2018-06-04 Rider down, Farringdon Road (came off on raised kerb)

Max Hotopf, 60, was thrown from his bike after colliding with the painted ridge which separates cyclists from vehicles in Farringdon Road. He said the ridge, about 10cm high, looked like a regular white line marking which he could cross.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/cylist-broke-six-ribs-after-hitting-white-line-on-cycle-superhighway-a3869451.html

Tthat should obviously read '10mm'. 10cm would be fairly grotesque. But yes, upstands like this can be treacherous and are a known cause of injury especially in older riders (usually when attempting to cross lowered kerbs diagonally). Heal up soon, Max.

10cm might be right if it's stepped slightly like the tracks at Oval?

It's more clear as they went with kerb edges and then white lines but if they abruptly end the stepping at the ASL that could be more an issue.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4817798,-0.1111918,3a,75y,120.9h,84.49t/data=!3m9!1e1!3m7!1sHakGOK0a3s7LwjbYVPm_Mw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!9m2!1b1!2i38

No, that's a raised kerb. No painted line could reach 10cm in height (I'm sure there's a Guinness World Record attempt waiting), and no engineer in their right mind would ever design one. It should definitely read '10mm'.

That's unlucky, I've felt my tyre catch against grooves from paint or the join of repairs before.

I took that as a kerb to be honest. I can't see how you can "fix" a kerb... The easiest thing would be to add a transition to one side, but then is the council facilitating liability, it's a bit of a minefield. I think the idea is to stay in the lane until the signal. I wouldn't traverse that at speed unless primed with a bunny hop. The potholes up here are a lot more deadly and require regular hops. I hope he gets well soon.

I managed that on cobblestones the other week in a pedestrianised area, my front wheel chattered along the side of them, all laid in a long row! I didn't see that one coming. Not your Victorian levels of workmanship.

If it's a kerb, the reporting is entirely inaccurate. :) If the crash had involved a kerb, the article should have said that, as they're really very different things. The white line that's pictured and purported to be the corpus delicti does look as if it might cause such a fall (although inspecting it on-site will be more reliable).

Regardless, I can assure you that no traffic engineer will put a 10cm-high kerb into a carriageway and then paint it white. I mean, people crash into kerbs all the time, whether segregating or not, but here the description is of a painted white line, and those can often have a certain thickness, e.g. markings renewed from time to time often do.

I ride there often on the way back home. The first part is a kind of raised track, can't remember what happens closer to the lights where this happened. Will check. 1cm of raised paint doesn't sound enough to cause the fall. It should also have been damn flat on the side to not allow the wheel to climb on it and I definitely don't recall it being like that.
No one else in here rides past?

Through there every day... the segregated track for cyclists between Clerkenwell Rd and Farringdon station is odd, isn’t it? - like you say, slightly raised trackbed, but with ‘designed’ undulations for access from buildings to the left and a generous helping of steel manholes too. It’s a mess, although nothing like as bad as the state of road past the viaduct! This accident sounds unfortunate/freakish but I’m curious to see what caused it. Another hazard on that stretch isn’t needed.

Well this is awkward...

http://road.cc/content/news/244078-cyclist-who-broke-six-ribs-cs6-says-it-not-obvious-white-line-raised-kerb

In my employment history are a couple of years with a Liverpool-based firm who manufactured white lining materials. They also had a contracting subsidiary based near Heathrow. The contracting firm routinely won the tender for LB Richmond.
Richmond had many Council Tax payers who were quick to complain to Councillors if the white lining looked deficient. The markings outside schools were routinely the subject of concern. The contractors management took the decision that the typical lettering ' School Keep Clear' would be remarked more frequently ignoring the normal slow rate of erosion, so they would always look gleaming white. Normal screed applied thermoplastic road markings are applied at a net 2-3mm, ('net' as some material fills the voids in the bituminous surface). When these school markings reached +/-20mm the Chargehands devised a new method of achieving the desired whiteness. A shovel heated on a gas burner to red hot was used to burn off any tyre marks or any other discolouration. The back of a hot shovel proved to be the most profitable piece of equipment the firm possessed, as it saved the cost of the materials and the Councillors still had their (seemingly) freshly remarked warnings.
Tldr; I've never seen (UK) road markings more than 20mm thick.

Yes, that's not a 'white line'--it's a light-coloured raised kerbstone (and not what was pictured with the initial article). Rubbish engineering indeed (and poor reporting).

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Great Dover Street:
https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/is-this-the-most-dangerous-road-in-london.187212/
I met that ridge one January night before Q1 existed, I turned right out of Black Horse Court and when a speeding driver got very close I misread the dashed line to indicate that another lane started. No chance when you hit it sideways and I went down impressively, two local women saw it and marched me to Guys for some stitching.

I have had a couple of incidents where the side wall of my back tire has made contact with the side wall of a very slightly raised (<1cm) patch of road/paving stone, and caused a skid. Not dramatic at all at low speeds, but very scary/enough to cause a fall when going quickly.

I don't think these two cases are comparable at all. While the half-height upstand of the inset car parking bays on Great Dover Street is certainly hazardous for riders not expecting it, as you found out, it's really not quite in the same league as that Farringdon Road nonsense. It's lower and not placed in the centre of the carriageway with traffic lanes on either side. Low kerb upstands for inset car parking bays are quite common in certain environments, mainly suburban, but also often on estates, though clearly inappropriate in Great Dover Street.