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news
Dibbles Bridge (Google Street View).pngSafety features on way for North Yorks bridge where two cyclists died
A coroner has urged that a safety barrier planned for a bridge in North Yorkshire where two cyclists have been killed in the past two years be put in place by next spring.
Dr George Ballard, 41, a consultant cardiologist from Ben Rhydding, died from multiple injuries in August this year, reports the Telegraph and Argus.
He had struck the nearside of Dibbles Bridge near Hebden in August this year as he descended a steep hill on the road towards Grassington.
He was thrown over the parapet and into a 40-foot ravine, his death coming a year after that James Nelson, 32, from Skipton, who was killed in similar circumstances.
Dr Ballard, a father of two, had been riding with five friends. One of them, Dr Nick Hayward, said he had warned him of the descent and the bend at the bottom.
Describing how his friend overtook him on the descent, he said: "I was slightly concerned. I remember him coming passed and thinking is he going to slow down?
"He seemed to do so - his bike seemed to be slowing towards me and then I saw his back wheel lock and I thought he would go down but he held the slide.
"I thought 'wow, he's done it'. Then I saw him hit the wall.
"The bike careered along the parapet and the next thing I saw his feet going over the bridge."
Dr Ballard died despite the efforts of Dr Hayward and a nurse living nearby to give him first aid.
North Yorkshire County Council confirmed that it would be fitting an interlocking rail and barrier on the left-hand parapet to prevent similar tragedies.
Coroner Rob Turnbull recorded that Dr Ballard's death was due to multiple injuries caused by an accident.
He added that he wanted to see the safety feature introduced by next spring, ahead of cyclists returning in large numbers to the Yorkshire Dales.
Last December, Mr Turnbull presided over the inquest into Mr Nelson's death which happened in August 2014.
The Skipton Cycling Club member had been descending the same hill, which has a gradient of 16 degrees, and was also thrown over the parapet and onto the dry river bed, with his body not discovered until the following morning.
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.
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12 comments
The road approaching this tight right hand corner has been straightened out (it originally went much closer to the buildings), and this is a sure-fire way to increase the potential for a crash at the next bend. Clearly the roads engineers never thought that one through.
The answer is I'd suggest to actually make the bend at the bottom tighter, by taking the Westbound traffic over to the left and providing a sand drag on an alignment that goes roughly through the gate opening in the stone wall with the road then turning back along the splay line of the bridge wing wall and parapet. Directly in line with the approach, following the fall of the land to the river in the former Diggle Bridge Quarry, a sand drag with the boundary planted out with some robust fast growing bushes (Broom would probably be appropriate and locally native), perhaps with heather extending to the edges, and at the end of the wing wall.
The A9 at the Braes of Berridale was one location which has such a feature when I used the road regularly for similar reasons. If your truck or coach was not being slowed down by the braking systems, you simply pointed it into the sand drag and were brought to a halt safely before the sharp bend and bridge.
Harsh as it sounds, this really is a case of using common sense. Whether driving or riding, if you don't know the road then don't take the risk. Every corner, dip , narrowing, hill, etc etc has the potential to be dangerous. Society cannot protect all against every potential hazard.
There are countless bridges like this in the dales, at the bottom of steep inclines and at an angle to the roads on both sides of the beck. Tragic as this incident was I hope we don't end up with barriers on all of them. I wish people would just slow down, in their cars or on their bikes. We had 40 deaths on North Yorkshire's roads last year which for our population is double the national rate. Please, everybody, just slow down.
Actually all that is needed is common sense. Don't ride too fast into dangerous bends. If you don't know its dangerous slow down. Rider error, no need for any alterations.
Not really the answer though is it, especially given the history of that bridge. A fairly simple error should not result in death!
It's fairly obvious from that piucture alone (even more so on Google Streetview) that the bridge has seen more than it's fair share of fatal accidents and has clearly been rebuilt and modified a number of times (presumably from vehicles hitting it).
The catch-22 is that the authorities have to do something about it now. If there's another fatal accident there in the same circumstances, they'd be taken to the cleaner by lawyers saying "you knew the liklihood of this happening, it's happened before, you've done nothing to prevent it, you're liable".
People are stupid, it is related to the same stupidity that thinks that cyclists won't travel too fast on a converted trackbed, that drivers won't exceed the speedlimit when they can, etc. If it can be done it will be done.
You have to design the environment to suit, or accept the injuries and deaths that result. In some ways i am happier that cyclists and drivers kill themselves on a bridge like this than many other incidents where a third party gets killed.
Hmmm, let's see, sadly.
32 people were killed there in 1975.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dibbles_Bridge_coach_crash
Horizontal netting out of sight on the left, below the parapet, would be better looking. It's a beauty spot after all.
Eff your beauty spot. Look at that picture again; a stone bridge, some trees, a farm house, overhead cables. There are 10,000 places like this in the UK; its not the Grand Canyon. Get a big sign and a safety barrier.
Actually all they need to do is build the left hand parapet up by two or three stones height. You can see where its been rebuilt several times before and there's also an Armco barrier there to stop cars going through it.
I've only ever ridden that road going the other way but I could see how easy it would be to carry way too much speed into it from the other direction, it's quite a deceptive descent and bend plus the road narrows as it gets onto the bridge.
High barriers and signage to remind users this hill can kill