Cyclists paid £1.2m in Edinburgh tram line compensation

[swldx...@gmail.com]

More than £1.2m has been paid out to cyclists who have fallen off their bike on Edinburgh's tram line.

New data shows a total of 196 successful claims have been made against Edinburgh City Council since 2012 by cyclists who sustained injuries or damage to their bike after slipping on tracks or getting wheels stuck.

In total there have been 422 accidents involving cyclists on tram tracks.

The vast majority of these occurred on Princes Street and around Haymarket.

Edinburgh City Council said it had made a series of safety improvements for cyclists crossing the tram lines in recent years.

But campaigners say these have come "slowly and too late".

In 2017 a cyclist died after her wheel became stuck in tram tracks and she fell into the path of a minibus in Princes Street.

Councillor Scott Arthur is "really disappointed" a tram junction where a student died five years ago has yet to be fixed

And in 2019 two cyclists won damages in a test civil legal case after they were thrown from their bikes while crossing tram tracks.

Prof Chris Oliver, of the Spokes Lothian Cycle Campaign, said: "I'm not unsurprised that trams system related cycling injuries continue.

"Spokes originally advised prior to the construction of the Edinburgh Tram line that the infrastructure should be protected and that cyclists should not be freely mixed with trams. An expert even came over to advise but the advice was not heeded.

"There have been some recent improvements but these have come slowly and too late. I'm sure there will be continual waves of litigation from injured cyclists."
Data released under freedom of information laws shows that since 2012 - two years before the trams were first operating - a total of £1,262,141 in damages has been paid out by Edinburgh City Council.

Edinburgh's transport convener Scott Arthur said: "It is important to note that some of these claims pre-date the opening of the line and the many safety improvements made since then.

"Nonetheless, the number of claims submitted is concerning to me. I am committed to ensuring the safety of all road users, and I know that over the last five years the council has been working on a phased package of improvements to cycle safety along the tram route.

"The council is now in the process of completing phase three of the project, which includes significant changes to the road layouts at six junctions to give greater priority to people on bikes."

He went on to voice his dismay that more safety improvements had not been made at the junction where medical student Zhi Min Soh, 23, died in 2017.

Mr Arthur told the BBC: "It really disappoints me that five years after the death of that Edinburgh University student we've still not got those fixes in place for that junction. "It is something I have been prioritising since becoming transport convener."

Safety changes made in recent years have included new red-surfaced cycle lanes at key points along the tram route to direct cyclists on the safest route to cross the tram tracks to avoid getting their wheels stuck.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-62969521

[Spike]

swldx...@gmail.com <swldx...@gmail.com> wrote:

> More than £1.2m has been paid out to cyclists who have fallen off their
> bike on Edinburgh's tram line.

> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-62969521

The solution is easy and cheap: ban cyclists from roads with tramlines in
it.

If cyclists won’t learn, then they will have to suffer the consequences.

--
Spike

[Spike]

swldx...@gmail.com <swldx...@gmail.com> wrote:

> More than £1.2m has been paid out to cyclists who have fallen off their
> bike on Edinburgh's tram line.

For a wild moment there, I thought the Subject line meant that cyclists had
actually dipped into their own pockets to pay for something!

🎼🎸That’ll be the day🎸🎼

--
Spike

[JNugent]

On 23/09/2022 07:33 pm, swldx...@gmail.com wrote:

> More than £1.2m has been paid out to [fairy-]cyclists who have fallen off their bike [sic] on Edinburgh's tram line.

You're not allowed to ride more that one to a bike, are you?

[JNugent]

:-)

[swldx...@gmail.com]

On Friday, September 23, 2022 at 7:33:59 PM UTC+1, swldx...@gmail.com wrote:
> More than £1.2m has been paid out to cyclists who have fallen off their bike on Edinburgh's tram line.

Yet the idiot pedestrians who fall over orcas and the moron drivers that hit cycle lane wands got bugger all. :-)

[Brian]

swldx...@gmail.com <swldx...@gmail.com> wrote:
> More than £1.2m has been paid out to cyclists who have fallen off their
> bike on Edinburgh's tram line.
>
> New data shows a total of 196 successful claims have been made against
> Edinburgh City Council since 2012 by cyclists who sustained injuries or
> damage to their bike after slipping on tracks or getting wheels stuck.
>

So incompetent cyclists at being compensated for being incompetent.

Why don’t they get their eyes tested and look where they are going?

Tramlines are common in European cities, cyclists seem to manage to avoid
falling off there.

[swldx...@gmail.com]

Update: Sussex Police have said they are investigating a video we reported on yesterday that was posted to Facebook and shows a motorist driving into wands on an emergency protected cycle lane in Brighton.

The force told road.cc: “We are aware of a video circulating on social media which appears to show a vehicle colliding with bollards in a cycle lane on Brighton seafront.

“This has been reported to us, and our enquiries are ongoing to identify the driver and to establish if any offences have been committed.

“Anyone with any information about the incident is urged to contact us online or call 101, quoting serial 548 of 30/08."

The video itself, which was included in our original report, has since either been deleted from Facebook or made private.

Meanwhile, we have been told that the person the driver named as "my old mate" is likely to be Brighton businessman Robbie Raggio and not former West Sussex county councillor Robin Rogers.

Our original report, published at 1430hrs on Monday 31 August 2020 appears below.

Footage ​has been posted to social media of a Brighton driver deliberately clattering a row of wands forming an emergency cycle lane along the city’s seafront – resulting in him breaking his vehicle’s wing mirror.

The video, which appears to have been filmed by the driver, was posted to Facebook on 23 August (link is external)by Julie Dawes.

She wrote: “Someone very close to me is a very bad boy … we really don’t need another cycling lane or Green Party to be voted in again.”

[Video that originally appeared here has since been removed from Facebook or made private]

In the video, the driver can be heard saying: “This is for my friend Robin Rogers and your shitty bike lanes.”

To the background sound of the vehicle hitting the wands, he says: “There you go, Robbie, here you go, mate. Fucking load of bollocks, innit?

“There you go, mate, they get a proper little bashing for you.”

He adds with a chuckle: “Ooh, I’ve knocked me wing mirror off. Knocked it right off.”

There is no-one of the name Robin Rogers currently sitting on either West Sussex County Council, which is the local highways authority, nor on Brighton & Hove City Council.

A Liberal Democrat councillor of that name represented Worthing’s Northbrook ward on the county council until 2017 and did not stand for re-election that year, when the seat was won by the Conservatives.

Judging by the comments on the Facebook post, it appears a number of people are aware who the driver is, with several congratulating him, one saying “Only him.”

Another asked, “Hero … can he come and do Worthing too” to which the original poster replied, “lol they do bounce back again.”

Sussex Police was alerted to the video on Twitter, and we have asked them if they are investigating the incident.

According to local newspaper The Argus (link is external), there has been some vocal local opposition to the city’s temporary cycle lanes, announced in June and which opened the week before last.

In recent days, part of the same protected cycle lane, this section running from the Aquarium roundabout to West Street, was removed just days after it opened.

Green Party councillor Pete West, who chairs Brighton & Hove City Council’s environment, transport and sustainability committee, said: “Congestion on this stretch has had a knock-on for major bus routes and delays to bus journey times – that is unacceptable.

"Sadly, attempted changes to adjust traffic light timings have not provided the answers needed as there is still insufficient capacity for the volume of traffic heading towards West Street,” he added.

As we reported last week, the Bike Is Best campaign group, which brings together more than 50 cycle brands and organisations, wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to warn that delays in implementing infrastructure projects and local authorities caving in to opponents of such schemes risked wrecking his vision of “a new golden age of cycling.”

We also reported how in a Low Traffic Neighbourhood unveiled last week in Ealing, planters designed to stop motorists using residential streets as rat runs had been vandalised or moved, with similar incidents happening in other London boroughs.

https://road.cc/content/news/update-police-investigate-brighton-driver-clattering-wands-276907

[Spike]

Our resident loony frequently refers to the Netherlands and Amsterdam as a
cycling paradise. One wonders why he doesn’t go and live there. However….

“One of the most popular parts of Amsterdam's public transport network is
the city's reliable and frequent tram service. Many of the city's trams
terminate at Amsterdam Central Station. There are two tram 'stations'
outside the front of Central Station – one on the east side, one on the
west side. They are just a short walk apart and from both areas, trams go
towards the city centre before radiating outwards to different
neighbourhoods and districts. Visitors to the city may enjoy this handy
guide to some of the main tram stops in the city centre and their nearby
attractions.”


--
Spike

[swldx...@gmail.com]

Unless you are referring to self-driving cars, then what you really mean is: drivers will hit them with their cars. Anyone who is unable to drive in a 3.5 metre lane without hitting things at the sides should not have a driving licence. How do these people avoid hitting kerbs? If that’s you, then for all our sakes and yours, send your licence back to the DVLA at once.

In any case, if people who are driving can’t do it without hitting things, that’s all the more reason for them to kept separate from people on cycles and people on foot. Better that a few recycled plastic wands and orcas get smashed up than the flesh and bones of human beings.

It should be remembered that the wands are not there to protect people on cycles; it’s the orcas that are there to protect them. The wands are there to protect the orcas from being hit by incompetent drivers and would not be needed if there weren’t so many idiots driving motor vehicles.

[Spike]

swldx...@gmail.com <swldx...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Friday, September 23, 2022 at 8:26:28 PM UTC+1, swldx...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Friday, September 23, 2022 at 7:33:59 PM UTC+1, swldx...@gmail.com wrote:

>>> More than £1.2m has been paid out to cyclists who have fallen off their
>>> bike on Edinburgh's tram line.

>> Yet the idiot pedestrians who fall over orcas and the moron drivers that
>> hit cycle lane wands got bugger all. :-)

> Update: Sussex Police have said they are investigating a video we
> reported on yesterday that was posted to Facebook and shows a motorist
> driving into wands on an emergency protected cycle lane in Brighton.

> https://road.cc/content/news/update-police-investigate-brighton-driver-clattering-wands-276907
>



--
Spike

[Spike]

swldx...@gmail.com <swldx...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Unless you are referring to self-driving cars, then what you really mean
> is: drivers will hit them with their cars. Anyone who is unable to drive
> in a 3.5 metre lane without hitting things at the sides should not have a
> driving licence. How do these people avoid hitting kerbs? If that’s you,
> then for all our sakes and yours, send your licence back to the DVLA at once.

You think that’s bad?

How do so many cyclists get stuck in tram tracks and injure themselves?
Don’t they look where they are going? How do cyclists in Amsterdam manage
not to be as dim as Edinburgh ones?

If that’s the state of play for cyclists in the UK, they ought to send
their licences back. Oh! They don’t have licenses! Perhaps that says
something…


--
Spike

[swldx...@gmail.com]

> Update: Sussex Police have said they are investigating a video we reported on yesterday that was posted to Facebook and shows a motorist driving into wands on an emergency protected cycle lane in Brighton.
>

I like feeling smugly superior in the knowledge that the sort of person that objects to people on bikes being a bit safer is also the sort of person that commits criminal acts and then posts the evidence online for all to see.

What a moron.

QUITE.

[JNugent]

"Entitled" British fairy-cyclists really are the pits.

You only have to have experience of driving in Italy and the Netherlands
(each having a larger proportion of fairy-cyclists than the UK) to
realise this.

[swldx...@gmail.com]

Interesting picture. The double yellows are effectively enforced by the wands - no more fudging the issue by parking in the cycle lane or on the pavement - either keep driving or try and park in the traffic lane.

So now it's a through route only, from elsewhere to elsewhere. At which point you have to ask why the traffic even goes through the High Street, it makes no sense.

Shoppers voting with their feet and purses have resoundingly said No to motorised high streets. Round here we have a sadly dilapidated High Street, and a thriving retail park. The retail park is mostly one huge mall where pedestrian avenues take the place of congested roads. Which would you rather stroll along - its a no-brainer.

Perversely, the business in the High Street have vociferously opposed all attempts at pedestrianisation, insisting that their salvation lies in a street clogged with cars, until only charity shops and pawn brokers remain. Even the banks and phone boutiques have gone.

[Spike]

> Perversely, the business in the High Street have vociferously opposed all
> attempts at pedestrianisation, insisting that their salvation lies in a
> street clogged with cars, until only charity shops and pawn brokers
> remain. Even the banks and phone boutiques have gone.

Banks have been closing branches for decades, and it has nothing whatsoever
to do with pedestrianisation. Banks are in it to a) make money and b) spend
as little as possible; branches cost money.

What the deuce is a ‘phone boutique’?

Up to 1940 there was a blacksmith in our local row of shops - times move
and frequently business don’t. Get over it.

🦖🦕🪦

--
Spike

[swldx...@gmail.com]

>>Even the banks and phone boutiques have gone.<

It will be crawling with bankers soon.

[JNugent]

On 25/09/2022 01:57 pm, Spike wrote:
>
>> Perversely, the business in the High Street have vociferously opposed all
>> attempts at pedestrianisation, insisting that their salvation lies in a
>> street clogged with cars, until only charity shops and pawn brokers
>> remain. Even the banks and phone boutiques have gone.
>
> Banks have been closing branches for decades, and it has nothing whatsoever
> to do with pedestrianisation. Banks are in it to a) make money and b) spend
> as little as possible; branches cost money.

TBH, branches are nowhere near as necessary as they once were.

Between the start of the pandemic restrictions (March 2020) and a couple
of weeks ago, we had no need to enter a bank branch. It's all online.

> What the deuce is a ‘phone boutique’?

> Up to 1940 there was a blacksmith in our local row of shops - times move
> and frequently business don’t. Get over it.
>
> 🦖🦕🪦

There used to be a cobbler's shop near my grandfather's house.

If it's still there, I wonder whether he's re-soled the shoes I left
there in 1976?

Or if I were to go into the shop (and if it's still trading), would the
proprietor tell me that they'll be ready next Tuesday?

[swldx...@gmail.com]

Birmingham letting agent employees accused of vandalising cycle lane wands to park their cars. In the footage, a driver is shown parking inside a cycle lane with recently installed 'wands' on Carver Street in Birmingham. At least five cars are parked inside the cycle lane - rendering it useless - and after attempting to bend a wand and pull it out of the ground, two people are then shown unscrewing and removing it entirely.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1305910285459509248

[TMS320]

On 24/09/2022 19:12, Brian wrote:
> swldx...@gmail.com <swldx...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> More than £1.2m has been paid out to cyclists who have fallen off
>> their bike on Edinburgh's tram line.
>>
>> New data shows a total of 196 successful claims have been made
>> against Edinburgh City Council since 2012 by cyclists who
>> sustained injuries or damage to their bike after slipping on tracks
>> or getting wheels stuck.
>>
> So incompetent cyclists at being compensated for being incompetent.

It's rather like compensating drivers that fail to see potholes.

> Why don’t they get their eyes tested and look where they are going?

They are looking.

Usually at the pedestrians that wander into the road completely
oblivious to cyclists. It's quite remarlkable how few pedestrians fall
under bicycle wheels.

> Tramlines are common in European cities, cyclists seem to manage to
> avoid falling off there.

How do you know they don't?

On the other hand, I suspect other European cities don't mark out cycle
lanes righ tbetween the tracks or in the 2ft gap between kerb and track.