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MP credits her "strong, solid bike" with protecting her in van collisionAnne Milton

MP credits her "strong, solid bike" with protecting her in van collision

Anne Milton followed SMIDSY incident with "large bottomed man" Twitter kerfuffle...
by John Stevenson
Fri, Dec 05, 2014 17:54
7

Guildford MP Anne Milton was shaken but unharmed after a collision with a van yesterday while riding her bike, and credits her sturdy bike with protecting her from the impact.

The Conservative whip told Get Surrey she was on her way to the station.

“It was one of those things where we both started moving away from a junction and he [the van driver] didn’t see me. He stopped and he was very nice,” she said.

"I was lit up like Christmas.

"I’m fully recovered and had no injury. I was shaken."

Parts of the bike were crushed in the impact, but Mrs Milton said: "My bike saved me.

“It just goes to show - get a good, strong, solid bike with a heavy frame. It did save me.

“I fell on my left side so the bike fell on top of me and he drove up a bit on top of the bike.

“The pedal kept the bike off me.”

Pedal Pushers bike shop in Guidford came to Mrs Milton's rescue and repaired her bike, but in the meantime she got into some hot water on Twitter.

"I wanted to weep, so I started a Twitter storm about big bottoms."

Mrs Milton tweeted a complaint that she was being squashed on the train by a "very large bottomed man" and set off a bit of a kerfuffle on Twitter.

She later told the Evening Standard's Nicholas Cecil: “If you are going to sit on one of those seats for three people, you need to take up one third of the seat. If your bottom is bigger than a third then you need to reduce its size.”

While Mrs Milton would clearly favour more people cycling as a bottom-reducing method, she told us via Twitter that she won't be campaigning for everyone to ride sturdy, protective bikes.

Anne Milton
Guildford
John Stevenson

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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7 comments

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LondonDynaslow | 10 years ago
0 likes

If she had a better bike she could ride in from there.

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handlebarcam | 10 years ago
0 likes

Wow, being run over, getting squashed by a lardarse, and having to live in a place like Guildford. I never thought I'd ever sympathise with a Tory, but she almost changed that. Then I checked her voting record, including cutting funding to local authorities (while spending billions on new nukes.) So, while I wouldn't wish a SMIDSY on anyone, if she ever gets thrown from her bike due to hitting a pothole, then I wouldn't be surprised if I were to feel a little schadenfreude.

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banzicyclist2 | 10 years ago
0 likes

Any crash you walk away from is a lucky escape.

Sometimes it doesn't make any difference what your wearing or how good your lights are they're just out to get you 2

It's especially difficult at this time of year when it's black as a witches armpit and your constantly dazzled by people with their high beam on.

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Daveyraveygravey | 10 years ago
0 likes

Two points. The story is dis-jointed - the bit about fat bummed people on trains comes out of nowhere. And I hate this bollocks about big and heavy saved me in an accident, although from how this was explained it may have actually made some difference. In MOST circumstances a big heavy vehicle will flatten anything in its path but whether that is good or bad will depend if you're in it or under it. If size and weight of vehicle was the only thing that affected safety we'd all be driving ex-army Chieftan tanks or 38 tonne trucks.

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mrmo replied to Daveyraveygravey | 10 years ago
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Daveyraveygravey wrote:

Two points. The story is dis-jointed - the bit about fat bummed people on trains comes out of nowhere. And I hate this bollocks about big and heavy saved me in an accident, although from how this was explained it may have actually made some difference. In MOST circumstances a big heavy vehicle will flatten anything in its path but whether that is good or bad will depend if you're in it or under it. If size and weight of vehicle was the only thing that affected safety we'd all be driving ex-army Chieftan tanks or 38 tonne trucks.

I thought it makes a nice change from hi viz and helmets saved me.

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Quince | 10 years ago
0 likes

Anyone want to start an irritating, preachy movement about how carbon fibre is an 'irresponsible' building material for bicycles?

We could get all offended and outraged and stuff it'd be awesome! ＼(^▽^＠)ノ

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HalfWheeler | 10 years ago
0 likes

I'm glad she's ok but...

“It just goes to show - get a good, strong, solid bike with a heavy frame. It did save me"

What a clueless thing to say. It was luck that saved her from further injury.

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