2009-08-12 - Rider Down, North end Blackfriars Bridge

they shut the whole south-north side of the bridge down, big old TNT lorry, lots of mess, ambulances, fire engines, a very shaken up sounding policeman screaming at cyclist passerby that no, she couldn't just nip through the scene.

apparently it was a female cyclist. bad stuff. not intending to hijack my own thread, but anyone have any suggestions on ways to deal with the fear after an accident? haven't been back on my bike long and this was pretty upsetting.

damn!
sounds pretty serious. don't like the sound of the "lots of mess" bit.
It can be upsetting just witnessing the aftermath of an accident, so, i know what you mean.
I think you need to get back on the bike, and just ride safe and sensibly. Or maybe cycle, where possible, with another person, or on a route that avoids as much as possible, busy roads, junctions etc. I realise this may be hard, but it will probably, slowly, help reinstate a degree of confidence.

shit another, sounds bad too.

fluff, Knew a girl who got a scooter, and loved it, loved it for the first six months or so, had an accident, bruised, and scrapped herself and never got back on it. she's now cycling and I wonder whether the first time she takes a tumble on the bike whether she'll do the same thing. You had a much worse accident and your back on the bike, which is the first big step.
Get back on, and ride, break down how the accident occurred and see if there was anything you could have done differently, if so adjust your riding in the future to take this into account, if not, you've just got to suck it up and accept that accidents do happen in our arbitraily random world. Being on two wheels is always going to be inherently more dangerous than four wheels, and you'll always have more spills/accidents/stacks. You've just got to realise this and as long as the accidents/stacks aren't too painful, the pleasure of riding should outweigh the pain.
If the joy of riding doesn't overcome the fear of falling off and hurting yourself again then its time to put the bike away.
I've fallen off and broken bones on motorbikes and bicycles, but I LOVE riding them too much to give it up and as soon as I can I'm back on them, also the thought of getting back on is what got me through most of the pain/boredom/recriminations after each of my accidents.

+1 Broker.....edit> and Corny.
bad. Get back out on yer bike tho Fluff.....just be careful and don't ride down the inside of anything.

There's something about Blackfriars Bridge that is a curse on cyclists. I've never had a problem myself but it just feels wrong and I've seen a couple of incidents there.

As for the aftermath. I suggest thinking about yourself as an individual rather than part of a group. Feeling persecuted/marginalised/overly vulnerable because of your status as a cyclist isn't particularly rational. I realise that it's hard to reconcile seeing the aftermath of an accident and rationality. Also, in reality, millions of miles are cycled in this country everyday without incident and even when accidents do happen, the high majority of them result in less than significant injuries or damage.

in a way fluff all you can do is ride sensibly, to the best of your abilities - whatever that may mean for you. It's easy not to always ride to the best of your abilities (after a few drinks, or early morning tiredness) and lots of people don't always ride sensibly. But where trucks/coaches etc. are involved - thanks mostly to this forum (esp Buffalo Bill), you've got all the informtaion available to know to take it as easy as you need to. Beyond that, if it's not your fault and it still happens, then you can only be philosophical about it, surely? Either that or you submit to fear and stop cycling, which would be a damn shame as it's such a beautiful thing to do.

I got pretty shaken up this morning when someone tried to kill me just to make a point. Red van man was annoyed because I was going too slowly for him, so he whizzed round me to the right then crossed right in front of me insanely quickly and very close to take a left turning. I mean, I was fucking close to being in an ambulance. It actually really upset me that people like that exist; people that actually want you dead or seriously injured. WTF? But I put it out of my mind after a couple of minutes and got on with getting on with it.

Anyway, my point is, that there's a lot of bad in this world, but you can't let in ruin your life. Just concentrate on the positive. The fact that you're back on your bike after an accident is fantastic - try and banish negative thoughts and worry, build your confidence slowly and be happy that you can ride a bike at all.

I hope the poor woman on the bridge is ok. My thoughts are with her.

Terrible news, hope for the best.

That stretch of road has been improved recently in response to another cycling death but it is still dangerous.
For your own safety you have to get over towards the middle lane thing early to avoid people cutting across you.
This can be very daunting and I suspect some problems are caused when a cyclist/cars leave it too late to get positioned in the lane they need to be in.
Issues of lack of confidence and carelessness both come into play.
Unfortunately the bike will always come of worse.

Shocking stuff, one of my guys told me about this just after it had happened.. and then I see the thread has been started.
One of the many spots on central london where after having the relative freedom and speed of an (A) road, meeting the conjestion of the city you notice a change in the behavior of drivers/traffic. As the traffic gets denser drivers get frustrated and start making somewhat erratic manoeuvres in an attempt to push through. Serious assertiveness is needed at spot like this, where as much as I try to avoid it pissing off drivers by taking the middle of the lane... certain spots demand it.
I really really hope she's ok.

Thats bad news. hope she is ok and it was the twat in the van that went for julio that has crashed. but then life isn't like that.

JimJams is right. you got to know your limits and ride within yourself if the situation looks hairy. Let your confidence grow with the miles in your legs.

The hardest bit is staying calm when you are come across pricks but passing that bitterness on just causes more bad vibes. sit high and smile wide man, works every time...

I think John makes a really good point here which if I can widen it out a bit is basically: some of the manoeuvres which are counter-intuitive, seemingly reckless and involve some courage are the ones you've got to get wired in London. Lane switching can be in the face of truly intimidating traffic flow (where even car drivers can be intimidated, let alone cyclists) and to get where you need to be you can be riding one handed, exaggerating signalling and looking backwards at the two or three vehicles behind as they speed towards you, just to get them to slow down so that you can move in the time and distance. Your handlebars kick and buck and you still have to be in the mix because those vehicles have to realise you're waiting for them to get the message that you're moving. In many ways doing the same route day in day out and learning the best way to do it is the only way to master it. Maybe try it out at night a few times when the traffic's not so bad so at least you have your moves sorted out.

The problems arise when some absolute tool makes a move like the one julio describes because they think you're being a cocky twat getting all uppity on his two-wheeler, when all you're doing is riding to equal the traffic. Sympathies out to you Julio, I find this kind of incident shakes me up far more than a near-miss with a car or bus.

It's not easy.

yep horrible stuff indeed. i can see the whole thing from my window (sea containers house on the south side of the bridge). thankfully i'm too far away to see details but i saw someone being taken away on a stretcher. the lorry's still there.

fluff: nothing wrong about feeling fear and being upset by what you saw. It sounds horrible. But to feel better, as others said, concentrate on the statistics - cycling is safer than walking by some counts - and do something positive, like read cyclecraft again.

Get a cup of tea and try not to think about it.

That sounds bad, Blackfriars Bridge was a cycling death trap 'til they changed that retarded bike lane going north... Haven't seen many accidents since then... Hope the cyclist's OK... :(
I nearly got squished myself today on Regent Street, completely my fault, trying to get between a bus and a van at the lights, which went green before I got to the box... Gonna back off a bit I think...
Back in the saddle Fluff, it's the only way...

I avoid Blackfriars mainly because the road surfaces either side of it are bloody awful.

Hope the woman's alright, I always find it makes me focus when I have a close call, gets me right back into that Terminator like state of high-awareness.

Sad stuff, healing vibes to whoever got hurt- hope it's not one of us.

North end of BF bridge is a cyclists horror story.

Seems pretty fucked up out there on the roads this week...

i got floored (gracefully i should add) by a bus last Wednesday, road works everywhere and i got trapped between a roadwork temp fence and an on-coming bus, wasn't a lot of room so i held the track stand untill i realised the back of the bus was going to apex me
Got back enough to get away with bruised hand and london red stripe down the right side of the handlebars. tidy...

Tragic - it's the turn in weather and the kids being back at school. picks up the traffic
it's time to get our the lights, lid, waterproofs and start getting in there way

I saw that this morning.....it was pretty chaotic - ambulances/police/fire engines everywhere. I hope she's ok. thats a dodgy junction there...i ride up blackfriars everyday and i've been caught out at that spot by cars turning left a couple of times. They used to have the cycle lane down the middle of BF bridge, until a serious accident occured so they widened and moved the cycle lane to the left. i wonder what they will do this time?! put the cycle lane on the right?? much of our road system needs to be reassessed to safely accomodate cyclists. give way signs and lights need to be put in place - there is no point in having a cycle lane that leads directly into traffic! If they had a give way sign there then cars would know they have to wait or it would at least make them more aware that cyclist are moving forward.

Fluff - It's great that you are back on your bike. thats the first step. i've suffered a couple of incidents where i've come off my bike and i understand how off putting it is. the last time it happened, it was only out of sheer determination that i got back on my bike. i didn't want to and riding really wasn't enjoyable for a while but i was determined not to let (in my case) a pchycho driver put me off. i changed my commute to quieter streets. i rode with friends and went on little trips outside of the city which was really enjoyable and generally just took it easy until i regained my confidence.

loads of people (bikes, cars , scooters) jump the lights there, without looking. which is dangerous as the traffic going southbound on the other side often has right of way to do a hard right across your path.

it's a real mess of a place, and so much busier than when I used to use it regularly, incredibly so.

even an experienced driver/cyclist needs to have eyes all over the place round there

Fluff; if Wigan can do it so can Skem.

write to your mp.

tell him / her you think it is outrageous that we have to suffer like this - cos others wanna pollute.

First off - my thoughts have been with the cyclist and all involved since the accident and like others sincerley wish the best outcome and a speedy recovery.

I walked past shortly after the incident briefly stopping to assess the situation - four/five people including occupant/s of lorry seeing to cyclyst and clearly on mobile phones in contact with emergency services. There were a few, maybe less than ten onlookers together with the normal traffic congestion at that time.
Accident occured between 09:30 & 09:35 morning of Friday 12th September 2008 - weather and road conditions good and dry. TNT delivery lorry came to rest across pedestrian crossing, left filter lane to embankment. Cyclist pinned face down, lorry's front left tyre traping person between legs. Mangled bike on road several feet away from rear of lorry, apporx. 10-15 foot (5m) skid mark on road and debries upto about maybe 20 foot or so (7m).

As I continued walking south across the bridge an abulance was making it's way North toward the accident.

Ironically about 100 yards further south from the bridge two police motor cylist were in the process of booking a cyclist appearing oblivious to the unfolding mayhem at the North side of bridge...