14 year old killed by hit and run driver

[Bristolian]

Another senseless waste of a young life 😥

From Avon & Somerset Police:
"A 14-year-old boy has tragically died after a collision in Stoke Gifford last week.
Leyton Coombs died in hospital on Sunday (23 March) following the collision between his bicycle and a car on Great Stoke Way on Tuesday 18 March.
Our thoughts are with his family at this devastating time. They are being supported by a specially trained officer who will keep them updated as our investigation progresses.
If you witnessed the collision and have not yet spoken to us, please call 101 and give the call handler the reference number 5225080056."

That is all the police have released so far.

As someone that lives locally I've known about this since the evening that the collision happened (the mother asked for witnesses via our local FB group) but his death only became public news today. Someone posted that they had witnessed the collision and have given a statement to the police. I suspect the rumour mill will be in full swing in the next couple of days.

 

[fossyant]

Who the hell can do hit and run.. well lots of people actually. Shocking.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Who the hell can do hit and run.. well lots of people actually. Shocking.

Was this hit and run - I saw the report before and it didn;t seem to say??

 

[Bristolian]

Was this hit and run - I saw the report before and it didn;t seem to say??

Sorry, I should have said that the "witness" stated the driver didn't stop but that he gave the police a description of the vehicle involved (i.e. colour and make/model).

I put the word witness in quotation marks because I have no direct evidence that the person actually did witness the event as he claimed.

 

[Bristolian]

Who the hell can do hit and run.. well lots of people actually. Shocking.

I think it is probably one of the most selfish acts you can you can perform in a motor vehicle. Unfortunately, it is far too common

 

[fossyant]

I think it is probably one of the most selfish acts you can you can perform in a motor vehicle. Unfortunately, it is far too common

Been the victim of it myself TBH... on the bike.

 

[raleighnut]

I've been knocked off by someone who didn't even know he'd hit me.

 

[Arjimlad]

I'm in Winterbourne, not far away... sickening. The poor family. I will continue to report every dangerous or distracted driver I encounter because of cases like this.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I'm in Winterbourne, not far away... sickening. The poor family. I will continue to report every dangerous or distracted driver I encounter because of cases like this.

This is a good point really

For every driver that the cops stop who claims "I was only checking a text for a second"
they know of someone who ended up in hospital (or worse) because of a second's distraction from a driver

 

[Bristolian]

Most drivers don't have a clue how far they travel even in one second; at 30mph that's 14.67 yards (or 13.4 metres).

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I've been knocked off by someone who didn't even know he'd hit me.

Bollocks they didn’t

 

[raleighnut]

Bollocks they didn’t

I don't think he did, it happened when he turned left into a filling station across a bus/cycle lane and forced me into the kerb causing me to somersault over the bars. I picked myself up to see him get out of the car and start re-fuelling so ran/hobbled over and said "You just knocked me off my bike" he hadn't even seen me. A bus had 'waved' him on to turn into the filling station so he did and asked me where was I so I told him "In front of the bus" but he hadn't even looked for a bike and was very apologetic, even gave me his business card (rep for a big plumbing supply company BSS*) but the bike was OK and I was a bit shaken and battered but no cuts or owt so I left it.

BTW this was the accident where if I'd been wearing a helmet I would possibly have broken my neck as I landed on the back of my neck and my rucksack.

* British Steam Specialities famous makers of 'Boss White' pipe jointing/sealing compound in the days before PTFE tape.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

BTW this was the accident where if I'd been wearing a helmet I would possibly have broken my neck

Lol, a helmet would magnify the risk not reduce

 

[silva]

My narrowest escape was 2 years ago, I was crossing a bicycle passing (like just 7 meters) over a road, where the cyclist has to look over the shoulder to check for cars, that, plus a tunnel under a railway, and the planning idiots (it was a new road/tunnel) chosed to place the bicycle passing just over the bulge of the road so that traffic is out of sight for a while, and other planning idiots decided to let plant beautiful large flowers that block sight even more.

When I arrived on spot, I didn't see traffic, thought ok to cross, but my ears had noticed in the far depth alike a motor grawl. That grawl turned out to be from a motorcyclist at some crazy racing speed, that had given a dot gas on the bottom of the tunnel.

When I saw him, I was like in the middle of his path, and like 25 metres away.
I rode too slow and he too fast to get over in time, and me stopping = sure collission since lane too narrow for him to pass.
In the last second and in the middle of the road I decided to hard-turn 90 degrees as to give him space to miss me. I received a hit on my elbow causing the bike to steer back, and was thrown on the elevated narrow road lane-separating mid-section with grass on it.
He didn't brake before, didn't brake after, raced further. Don't know if he looked back to see what happened to me.
Some 500 metres further, at a round point that forces braking, I heard another motor grawl to speed up again.
Got some red flesh on the other elbow due to hitting the concrete edge of the elevated mid-section, bike ok and that was it.

He had priority, my fault, but the combination of speed, road bulge and high vegetation (flower bed) that hides traffic, it pops up there like a trap for a mouse.
Later on, they removed their Art Eco beautiful high flower bed so a cyclist can start looking behind his neck sooner.

There are some places dangerous by design.
Before the new crossing new road to tunnel it was just straight road. They decided to force cyclist to ride 30 metres forth, cross, and back, for safety reasons? The 90 degrees turns are short and just 1 meter, if you stop to give priority, some drivers give theirs away, some don't.
The space between the lanes is just 1 metre, they put there a second inverted triangle, but a bicycle is longer than 1 metre, so cars pass ehm incomfortly close, idiots at work...

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Most drivers don't have a clue how far they travel even in one second; at 30mph that's 14.67 yards (or 13.4 metres).

Most also don;t appreciate how long it takes to stop - in terms of distance and speed - in case of an emergency

I once found myself going much faster than I though on a country road (quite wide but still!!!)
There was no other traffic around so I slammed on the brakes as I passed a field gate and stopped as fast as I could
The distance was quite impressive

I have driven slower since then!