Two 13-year-old cyclists were injured in separate collisions in the same town on Monday, with the motorist and motorcyclist involved in the respective incidents both fleeing the scene.

In the first of the hit-and-run incidents to take place in Newton-le-Willows, a market town in St Helens, on Monday, a teenage boy was cycling with two friends to school at around 8.20am when he was struck by an alleged red light jumping motorist while crossing the Ashton Road, near Hope Academy School, the St Helens Star reports (link is external).

According to Merseyside Police, the group of schoolchildren were crossing at a set of traffic lights when the driver of a white BMW drove through the red light and hit one of them, knocking him off his bike and onto the vehicle’s bonnet.

A police spokesperson added that the motorist failed to check on the boy’s condition before driving away. The 13-year-old sustained a slight injury to his leg in the collision.

Later that evening, on Crow Lane West, about a mile and a half from where the previous collision took place, another 13-year-old cyclist was hit by a motorcyclist (link is external) whilst stationary at a traffic island.

The incident, which took place at around 6.50pm, saw the rider of a black motorbike mount the pavement and catch the young cyclist’s handlebars, knocking him to the ground.

The motorcyclist then promptly fled the scene, according to the police, leaving the teenager with bruising and cuts to his arms and legs.

Merseyside Police have launched appeals to identify the driver and motorcyclist involved in both collisions, with anyone with information or footage of the incidents asked to @MerPolCC on Twitter or Merseyside Police Contact Centre on Facebook, quoting reference numbers 353 of June 26 (for the morning collision) and 886 of June 26 for the evening one.

The back-to-back incidents involving young cyclists in Newton-le-Willows come less than a week after a child cycling to school in Bristol suffered minor injuries and was left “shocked” after being knocked off his bike by a parent on the school run.

Ben Houghton, headteacher at the school in question, has now urged parents to not drop their children off directly in front of the school gates, due to the narrowness and limited visibility of the road leading to the school.

https://road.cc/content/news/two-teenage-cyclists-injured-separate-hit-and-runs-302177