A cyclist says he was lucky not to be seriously injured after being thrown over his handlebars when he rode over a pothole in Grantham.
Dave Barrett, 49, was riding in Earlesfield Lane late one night recently when his front wheel went into the hole and flung him off his mountain bike. He had slowed down as a car approached him to pass some parked vehicles near the Physical Culture Club when the accident happened. He sustained some bruising and a sore neck.
Mr Barrett, of Spring End, Great Gonerby, said: “I just bruised myself and luckily did not break anything. The driver got out and helped to pick me up. He offered to call an ambulance.”
He added: “It was wet and snowing at the time and I was not going that fast. I was braking all the time I was going down the hill.”
Mr Barrett, who taught cycling proficiency at Gonerby Hill Foot Primary School for 11 years, is in the process of putting in a claim against Lincolnshire County Council for the damage caused.
He said repairs made to potholes around Grantham were a waste of time as heavy lorries soon “peeled” the tarmac away again. He said it was not a case of bad weather causing problems but poor materials.
The county council received a Government grant of £6.4million earlier this year to repair potholes and said work would be carried out in the next financial year. But road safety campaigners have said that to fix all the potholes in the county would cost more than £100million.