I've posted a response to the video & responding the Hankchief's e-mail
Here's the response
The level crossing is Network Rail 'premises' and any incident requiring a stay in hospital should be reported to H&S Commission (and ORR) under the RIDDOR process. Other incidents should be reported to Network Rail as injury events on their premises as no train is involved and a cyclist landing on the crossing is unlikely to derail a train RAIB rarely takes an interest in investigating these crashes. I have the check-sheets for the level of reporting, and the RIDDOR forms.
Whilst not technically a road that the Police would record crashes for Stats19, many officers will record this (noting that Stats20 gives an example of recording a single vehicle crash for a bicycle). Highland Council (unless the A835 is managed by a Roads Scotland contractor) may also be recording these crashes (Section 39)
It might make a useful matrix to check the reported crashes, against the records logged with HSC/ORR, Network Rail, Police Scotland, Highland Council, Roads Scotland, and the local A&E/ambulance services.
It does appear that the promotion of NC500 has increased the number of cyclists using Garve, most of the Outer Islands Tours tend to travel by car or coach from landing at Ullapool.
Very extraordinarily this level crossing replaced the bridge in the mid 1980's and the original rubber crossing panels had major problems with the adverse loadings that 44T fish trucks placed on the road surface as there is a shallow reverse curve as the road crosses the railway. In the early years the original rubber panels would pop up when they got pulled loose bit the derailment at Croxton (2006) saw this addressed, and now the crossing has STRAIL panels. Noting the incident (Victory Crossing Taunton) where a wheelchair got stuck and was hit by a train (the user threw himself clear) the crossing at Garve has 2 clear pedestrian strips over a metre wide, with properly built up approaches.
A rough measurement from Google Maps has the road plus pedestrian strips at approx 10-11 metres (a modern single carriageway road is 7.5-8 metres) The crossing length seems to read as 37 metres. I have not measured the skew, but this seems to be a slightly larger angle to the crossing at Aiskew on the A684 near Leeming (a popular route for many road clubs). This was a notorious crossing felling typically 1 rider per month with a serious injury, and killing a rider in 2007. In 2013 it was the first site in the UK to receive veloSTRAIL panels, and the problems vanished. The road at Aiskew is 7.3m between kerbs and the crossing is 42 metres long. Network Rail has had a programme of dealing with skew crossings including Springbank in Hull another site with a steady flow of falls (CyclingUK solicitors had 18-20 valid cases on their file at one time). The work is either done when the crossing is being replaced, or the 4-foot panels are switched over with a regular STRAIL crossing. Not all panels will need replacing as a strip on each side can be sufficient, and early systems need to be completely replaced.
I would be very interested to know whether it really was the flangeway groove which felled the riders as pictures from 2015 (Google) show the concrete threshold kerbs where the rubber panels land and the tarmac butts up to the concrete, looking a bit rough. As you might have experienced, striking any step in the surface obliquely can also knock the wheels out from beneath you. Many experienced riders can pin point exactly what detail deflected their tyre, and the drop-into-slot crashes are often when the cyclist crosses too slowly and the turning force is greater than the forward inertia of the bike (usually when something forces them to slow down or change their original path across the rails)
I'd be interested in developing this matrix of crash records, id the various sources/listings can be listed. Worth a tweet?
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