Bicycle Crash - London To Brighton Bike Ride

19th July 2010

I hit a pothole during this year's London To Brighton Bike Ride and was thrown off my bike. I suffered 2 broken teeth and some fairly nasty cuts to my elbows and knees (and potentially some nerve damage to my elbows), plus some bike damage.

I've taken photos of the pothole in question (with tape measures etc), reported it to the relevant council and have applied for the FOI info from the council. I'll obviously be looking at that closely when it arrives, but aside from that, on the BHF website before the race, the organisers stated that they had reported the condition of the route to the relevant councils beforehand (I've yet to find out how long before the race and if they actually identified individual potholes/sections of road etc). I can't imagine the organisers would have spent the time and resources reporting each individual pothole on the 54 mile route, so if this is the case, does this still mean they 'officially reported' to the councils?

The section of road in question, to my knowledge, is regularly used as part of the route, so the council would have been aware of the impending 27,000 cyclists. Do you know if the organisers have a 'duty of care' also?

On another note, thank you for the website - it has been really useful so far and it's interesting to hear other peoples' stories.

Replies (1)

Potholes.co.uk Expert     posted : 21/07/10 at 9:16 am

Sounds nasty - I wish you a speedy recovery.

Duty of care is a legal issue, so you will need some proper legal advice, especially as any claim you might make will be for injuries. In my humble opinion, I would be surprised if the organisers did not have some obligation and I would certainly have expected the organisers to have checked the route properly and reported any issues to the local highway authorities, and in good time for the issues to be addressed.

"Time and resources" ... 2 people in a car driving the route both ways. 1 driving and the other making a note of any issues. Would take maybe ½ a day at most. I don't think thats a big ask.

Note - if and when you do claim, and if you are the only claimant, expect to be asked why 26,999 cyclists managed to miss the pothole and you were the only one to hit it. This is a common question to lay the foundations for contributory negligence.