Firms count cost of ring road crash
Monday 28th September 2009, 11:30AM BST.
Businesses in Wolverhampton were today counting the cost of a crash between a car and cyclist which closed the city’s ring road for more than three hours.
The collision saw police cordon off Ring Road St Patrick’s, causing traffic chaos for more than four hours.
Tailbacks of around two miles were reported down the Wednesfield Road following the accident at on Friday at 2.45pm, while city centre roads including Berry Street, Broad Street, Cleveland Street, and Tower Street were busy with cars queuing bumper-to-bumper.
See also: Crash causes city centre traffic chaos.
See also: Police called to crash scene
Stephanie Jennings, chief media assistant at the Light House media centre in Fryer Street, said today: “I was stuck in it myself, so I know how bad it was. We had the launch of an exhibition on Friday night called Food Chain and the numbers were well down on what we would expect.
“I sent a message to the curator saying we would struggle to get people in, and in the end we were proved right. It was bad timing.”
Maxine Sadlier, who runs Sadlier’s Coffee Lounge in High Street, Tettenhall, said: “We were very busy on Friday morning but by the time we got to the afternoon, it really did tail off and we were not sure why at the time.
“By 3.30pm we were very quiet, I’d say we were affected quite badly. My mother got stuck for 45 minutes because of it, when you’ve got an accident by an island that big it was always likely to cause problems.
“We tend to do quite well on Fridays but this time, it was the opposite. It was not good at all.”
The cordon came down at 5.50pm on Friday, by which time some furious drivers had been stuck for an hour, while others said they had moved just a few yards since 4pm.
It was not until shortly before 7pm that many of the major routes out of the city centre were back to normal.
The delay was partly down to police investigating the site and partly down to the steering wheel on the MG Rover, the car involved on the collision, becoming locked in the impact.
The male cyclist had a fractured skull and back injuries but West Midlands Police today said he was recovering at New Cross Hospital and is due to go home this week.
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Well I suppose the poor cyclist will reemburse those poor poor businesses who lost money through his accident!
What a selfish piece of reporting who cares a jot about the business’s. I hope the cylclist is ok. YOUR BUSINESS MONEY CAN BE REPLACED HIS BROKEN BONES AND LIMBS CAN@T!!!!!!!!!
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How is a business in tettenhall effected by this accident? Its the opposite side of town :S
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Good grief there is a person who is lying in hospital with nasty injuries. What an insensitive article?!
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Agree with no.1 – very poor reporting. So a few businesses had a quiet Friday afternoon. So what? Someone in hospital with a fractured skull and it only warrants a cursory sentence at the end of the piece? Get your priorities right Express & Star – you are plumbing new depths of mediocrity these days.
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When cyclists or children get ‘knocked down’ by a car and it is their fault – does anyone ever spare a thought for the poor motorist ??
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BigD-point taken but i think the issue is the way in which it has been reported. Its irrelevant who caused the accident and i hope both parties are ok. Who cares about business when lives are at stake??
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Yes, I feel sorry for the driver as well as the cyclict too. We don’t know any detail other than two families have probably gone through hell.
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I think that the article is pointing to that fact that because of how the situation was handle by the police it caused chaos for FOUR hours which is sheer madness.
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My daughter was stuck on a bus for nearly two hours in Wolverhampton and we were travelling down the M6 to meet her. It was inconvenient, yes, but our thoughts were with the casualties, not the poor, poor business that were suffering. My, my, E&S – where is your heart?
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8 – I agree. A very unfortunate incident and good wishes for a speedy recovery to the cyclist but surely the area could have been measured up, photographed and cleared in less than an hour. No sense of urgency and little or no consideration for the thousands incovenienced. Once the ambulance has been and gone just bulldoze the car off the road or something!!! Poor excuse about the locked steering wheel – today’s tow-trucks can move cars with clamps on the wheels – unless they were all busy earning revenue removing illegal parkers instead of being where they are really needed. FGS just get the job done.
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3 hours….its a joke…due to picky stupid h&s and risk assesments regulations that police and paramedics have to dosurely its more of a priority to get the injured out and to hospital and the road cleared up, not nonsensical paperwork. surely that should take no more than an hout depending on the rescue operation of course
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Latte sales dip due to severely injured cyclist. That’s a lovely crass angle. Reminds me of a Swiss town I visited whose official tourism leaflet pointed out how there had been problems due to the drop in tourists in the late 1930′s and early 1940′s.
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Both cyclist and driver are recovering from their ordeal – that’s all that matters. If there had been one or more fatalities and the police had missed importance evidence on account of some whinging suit then how would that look? What if it was that whinger lying in the road? Traffic’s already bad enough so there’s nothing people can do – thanks to certain people.
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Did any reporter actually speak to the police to find out what was going on? I saw in the pictures that the WMP Crash Investigation Team were at the scene. This implies that the collision was considered serious enough that the cyclist might either die or suffer life changing injuries.
People complain about motorists being the villains in any collision involving a cycle and in order to establish exactly what went on, the police did a very thorough scene examination to establish as accurately as possible what had happened.
So it took a few hours? A few people were inconvenienced? Perhaps the blame lies with an appalling road system that grinds to a halt at the slightest thing? Whatever it was, the police get criticised for trying to do their job properly, the cyclist gets forgotten about as he lies in a hospital bed and a few more people find something else to moan about.
Welcome to modern Britain.
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What an unprofessional, insensitive and inexperienced piece of journalism. But then again it is the Express and Star.
I hope the cyclist make a full and speedy recovery.
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Steering wheel stuck on!! What a load of rubbish, with that kind of impact there is no way a steering lock is going to jam on. More likely PC plod and his team have lost the key’s.
Best wishes to driver and rider.
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Nicely put Bren! Are you Tipton Bren?
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I’m sure that is a misquote by teh reporter and a misspelled name!
I know because I am StephEnie Jennings and the words “bad timing” never crossed my lips….
….I have far too much sympathy for the driver and cyclist to express something as heartless as that!
Twisting peoples words to fit your own doom and gloom reporting style is poor journalism!
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