2015-03-30 brixton hill junction with dumbarton road

Just seen this. 5:45pm cyclist airlifted away.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/cyclist-airlifted-to-hospital-after-very-serious-collision-with-car-in-brixton-10144737.html

Very near to home for me, hope it's not as bad as it sounds.

Came past this on the way home. Didn't look good. Hope the outcome is positive.

I was there, cycling right behind the poor guy. Saw him flying over the car :-(
Was told by Met this morning that they think he'll be okay, phew.
That's what it says in this article as well, so I hope they are right: http://londonist.com/2015/03/cyclist-airlifted-to-hospital-after-collision.php

Still pretty shocking, another case of "I didn't see him"....

@omeletta hope it's not making you look at your own bike differently. Glad to hear he is starting on the path of recovery/pulled through the worst of it.

Just seen Chuka Umunna tweet about this. Horrible. Apparently the injuries aren't life-threatening. Recover soon, cyclist.

Cycling up that hill can be horrible. Drivers pass with zero room.

It is not a nice road to cycle at all and ironically, I normally avoid it if at all possible. Was just late that day and there wasn't really a good alternative to get from Streatham Hill to Brixton and I thought to myself "whatever, it'll be fine this one time"...well, it was, but just about :-(
So we were going downhill actually and the car going uphill that wanted to turn into Dumbarton Road somehow just went for it. The guy in front of me didn't have a chance to react at all.
I'm really glad to hear he's gonna be ok, as it looked pretty bad to me.

@Clockwise If anything, it reassures me that being a chicken and super duper extra careful on the bike is an extremely good idea in London. I'll continue to stick to quiet routes even if it takes longer and also, to not trust cars (as well as pedestrians for that matter) to have seen me unless I'm really sure about it. Might even start to wear a helmet more often, but that's a another discussion altogether...

@omeletta I'm just by the bingo hall, personally I feel extremely safe on brixton hill but then my first ever cycling on the road was about age 7 in the bus lane by the weatherspoons and then growing up it's always been the area I would ride in. Cycling in a hurry is something I had to train myself out of, it encourages taking gaps/risks and only half checking before pulling away/out and stuff. Be careful with the chicken plan, gutter riding tho it might at times feel like it should be safer just isn't, take all the space you need and be assertive.

Always a temptation to smash it down Brixton Hill, but there are often cars turning across (particularly at that junction) and they rarely check for cyclists so you need to be well aware of the possibility.

Nuh, not gonna ride in the gutter, to many opening car doors, pedestrians jumping on the street and stuff and as you say, one is less visible. But rather taking the nicer quieter roads and be extra vigilant as you can't assume other people are going to adhere to the rules.
I grew up in what is apparently Germany's most cyclist friendly city (Muenster), so the bike has always been my premier method of transport. Been cycling in London for about 8 years now and feel generally ok, but it did require quite a bit of adjusting and getting to know the nice routes. I now think, people in my hometown cycle like crazy ;-) Nothing happens over there though, as everyone is aware of cyclists. You simply can't ignore them, as they are everywhere.
Hopefully one day in the distant future, London will be a bit more like that. Until then, safe bike ride everyone!

This is the end of my road, saw the car afterwards and guessed that was what had happened. Glad the guy was ok - saw the photos of the bike on twitter and looked really nasty. Dumbarton Road gets used as a rat run both ways, so far more cars turn in and out of it than really need to.

Brixton Hill is particularly nasty to cycle up or down. I've actually seen more near collisions going uphill as drivers tend to undertake right turning cars at speed without checking if anyone's in that space. Even if you're a super confident cyclist it's not going to stop you getting hit by someone who's not bothering to look while doing this.

Drivers seem to get overexcited once they're through the gridlock at either of the hill and floor it once the road is slightly more open. Loads of drivers on their phones, texting, etc as well. If you ever get the bus up or down the hill you get a pretty frightening view of how little attention drivers are paying. Not sure why a few PCSOs can't be diverted from harassing people at junctions to sitting on a bus with a camera, which would make it easy to catch loads of people.

Unfortunately none of the alternate routes are great either. What should be quieter roads off either side of the hill seem to have disproportionate numbers of angry speeding drivers on very narrow residential streets, I often feel safer on the hill where at least there'd be witnesses when you get hit...

tl;dr Be really careful on Brixton Hill

Alas Brixton hill...

When i were a lad back in the 70s I quiet often caned it down from the Telegraph pub to the town hall on an old crappy red BSA that I thought was a racing bike. The main thing to watch out for were milk floats and prison vans!

It seems like all of a sudden London became overpopulated and now i'm like the chap above, extra cautious and just assume they all bought there driving licences from feck knows where...