An award-winning actress has criticised the lack of road gritting on Wednesday morning after she came off her bike on black ice and broke her wrist.
Jane Horrocks, who starred in Little Voice and Absolutely Fabulous, ended up at the Royal Sussex after skidding in Brighton shortly before 11am.
She said accident and emergency was full of people who had had similar accidents and were angry at the lack of gritting.
But Brighton and Hove City Council said its gritters had been out on Tuesday evening, while reminding people it could not grit every road.
Ms Horrocks tweeted yesterday: “Just fallen off my bike on black ice in Brighton. In A+E now. It’s crazy busy. I haven’t experienced A+E for a very long time and it’s an eye opener. Be careful cyclists out there.
“Maybe these accidents occur to say Slow Down. We do so little of that, that sometimes it takes something stronger to enforce rest. I’m grateful for the guidance.
“A lovely couple helped me when I fell. They got me a cup of tea and brought me home. Thank you to them and the lovely Scottish nurse who put my arm in plaster when all the other ‘plasterers’ had gone home.”
This morning, she added: “Thank you ALL for your well wishes. I have a broken wrist and bruised ribs, so not too bad in the grand scheme of things.
“So many people in A+E yesterday had fallen on black ice and there was quite a lot of anger towards @BrightonHoveCC for not gritting the roads.”
The chair of the council’s Transport and Sustainability Committee, Councillor Trevor Muten said: “We’re very sorry to hear that some people were injured slipping on ice on Tuesday night.
“Our gritters were in action across the city on Tuesday from late afternoon onwards.
“Unfortunately we cannot grit every single road in the city. We’re not aware of any councils in the country that do so.
“We grit around 156 miles of road around the city. We prioritise main A roads and most B roads, bus routes, links to schools and roads that lead to hospitals or are key for emergency services.
“We would always advise people to be very careful during icy periods, as even gritting cannot absolutely guarantee a road will be free of ice.
“Our gritting programme is routinely reviewed and we are keen to hear from local communities to inform planned gritting routes improvements.”
Normally they seem to prioritise the bus routes which makes sense – Tuesday night it seemed like they missed out at least some of the bus routes too as a lot of the main roads were also lethally slippy.
Always follow the bus routes as a cyclist during cold weather, never had an issue. Lots of pavement ice Wednesday though.
There is no grit left at the Hollingdean depot, almost empty. No deliveries this summer.
What a load of rubbish! I can see the salt pile from my house! Sh*T stirring residents like you create needless panic and more work for hard working people. Get a job.
This is from the council website
https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/travel-and-road-safety/roads-and-highways/winter-road-maintenance#:~:text=We%20will%20only%20grit%20pavements,pavements%20and%20local%20shopping%20areas.
Salting / gritting is not the panacea to ice people think it is.
I frequently say this, but the standard of driving is barely passable in my opinion, and this only gets worse in bad weather.
Speeding and poor maintaining of distances are a really dangerous combination in poor weather. I often see headlights broken, and people forgetting that DRLs don’t include your taillights, so you got to manually turn those on.
Cyclists also make really terrible decisions on the road, and because they are vulnerable, the consequences for those poor decisions are usually a lot higher.
On a slight tangent, some road markings are almost invisible in dark and wet weather because the reflections are so shiny which doesn’t help matters.
I haven’t seen a single patch of ice yet. I’m not saying it’s not there, but are only some parts of the city affected?
Ice Ice Baby
Cycling on ice is not clever. Cycling on grit is also not clever. Cycling in the winter is ill advised
It is not the council’s fault if you fall off cycling on ice. It may be their fault if you fall off cycling on grit they put there.
“Actress slams lack of grit after coming off bike on black ice”
No she doesn’t.
The warnings were out for cold/freezing and possibility of ice. Slips happen, get over it