Anatomy of an accident

[Winnershsaint]

On the last Friday of the school summer holidays I was involved in an accident, which leaves me sat in front of my home PC over three weeks later. There are other threads elsewhere that document my injuries etc but I find with time on my hand I am really beginning to analyse the events of that day in more detail. I hope people do not think I am merely being self-indulgent in posting this but I hope by sharing it highlights how even in familar and innocuous situations nasty accidents are never far away. It highlights to me how easy it is to get caught out. In this instance it was a combination of cars being parked in an area which I would automatically place myself for safety to avoid oncoming traffic and poor visibilty due to the low sun. Incidentally it happened around 9:25 am a time when I have never cycled up that stretch of road. At 5pm or at other times of the day those particular conditions simply do not exist.
It happened no more than 500 metres from home. On our small estate there are traffic calming measures in the form of road furniture that protrudes into the road rendering it in places into a single lane road. Two of these exist prior to a small roundabout closer to the road in I live and it was between these two sets of traffic calming devices that I hit the car. I remember little about the actual impact other than it happened and that I ended up sat up bloodied bruised and broken on the road. I do however recall a number of things prior to the impact. Firstly I remember going around the first bit of traffic calming which is on a bend, and having to look ahead to see if there was anything coming the other way from the roundabout as between these two points.This photo shows the traffic calming on the bend and the traffic calming further up (looking in direction of first picture). The roundabout is about 200m from the first picture and the distance from the first picture to the second would be around 150m


What I do recall also is that there were cars parked along the length of the road between these two bits of traffic calming.The third picture is taken just at the end of the first section of traffic calming looking towards the roundabout. The truck which was moving shows how the road is effectively turned into a two way one lane road if anything is parked there. Incidently the car I collided with was parked slightly further up on the left opposite the first house you see in picture three, about 80m from the end of picture one. The parked cars and the bushes on the left conceal the roundabout from view.

So summing up: Once round the traffic calming in picture one my immediate reaction was to pull in left in case there was any oncoming traffic coming from the roundabout that I could not see because of the bushes and the parked cars. As far as i could tell there was nothing coming so I accelerated to go up the slight rise, a manoever I do on an almost daily basis. Unfortunately once in line with the bollards on the left of photo three the sun was in my eyes just above the roof level of houses on the left hand side (not visible in my photo), so momentarily blinded and travelling according my Garmin at just over 16mph I caught the car a glancing blow. I must have seen it at the last minute because I was pitched off to the right, my left leg hit the rear light cluster causing a nasty leg wound and my front wheel must have collided withe rear offside tyre. A little bit to the right and I would have missed it.

 

[oldfatfool]

I have noticed that as soon as these traffic calming measures appear then people think the area between as become designated parking, even though they wouldn't have dreamt of parking there previous. And yes the sun (when we get any) is leathel at this time of year I find myself bumbling along in the van at 2 mph with nobs overtaking in a huff, god knows how they can tell if there is any oncoming traffic

Anyway sorry to hear of your crash, don't dwell on it and hope you are back and riding asap

 

[Winnershsaint]

Thanks for that. I have to confess to feeling a bit of a tit when I am asked about my injuries."Well I hit a parked car actually," doesn't lead to much in the way of sympathy. Must confess to being seriously unimpressed over the attitude and general pushiness of car owner.Gave me less than 24 hours out of A&E bwfore hassling me for money and was oddly less than happy when I told him I had third party insurance cover. Got a theory on this.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Its the low sun this time of year, and in the spring, that can make using the roads dangerous, the worst combination is low sun and a wet road, I wouldn't feel too bad about it, you got caught out by the conditions, something that could have happened to any of us. I have strong memories from when I drove a van as part of my job of driving over the crest of a hill on a dual carriageway at sixty mph and having the windscreen light up, couldn't see a thing for about half a minute, even with the visor down, didn't hit anything but it was very scary. Its something that bothers me when the sun is low like that, the risk of getting rear ended by a blinded driver.

 

[RWright]

The sun got me yesterday evening. I was lucky I was on a split 2 lane road with each lane divided by a grass median. It was at a golf course and no traffic was parked or riding up or down the road. I was going maybe 15mph and had my sunglasses on but the sun still blinded me for what seemed like 10 seconds but was probably closer to 5, just seemed like forever. I could have been in big trouble in closer space riding with traffic around. It was enough to make me think about the problem with the sun much more now, as I am sure you will too. Sorry your lesson was a little harder than mine. I got lucky and hope you get over your injuries soon.