Drain cover Health and Safety

[RonaldWeasly]

Hi
Does anyone know if there is a regulation for the size of the slots in a drain? I had an accident last week where my front wheel went down a 4.3 cm wide slot and went right over the top and using my face and nose as a brake. What a mess, any advice welcome I am attempting to take it up with Hull City Council but getting nowhere.

 

[ColinJ]

Sorry to hear that, Ronald. GWS!

I think that you will probably be out of luck with any claim because those slots are oriented in a direction that should have been safe to ride over. Were you trying to ride over the drain cover at an angle?

There is a lethal one up here which almost caught me out once. See below, posted in another thread on the same subject...

Those slots are wheel-wreckers if you cross the pavement onto the grate, but at least the slots are perpendicular to the normal direction of travel.

On one of my local rides I encountered a potentially lethal drain cover with the slots parallel to my direction of travel... and way out into the road. (I think that the road had been widened at some point.) It is on a bend just after a downhill so I was still going quite quickly when I came to it. I was looking around at the scenery so I didn't spot it until the last moment. I only just managed to avoid it!

View attachment 789925
The slots are at least divided in two by a bar across them, but I think I would still have crashed and maybe damaged my front wheel if it had got wedged in one of the slots.

 

[fossyant]

Were you trying to turn over the grid ? There is nothing wrong with those grids and probably as safe as you get.

Generally avoid any metal road fittings as damp, metal and rubber don't mix.

Sorry, not what you wanted to hear

 

[Dogtrousers]

There was a thread on this subject recently https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/c...ways-—-drain-cover-gully-grate-damage.306527/

Hope you recover soon.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

What about this one??

St Johns Square
St Johns
Wakefield

It might have changed by now, that’s a 2018 photograph
I remembered that l had it on my Facebook albums

As An Aside
St Johns was possibly the first 'planned suburbs' in the country, in the 1830s
http://www.wakefield-stjohns.org.uk/stjohns/stjohns/St_Johns_Church_History.html

Ings Road. to the south of the city centre, is also supposed have been one of the first 'bypasses' in the country (1820s), to prevent livestock going to the cattle-markets blocking city streets

A few more here

 

[Drago]

Gully grates are covered by BS EN 124:2015