The man was airlifted to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel with serious head injuries after the incident, which happened just before 8am yesterday on the Twickenham Road (A316) at the junction with Kew Foot Road.
A spokesman for the London Ambulance Service, which was called to the incident at 7.55am yesterday, said: We sent an ambulance crew, the hazardous area response team, a duty officer and the London Air Ambulance to the scene. We treated a man reported to be in his 30s for a head injury and he was taken by air to the Royal London Hospital.
Police, who were called to the scene at 8.01am, said the driver of the refuse vehicle stopped at the scene and was not arrested. Enquiries are continuing and Metropolitan Police are appealing for witnesses to the collision.
Neither the police nor the ambulance service were able to name the company which owns the vehicle involved in the collision.
Video
However, television reports from the scene yesterday appear to show a white, unbranded refuse vehicle with a yellow body being towed away. A video featuring the vehicle can be viewed here.
A spokesman for Richmond-upon-Thames borough council said that it was not a vehicle operating on behalf of the local authority.
‘The road would have been very busy at the time of the collision and I believe that a number of people would have seen the incident.’
Detective Sergeant John Hartfree, Metropolitan Police
Detective Sergeant John Hartfree, of the Serious Collision Investigation Unit based at Merton, said: The road would have been very busy at the time of the collision and I believe that a number of people would have seen the incident.
I would urge anyone with information to contact us on the Witness Appeal number 020 8543 5157.
A designated cycle path runs along the A316 road, which was closed for several hours yesterday as a result of the collision.
Havering
The incident comes less than a month after Havering borough council in East London announced plans to fit recycling vehicles operated by its contractor Serco with a new cyclist warning system to help prevent road accidents (see letsrecycle.com story).
This initiative in Havering follows a spate of road traffic collisions over the past year. Last September a Veolia collection vehicle was involved in a fatal accident in West Dulwich, London (see letsrecycle.com story), while one recent incident at Ludgate Circus involved a Squibb Group demolition and construction waste vehicle (see letsrecycle.com story).
Meanwhile, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson has proposed that any vehicle weighing over 3.5 tonnes, which is not fitted with cyclist safety equipment, should be banned from the capital as early as September this year (see letsrecycle.com story).
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