Six-figure payout for wife of cyclist killed by pothole
THE widow of a cyclist who died after hitting a pothole during a charity ride has won a six-figure settlement from the council that failed to repair it.
Martyn Uzzell, 51, who was cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats, was sent flying into the path of a car and suffered fatal head injuries.
An inquest heard the hole around a drain on the A65 near Giggleswick, North Yorkshire, was so bad police had asked the council to fix it several times.
Just one month before the tragedy in June 2011, a traffic policeman saw the hole and alerted the council – but the warning was not passed on to the highway inspection team. In the following weeks, the team did inspect the road twice but took no action.
Experienced cyclist Mr Uzzell took on the challenge with two friends to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support and children’s charity Springboard. He was killed just over 400 miles into the journey, which is 874 miles by road.
His widow Kate, 49, has now reached an out-of-court settlement with North Yorkshire County Council.
The local authority said it did not accept responsibility for Mr Uzzell’s death, but paid out to avoid ‘prolonged involvement in further litigation’.
After the inquest, Mrs Uzzell, from Clevedon, North Somerset, said: ‘Ultimately my husband lost his life because the council did not repair this pothole, despite being warned it was a potential danger, and I would like to know why something wasn’t done.
‘I do not want anyone else to lose a loved one because the roads have not been properly maintained.’
The Crown Prosecution Service concluded that the council should not face a corporate manslaughter case or any other charges. Mrs Uzzell said she was disappointed by this decision, adding: ‘My husband has died yet it seems no one is being held to account. My life has been devastated – I have lost my best friend and soulmate.’
The designer chosen by the Queen to oversee the renovation of Windsor Castle was killed when a truck hit her at a notorious accident blackspot in Westminster as she cycled to work.
Moira Gemmill, 55, the fifth cyclist killed in London this year, died after paramedics struggled for half an hour to save her on Thursday morning.
The former design director at the Victoria and Albert Museum had recently started working for the Royal Collection Trust, directing the modernisation of Windsor Castle.