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Level crossing near-miss cyclist cautionedLevel crossing near miss Sep 2013 BTP YouTube still

Level crossing near-miss cyclist cautioned

Woman came forward voluntarily after police appeal
by John Stevenson
Fri, Oct 18, 2013 11:31
2

The cyclist who swerved round a level crossing barrier and was almost hit by a train as a result has been formally cautioned by police.

The 26-year-old woman was caught on CCTV ignoring the barrier on September 12. She came forward voluntarily after an appeal by British Transport Police, according to the BBC.

The CCTV footage was posted on YouTube and the BBC. It shows the woman slamming on her brakes as she reaches the edge of the tracks at Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire. A second later a train speeds through the crossing.

The YouTube footage was made private when the woman came forward, but it can still be seen on the BBC.

Train operator Greater Anglia said that the driver had applied the emergency brake when he saw the rider. She can be seen edging back from the track as the train passes, before turning round and heading back in the direction she came from.

The crossing at Waterbeach is a busy one, with over 100 trains per day passing through at up to 75 mph. British Transport Police said there had been 70 reported incidents at level crossings in Cambridgeshire since January 1, but near-misses such as this one were “extremely rare”.

The woman was cautioned under section 36 of the Malicious Damages Act 1861.

Level Crossing
British Transport Police
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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