Rider Down (me) Vauxhall Bridge Road

Took a tumble southbound on Vauxhall Bridge Road, it had just started raining and the newly painted road markings are lethal! Slipped on the bus lane lettering.

Be careful.

Now sitting in St Thomas's with cuts to nose, face, legs, hands and a suspected broken elbow and both wrists!

I was aware of the new markings but had no idea they'd be that slippy, EVERYONE BE FUCKING CAREFUL!

I'll be writing to Westminster for there're lack of warning about the new road markings!

Heal up soon!

It really wouldn't be that expensive to mix a grit into the paint to make it anti slip. Sad that such avoidable accidents happen needlessly. Get well soon.

Ouuuchhhh. Sounds really nasty. Heal up.

Anyone know what department I could raise this with at Westminster Council?

If anyone's cycling that way today (Southbound on Vauxhall Bridge Road) it would be amazing if someone could possibly take some photos of the road markings, and the fact that I don't think (I may have been mistaken) there were any warning signs for cyclists of the new road markings.

I'd like to suggest they use anti slip paint for these!

Absolutely, I will write to Westminster council about this

Bad luck, heal up soon. While you're writing your letter it may also be worth mentioning the drain cover on the superhighway right on the corner of Vauxhall Road and Albert Embankment. When it's wet, it's only a matter of time before someone takes a spill off that whilst rounding the corner towards the lights.

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Ouch. Heal up buddy. Hope you're doing well and not too sore today.

that would not be a good place to slide off, especially as people head down off the bridge at pace!

However that's in Lambeth, not sure my wrists currently allow the typing of two letters!

not too bad today, just needto drink lots of liquids to stop the shoulder I can't move from cramping up, which is actually more painful than the brakes themselves.

Have the fracture clinic tomorrow to find out the long term plan for casts etc.

The doctor suggested that the arm with a broken wrist only may just need a splint, which would quite frankly mean my day to day life would be easier!

at pace

That's one thing that bothers me a lot.
These cycle tracks were not meant to be ridden on at speed, and rightly so.
Still over 80% (my own estimate) do so and that's f***ing dangerous.
I seriously consider wether to use the road with cars or the cycle track every time I am near one.

I know cars, can predict them, they are used to us.

Cyclists are unpredictable.

Sorry to hear that you've had such an awful spill. Heal up quick!

Those road markings are a bitch. It's because they are reflective, and they get the reflectivity from tiny glass beads in the paint. It means they stay reflective for a long time, but it also means they are very scary in the wet, especially on fresh markings.

Ouchies.

St Thomas' fracture clinic is world class.
You're in good hands.
HTFU and give Mr Gidwani my regards.

You have to wonder if retrorelective paint is really needed where there are streetlights...

agree, there appears to have been little education for both cyclists and how to use the cycle lanes and for motorists and the purpose of them.

I have never entirely agreed with the mass rollout of the cycle lanes alone in London being the correct solution.

Should there not be some type of warning for cyclists about this paint particularly when freshly painted? Or perhaps it is not sensible to use this paint on the CS5 Cycle Super Highway where 100s of cyclists cycle every day??

I'm not really sure how I could have avoided this accident.

I know warning signs do exist in some council areas ... they must be a good idea. In my opinion, surface signing such as "Bus Lane" should be and often is written into high grip (Shell Grip, calcined bauxite) surfaces. Just a shame it's not done that way everywhere.

I am about to go to one of these advanced course that TfL and local councils are offering, I'll be sure to ask how they are getting ready (if not already) about educating people on the use of these cycle tracks.

Glad you didn't break anything @jazzythumper. My back wheel slipped out on some of the ridged cycle paving (who the hell invented this?!) around Vauxhall Cross when it was raining one day and I broke my bloody hip!

I see people doing stupid things all the time on the superhighways: going too fast, overtaking dangerously, using mobile phones (for texting and calls), failing to indicate or adhere to the bike traffic light system...basically what cyclists do on regular roads but x 10 :)

er...i did, both wrists and my right elbow

I went back today to try to understand what happened.

The paint while relatively new is not brand new, i took pictures, it is clearly not anti-slip, it is raised up. I guess it's as old as the adjustments to the cycle super highway made earlier this year, so no reason to have warning signs up?

There is a manhole cover directly after one of the bus stop road markings, but i would have needed to tumble 50m from there to where i end up on the ground if that was the cause.

I guess I just have to put this down to an unlucky accident and focus on recovering.

It would be good if the roads in Westminster were safer.

ridged cycle paving (who the hell invented this?!)

It's not, strictly speaking, 'cycle paving', but (I assume that's what you're talking about) corduroy paving that's tappable, for visually impaired stick users, to signal the transition between different kinds of environment/facility.

There has been talk for a long time of developing different kinds of alert systems (mostly computer or GPS-based), but they still haven't happened--progress is held up by too many technical possibilities, I think.

Sorry to hear about your injuries, jazzythumper. I haven't seen the markings in question, but if they're raised, that suggests they are simply painted, as bus lane markings generally are. Road markings are obviously renewed all the time, and one almost never hears about crashes being caused by them. It might be worth investigating whether perhaps one of the lines was raised too high, i.e. the paint was applied too thickly, so that it was the upstand that would have caused your fall. It was most definitely not any kind of slipperiness. It's a well-known problem that a large number of falls occur when people ride over slight upstands, e.g. at kerbs, that they don't expect and for which they don't have any evasive strategy. When I say 'slight', I mean that; it can be a matter of millimetres. This particularly affects older riders.

It may sound ridiculous to explore this, but notwithstanding how minor the particular feature of the markings may have been, you suffered some pretty serious injuries, and I believe there are regulations for the upstand of the paint in road markings. It's certainly unlucky, but that doesn't necessarily absolve the highway authority (in this case TfL) of responsibility, silly though it may sound to argue over millimetres.

Thanks for your thoughts, I have been back to the site of the accident, here are some photos of the road markings, I am fairly convinced that i didn't hit the manhole unless I went flying 50m down the road to where I ended up, but could be wrong.

I do have the contact of a witness so may need her version of events.

Here are some photos of the road markings are they unnecessarily bumpy? I believe the maximum raised height is 5mm?