Crash Tottenham C Rd, Wed 18 June: any witnesses?

Hello

I had a fairly major smash cycling home from work about 5:30pm on Wednesday 18th June. It was on the south side of Tottenham Court Road, just as you come up from the junction with new oxford street and the entrance to the tube station. Apparently I was conscious when the ambulance picked me up, but I've no memory whatsoever of the event or the following couple of days. Injuries are messy but I'll recover - concussion, elbow fractured in a number of places, 4 teeth missing, bruising, roadrash and general trauma to face, legs back and arms.

The police have checked CCTV and there's no record of the incident, so as far as they are concerned there's nothing more they're able to do. Tottenham court road at rush hour is mobbed so its fair bet that someone saw what happened, so I thought worth a post on here.

I was wearing a red merino top, black "London Phoenix" bib shorts, carry a blue/red messenger back and on a matt black Langster.

If you happened to see anything, before or after the event, or know someone that cycles up TCR on their way home around that time I'd be very interested to hear from you.

For a little comedy - the ambulance crew took the bike in the ambulance to UCHL and then "tied it up to the railings". Perhaps they gave it a bail of hay and some water too... So if you happen to see a langster with a 3T stem and a stronglight crank then I'd be interested in that too!

Cheers

Jon

Oh. My. This is shocking: you have a crash, you're concussed, and they let your bike get nicked?! Unbefuckinglievable. Why the hell don't they just bring it in and put it by you?

LCC should get onto this subject: Surely a broom cupboard or whatever could be used to keep belongings of an injured patient safe from thieves.

Heal up, btw. Hope you get to the bottom of how this happened. In my experience there are very serious issues with road surface at that junction.

Ffs. What a load of shit. Its unbelievable that these days ambulance and hospital staff don't deal with injured peoples property better. As Skully says a broom cupboard or Basemet or anything.. Maybe the hospital buy a decent lock for just such incidents. 'Tied it up to the railings'?? That would piss me off so much.

Heal up soon anyway. I hope someone has seen something.

I had similar issues when I had an off at the beginning of June. I keep my lock at work so the ambulance staff were unable to take the bike in the ambulance with me. The police at the scene essentially knocked on doors to find someone who was willing to store my bike.

Worked out ok in the long run thanks to a very generous local business (who kept it stored safely for nearly two weeks until I could collect it) but not an ideal situation.

Hope you recover quickly Jon, sounds awful.

Can't believed the ambulance didn't let you take your bike in, last time I was in a collision, they allowed me to.

Hi

I'm reasonably relaxed about loosing the bike - its annoying and irritating, but I feel that the paramedics have their priorities and between a langster that's paid for itself over 4 or 5 years and me, I'd rather they're concentrating on me. That said a storage room would make sense, but likewise how far up the list of 'shit we have to get done' is that going to be at UCHL's A&E department.

Ed - I wasnt lucid enough to be asking for my bike to be with me sadly!

Skully - yep, the paramedic said I'd had a collision with a bus in the call to my partner, but the report says I hit a pothole. If I had to guess I reckon that a bus pulled out, I brake hard and the front end drops into one of the 6" craters that are common along there, launching me into orbit. But my memory of the event is as good as yours :)

jon

Sounds hideous. I'll tweet it, someone might pick something up.

Last time I was decked, bit mangled and unable to walk, I made the ambulance dude carry me and my bike to a Sheffield stand to get a lock around it. FFS.

Can't believe no CCTV caught it. Surely there would have been about 2,384,210 CCTV cameras around there?

That amount mean no CCTV.

It will be on CCTV somewhere they just can't be arsed to look.

this ^

You (or someone less injured) can go back to the area and locate any and all CCTV cameras, either on the street, in buildings, or in stores.

For any that are pointing in the right direction, make subject access requests (SAR - you can find templates all over the internet) to obtain copies of the footage.

Feel free, after that, to make a complaint against the police for being lazy and incompetent.

Hi

I've been down and had a look. There's cctv at the Oxford street / tcr junction, both council which the police say they have had checked, and tfl which apparently is just live without recording. The accident happened a bit further up the road though away from the junction - there were no obvious cctv's at that stretch sadly.

I guess there might be some in shops or concealed in some way, but that feels all a bit CSI London...

Glad to hear you're so sanguine about the whole affair, and hope you're healing up well.

Last time I was wiped out, while I went off in the ambulance, the cops took my bike home and knocked on neighbours' doors til someone agreed to look after it. Just depends on your luck, really.

Hi

I've been down and had a look. There's cctv at the Oxford street / tcr junction, both council which the police say they have had checked, and tfl which apparently is just live without recording. The accident happened a bit further up the road though away from the junction - there were no obvious cctv's at that stretch sadly.

I guess there might be some in shops or concealed in some way, but that feels all a bit CSI London...
I would SAR them in any case. Because I wouldn't trust anything that a copper said. Ditto TfL and the Council, and sending an FOIA request for who monitors and records those cameras.

I guess it depends how far you're willng to go to find out what happened. Maybe just accepting it and going on is the best choice.

Glad you're reasonably OK though.

Good luck with the recovery, what a shit situation.

I've had the paramedics bring my bike in the ambulance to the hospital with me and it stayed in the cubical.

Another time the police dropped it off at my house....and on this occasion another cyclist stopped to help me and while there bike was against some railings someone came and nicked it!!!! This accident happened late at night and when I asked about the CCTV (which there was one clearly pointing at the site) plod said it was a traffic camera controlled by the council and that they are not always recording......at which rate I think you can put in your own freedom of information request to make certain that the police did they're job properly, personally, I didn't trust the coppers investigation skills.

Good luck with healing and I hope you get some witnesses and evidence.

EDIT: only just seen your response re camera locations.