Anti-cycling bingo cards ready? @JeremyVineOn5’s “nightmare” phone-in; road.cc hack’s partner surprised at sudden tattoo conversion; Dutch hackers hijack traffic lights via cycling app; More fallout on Jakobsen crash + more on live blog

I watched it and it was predictable and disturbing. A bit like watching a car crash. As soon as the panalists and commentators opened their mouths you knew exactly how poorly thought through their rants were. And that's all they were. Rants. And none were prepared to listen to objective comments based on real information rather than hysteria.

One classic was 'they go over zebra crossing'. Of course we do. They're road markings. We all have to go over them!  

It is now getting to a stage where I see a cycling thread online or segment  on tv I now just sigh resignedly as I know how pointless it will be countering the rants because I will be met with 'yes, but' and a stubborn refusal to listen!

ive suggested to Jeremy that he get Chris B and Carlton Reid on the panel and hopefully something positive out of it all may come about. 

Is this all you have to say about it? Blaiming everybody else except for the person who actually caused the accident because of his criminal behaviour.

I replied previously but some footballers have been arrested and charged for GBH when they have elbowed another player. Granted it is rare but this was as deliberate a cheating as an elbow in football and was designed to look "accidental" when he knew it could cause serious injury. Granted even he probably did not realise the extent but that is no excuse. As a pro cyclist he would know what could have happened that close to the barriers. 

roubaixcobbles wrote:

There's a simple way of eliminating barrier crashes: all finishes should be on roads wide enough to give a good racing width and 2m each side to the barriers. In the finishing straight, a line would be painted 2m out from each barrier. Any sprinter crossing the line demoted to last on the stage and fined.

Yes, but that would have been Jakobsen as he was on the outside.

WDG wrote:

roubaixcobbles wrote:

There's a simple way of eliminating barrier crashes: all finishes should be on roads wide enough to give a good racing width and 2m each side to the barriers. In the finishing straight, a line would be painted 2m out from each barrier. Any sprinter crossing the line demoted to last on the stage and fined.

Yes, but that would have been Jakobsen as he was on the outside.

Clearly if someone is pushed into the safety zone the pusher would be sanctioned; the point is that Jakobsen would have gone into the safety zone and not the barrier.

So everyone in the safety zone is punished except those who are forced into it, in which case the forcer is punished and the forcee not

Ride London races frequently demonstrated that even with a road as wide as the Mall,it could still lead to serious injuries and major crashes in bunch sprints. in fact there was a view the wider the finish the more likely a crash was in a bunch sprint as riders would push more for position. The issues here were clearly speed caused by a down hill finish,so any crash was likely to lead to serious injury for riders and the barriers didnt seem to hold up under impact,but then when you are dealing with the forces/energy involved,which is directly correlated to the speed,they may not have been remotely designed to.

Awavey wrote:

Ride London races frequently demonstrated that even with a road as wide as the Mall,it could still lead to serious injuries and major crashes in bunch sprints. in fact there was a view the wider the finish the more likely a crash was in a bunch sprint as riders would push more for position. The issues here were clearly speed caused by a down hill finish,so any crash was likely to lead to serious injury for riders and the barriers didnt seem to hold up under impact,but then when you are dealing with the forces/energy involved,which is directly correlated to the speed,they may not have been remotely designed to.

Actually RL only used half the Mall so not hugely wide (with barriers maybe 2.5 lanes), but my point is that if there's a 2m DQ zone between the barriers and the racing zone, riders won't go into that zone and so chances of hitting the barrier are minimized.

Well look how successful track limits is in motor racing to see how effective a painted line will be,its not, in F1 theyve had to go to computer gps technology every 200metres to get it to stick,and you still get 3 if not arguably 4 goes at it before they'll penalise it,riders will be the same always push the limits,bend the line gain as much advantage you can, plus in the wet your lines will be just as likely to cause crashes as prevent them. it just needs race organisers to pick suitable finishes,think about the risks and mitigate them and commissaires to crack down hard on riders who put others in danger. even if there hadnt been a resulting crash Groenewegen should have been expecting an automatic relegation from the sprint at the very least and anything upto DSQ from the race completely.

Not sure a 2m zone like that would work, but certainly there should be much more robust and prescriptive regulations placed upon the race organiser regarding the barrier setup and the premitted road furniture on the run-in to the finish. If nothing else they should make sure the finish gantry posts are set well back (2 or 3m minimum) from the side barriers. At least then the riders are far less likely to impact such an immovable object as the finsh gantry if they were to crash inside the finish chute. The barriers should also have smooth and continuous facings so that riders may slide along them, and be fixed to the ground so that they wont be pulled into the road like those yesterday. It seems the loose barriers were the reason so many other riders came down.

Yes, sounds good. I thought he had gone straight into the stanchion full speed but might have been slowed down before then by the barrier AND the person standing there. I wonder if there is any news on that person because it looks like he takes the full force of Jakonsen and the barrier and also hits the stanchion. 

Of the official that was hit, BBC sport said "the race official struck in the incident suffered head and spinal injuries but was speaking when he was taken to hospital"