Any question answered...

Do cars have problems seeing these?

in a downpour with no car parked at night, possibility.

driving at speed suitable for the conditions?

Nobody would ever hit anything if everybody always drove at a speed suitable for the conditions

wonder what it was which removed the bollard which used to be there? maybe someone driving a car?

but not sure how this conjecture is helping anyone.

Only at a speed suitable for the conditions.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCLookNorth/status/993172025463267328

Turns out there was originally a neon yellow plastic bollard thing on the island, which was knocked off and the hole just filled, with it not being replaced. The other islands along the road do still have them, so more promising that Joel can get someone to pay for his teeth.

That's unusual and (as Constable Savage says) could strengthen your case, as it points to problems having occurred there before. I'm not sure what sort of bollard you mean, but I assume it wasn't an illuminated bollard, as they're only really meant to go on central islands (so that drivers expect to drive to the left of them, which doesn't prevent them from crashing into them quite often). If it was some other type of bollard, that was clearly a bodge and not a very intelligent one--as you say, it was crashed into, which shows that it was an inadequate response to the problems there. Build-outs like this certainly shouldn't have bollards. They're not big and conspicuous enough to help and can cause an additional injury risk, even if they're plastic. You can put big obvious things on large build-outs--recycling bins or even trees--, things that aren't hard to spot, if the build-out is big enough, and this one is obviously too small. As it so often happens, there may not have been money/urgency to do a new scheme there soon enough.

You could also explore why the car parking seems to be empty so often (judging from your incident and the suspicion above as to the reason for the bollard). Perhaps it's mainly used for the adjacent playing fields or something else out of shot only in the daytime and not at night?

I assume it wasn't an illuminated bollard

I thought he meant one of these floppy boys

That's possible, but there are various different types. There are also ones that looks just like metal bollards but are actually plastic (and can be stickered with reflective stickers, of course).

Actually you can even see what appears to be a floppy boy down the road if you zoom right in

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I saw that, but I couldn't work out whether it was one of those or one of the newer types of illuminated bollard. If coldharbour told us the location, we could all go sleuthing. :)

Yes exactly these.

Mitcham, just opposite screw fix.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4120385,-0.1594554,3a,75y,67.03h,79.94t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sotY8QQ7hnhGU-bxRdGVE4w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Oh no, Londons best bike mechanic!
Hope he heals up soon.
Is he still on the tools anywhere else apart from Blue Door on a Saturday?
Would like him to build up my TCR bike.

No, he's working blue door on Saturdays, but studying full time as well. Trying to get out the bike trade and get a proper job ;)

Sure he can make sure he has time to build your TCR bike up though.

Is there a bigxtop thread or something? Search reveals nothing, thought he was "on here"...

So all the other islands have these little guys on them, so someone clearly thought they were worthwhile. Same road lay out as well, so parking bays alongside.

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There is: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/213600/

Do I now suffer from hayfever? For the past week I’ve woken up with a real bad headache, pressure on the sinus and blocked nostril. It eases through the day, but the one nostril remains blocked throughout and snot production is through the roof. No one in my family has had hayfever before but I’ve heard you can start suffering from it at any point in your life...

Pretty strong case then. If all the others have them, and this one doesn't, and it caused an accident, and...

I suppose by the time you fill in paperwork the council will have replaced it, as quickly as they filled in the pothole that killed that chap a while back.

I’ve had exactly this for a few days now. Also not a hay fever sufferer. I’m hoping it’s just a cold of sorts

I started sneezing at my new job, and put it down to being allergic to office work. Could be hayfever though.

It looks like they filled the hole where it should have been without replacing it, so imagine they are aware it was missing. If you're going to use terrible road lay outs, at least make sure there is enough neon yellow alerting people to it. I was in Holland 3 weeks ago and I'm still struggling to get my head around how shit this country is for cycling compared.

For sure, that's how I've been feeling for the last month. Antihistamines from wilko for 30p do the trick. Feel MUCH better.

@coldharbour

Looking back in the Streetview history (click the date in the top left box and then play with the slider at the bottom of that box):

In all the pics until July 2012 it had an old style illuminated plastic box (in the middle and on the other side of the road too). https://goo.gl/maps/ignToivUzcq

The next pic is from September 2014 and there are only new style flappy boys on the central reservation: https://goo.gl/maps/k6pMzqDZFxC2

Looking from the other direction doesn't help. From a side road narrows it down to sometime in or before June 2014 for the works: https://goo.gl/maps/APuZG3u1xZH2

So (obviously) sometime between those photos they replaced the old style ones with the new style ones.

What it doesn't answer is whether the'd replaced the ones at the sides with flappy ones or did away with them at that time.

I'd get as many photos of you can of the current set up and other set ups on the same road (especially if they do have ones at the sides), including the dated screenshots from google maps.