THERE are towpaths that certainly buck the trend of not many visitors during these winter months—those of the London canals.
Even the respected Daily Telegraph is telling that it was once a haven of tranquillity, providing town and city dwellers with an escape from urban stress and a welcome taste of rural solitude, but they are now so popular they threaten to become a battleground of competing interests, Howard Clarke tells us.
Collision increasingly common
The Telegraphs tells of smartphone users engrossed in their screens, speeding cyclists, dog walkers and pram-pushing parents all negotiating a frequently narrow space, meaning that towpath collisions have become increasingly common, with the results sometimes being disastrous, with people tumbling into the canal waters as a result of being hit or not paying attention to the world around them.
Even a survey by Canal & River Trust has revealed that people concentrating on their smartphones and not looking where they are going and speeding cyclists are the greatest causes of irritation among towpath users. However its answer still seems to be to 'educate' them, which is obviously failing.
Accidents
Recent accidents include a cyclist crashing into a blind woman's guide dog, a 76 years old losing four of her teeth after being knocked over by a cyclist, (pictured) a child being 'spun' into the water by a speeding cyclist, a pregnant woman knocked off her bike into the canal after being hit by a speeding cyclist failing to slow down through a narrow section, joggers falling over when moving out of the way of oncoming cyclists and walkers tripping into the water, caught by uneven surfaces as not looking where they were going.
Adding to the mix of course, those very fast cyclists of Strava, attempting to better their speeds on our very unsafe towpaths.
Accidents going unreported
The investigation by the Telegraph has revealed that the true picture is thought to be far more extensive however, with the vast majority of accidents going unreported by victims who are either too embarrassed to tell anyone, or simply shrug off any resulting bruises.
Though the towpaths have proved to be fairly unpopulated in the countryside, those of the capital are very much overpopulated leading to numerous accidents, most of which are obviously caused by CaRT's inability to control the speed of cyclists.
How long before someone is killed?