For you Marshalls out there...
I was riding with a guy who ate it on the BQE. No serious injuries, but this was starting a downhill in an open spot and everyone was picking up a bit of speed. There was blood and he seemed to be in shock, so we made him wait for the medics to get checked out.
His crash was caused by his front tire getting caught in a seam between two concrete joints and stopping. Needless to say, the forward progress of his body did not stop and the result was as you would expect.
While waiting there for him to get cleared, another rider went down in the exact same way, so we decided that someone should warn people to stay clear. This resulted in two of us, dressed in dark colors, standing in the middle of a downhill section of the BQE and waving people away from the dangerous section. When it got too dangerous for us, we would retreat, and inevitably someone else would suffer the same fate. No less than 6 riders in the same exact spot and manner in the course of about 30 minutes.
The police officer stationed 50 feet away said that this happens in that spot every year.
I understand that there is a lot of rough road out there, but is there some central database of danger zones that this can be added to? Putting two traffic cones out there on the seam would have prevented all of this, and would probably prevent it next year.
The other question is, what is the instructions to the Marshalls for things like this? During this time, some occasionally stopped to see if everything was ok. The people who stopped were nice enough, but did not seem to serve any purpose other than asking if everything was ok. I don't know what would have happened had this occured out of sight of the police officer, but as it was we had to wait about 1/2 hour for the medics to get there. Given the fact that this was rapidly turning into an emergency ward (6 down, one woman was taken to the hospital), it seemed that the Marshals should have had a plan for addressing an emerging danger spot, rather than continuing on their journey.
I understand that this is an overwhelming undertaking, so don't take this the wrong way, just curious and wondering if there is a way to help avoid others getting hurt in the future.