hand bend onto the A-road on gmaps, if there is still no real warning signage; this is something the council could do easily to help.
There's no need for a sign quite honestly, it wouldn't have changed the outcome IMHO. It was patently obvious well before that the roads were going downwards at a steep angle, if the inexperienced partner managed to get down safely then that tells you all you need to know quite honestly.
The deceased was described as an experienced cyclist, It's not exactly an easy access road and off the beaten track so it would be reasonable to assume that the route was planned and looked at in advance. Even the words of the partner seem to suggest she at least knew the roads were steep, she managed to descend without incident so I think that they knew the roads were steep is accurate.
It's a failure to acknowledge the obvious terrain by the experienced good bike handler (even if they had not looked at a map at all), failure to moderate speed when it was clear from the outset that the lanes were very narrow with no run off areas at all. This is the root cause of the cyclist being at excessive speed at the junction such that he could not stop, there's no mention of failed brakes which would have been checked by investigators and mentioned in the coroners report.
We need to learn from others mistakes so that we and others don't repeat.
It's very sad for the family and friends but it's a needless death and the solution is not signposts.
Most well established roads have decent signage though as any problems have usually been highlighted through use. It'd be rare to find an old road without.
I don't think there are dangerous roads. We had this with a certain road in the locality on which motorcyclists kept killing themselves. Their was an idea the road was dangerous instead of obviously the motorcyclists generally doing twice the speed limit. It's now got speed cameras on and oddly enough it's not dangerous anymore.
Yes and no. Poor surface, lack of signage, etc can make a road dangerous.
Unless you're taking part in a race I see no reason to be going full pelt down any hill. There is no fitness benefit and no real time benefit. Feather your brakes on the way down to keep a sensible speed and stay safe.
What, and overheat your rims and possibly pop a tyre or cause brake failure? I’ve seen people get in to worse trouble by shying away from gaining any speed due to these issues rather than letting the bike run, then brake hard to scrub off speed before letting it run again giving the rims/ brakes time to cool down and not build excessive heat.
Ive not seen the road, but it sounds like it could easily catch you out if you didn’t know the junction was coming at the bottom of such a steep section.
It sounds very tragic, especially for his poor partner whose life changed dramatically in the space of a few seconds as she reached the scene. That must be particularly hard to deal with and she deserves masses of sympathy.
PP
Pffft! Who uses rim brakes these days?
I do!
Pffft! Who, apart from Brooksby, uses rim brakes these days?
the gate halfway down is at 52.706769,-4.004985 just after the farm house
The road is barely a cars width.
Just before the junction and just on the sharp bend (as you're going uphill) there's a signpost saying that section is 25%. There are no signs at the top of the hill AFAICT but it looks fairly obvious that the roads are going to be going downhill very sharply.
To me it's not the junction that is the problem, irrespective of the buildings on either side making it 'blind', this is down to the misjudgement of the steepness of the road beforehand and the excessive speed by the cyclist sadly. The coroner says, "he may well have been going too fast", there was no 'may' about it, it was extremely clear he was going too fast for the conditions.
I'm really sorry that someone has died but this is the fault of the deceased, the road might be difficult but the partner managed to get down without incident.
A preventable death that has nothing to do with the junction itself IMHO.
If there is no way of making it safe, then doesn't the county council or the highways agency have some sort of corporate responsibility to just close it off completely? Otherwise, the next time this happens couldn't they be deemed to be responsible?