CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure

Sunken Manhole Covers and Accidents

(15 posts)

  1. Jester
    Member

    It's been a long time since I posted on here, and unfortunately a long time since I've been out on my bike.

    In July 2023 I had an accident on Gorgie Road, where I came off my bike after my bike caught the edge of a sunken manhole cover. I broke my hip and had surgery that day to screw my hip back together.

    I reported the accident scene to Edinburgh City Council, and you can see the pictures HERE in Fix My Street.

    The Council deemed this as "not a safety risk".

    I have a lawyer, and one of the questions they asked was if I was aware of any similar accidents at this site, or at similar locations around the city. Unfortunately I didn't know of any, and was wondering if any of the forum users here might be able to help?

    I thought that the occupant of the "best seat on the bus" might know of some, as he has such a fantastic view of the city's roads. If anyone has any links to anything from the council in relation to this topic that would be very helpful also.

    Thanks in advance.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  2. CocoShepherd
    Member

    Sorry to hear about your accident. That really is awful.

    No accident reports to share but completely share your view that these are dangerous to people-on-bikes. Those in the council who don't consider them dangerous are thinking about the covers from a people-in-cars perspective.

    I'd also suggest that since they seem to be covering a significant proportion of the lane, are below the level of the road and are "hidden" underneath a bridge, then they are particularly difficult to navigate on a bike. Underneath bridges also more likely to be damp or wet hence more slippy.

    Could you contact Cycle Law Scotland and ask if they have any numbers that they could share with you? Or even FOI the council and ask how many reports have they had of accidents involving metal work in the road? Apologies if you have already considered these.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  3. CocoShepherd
    Member

    I mean metal manhole covers are similar in a sense to tram tracks, just a bit wider. If the council can (or can't) accept that tram tracks are a risk to humans-on-bikes then why can't they accept that manhole covers are too?

    Posted 3 months ago #

  4. chdot
    Admin

    Spokes collects details on tram related incidents, may have other ‘metalwork’ info.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  5. chdot
    Admin

    Your lawyer may or may not be interested in this -

    “

    I have a strong hunch that the fatal crash at Shandwick Place was not caused by the tram rails but the sunken manhole at the same location, much as several other crashes have not been caused by the tram rails.

    “

    http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=17809&page=2#post-253152

    http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=17789&page=9#post-253150

    Posted 3 months ago #

  6. Morningsider
    Member

    I have checked Crashmap, which shows no single vehicle pedal cycle crashes at this site over the last 24 years.

    You might want to play around with this a bit. However, I reckon data on single vehicle cycle crashes is rarely collected - data is collected by the police and only if there has been an injury to any party involved.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  7. Jester
    Member

    @CocoShepherd Thanks for that. I agree, any metalwork is dangerous. I came off years ago on the tram tracks at Haymarket. Luckily my helmet took the impact and I was otherwise not seriously injured.

    I've already submitted an FOI to the council. Cycle Law Scotland are next on my to-do list.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  8. Jester
    Member

    @chdot: Thanks that has been very helpful. Would you or anyone else happen to know the outcome of the FAI?

    Posted 3 months ago #

  9. Jester
    Member

    @Morningsider: Thank you. I had already tried to play around with that, but found that it stopped recording in 2022. As you say, there's a lot of data which simply doesn't get recorded, and it would be horrendously expensive to get the data, as the brief descriptions are simply too vague to help.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  10. Frenchy
    Member

    There hasn't been an FAI into Zhi Min Soh's death.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  11. chdot
    Admin

    “@chdot: Thanks that has been very helpful. Would you or anyone else happen to know the outcome of the FAI?”

    Sadly

    VERY sadly

    I think Frenchy is correct.

    Really is worse than ‘scandalous’.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  12. Jester
    Member

    That's utterly shocking.

    We have politicians who demand an inquiry at the drop of the hat, merely because they know they can feed off the headlines, irrespective of the outcome.

    Yet there was no FAI into the death of a cyclist on one of Edinburgh's main roads?

    Scandalous.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  13. Morningsider
    Member

    The UK Department for Transport holds all the STATS19 data (all the individual police reports used to produce the crashmap website). It has a data tool that allows for some analysis, including whether the road at a site of a crash was defective in some way.

    While the tool is fairly rudimentary, a search shows that defective road surfaces are only recorded at a handful of crash sites in Edinburgh every year (a range of 0 to 3 annually over the last four years). Many of these will not involve bikes. Given the very low numbers of recorded incidents, I doubt you could make a data driven case that sunken manhole covers pose a significant risk to Edinburgh cyclists.

    That isn't to say that they don't pose a risk, they clearly do, just that the data doesn't exist.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  14. Jester
    Member

    Response from Edinburgh City Council to my FOI request is now public.
    FOI Response

    Posted 2 months ago #

  15. gembo
    Member

    That is a through answer an officer of the council has been diverted from their day job to provide this info.

    It hangs well though only 2 reported pothole left I repaired seems low.

    Posted 2 months ago #

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