Author Topic: HGVs and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?  (Read 12274 times)

Biggsy

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #25 on: 04 October, 2011, 06:11:20 pm »
It is an accident in the sense it (probably) wasn't a deliberate killing.  That is what is meant by the word in this context.  But use "collision" or "incident" instead if "accident" sounds too light.
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jane

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #26 on: 04 October, 2011, 06:16:29 pm »
It's not realistic to expect efforts to make trucks safer to be FULLY successful, therefore as much effort needs to go into cyclist education.  Splitting it 50/50 also has the diplomatic advantage of appearing neutral.  The trucking industry will listen more if they don't feel they're getting all the blame, regardless of how much blame we think they deserve.
In London there has been quite a widespread programme of education already.  People, men, women, experienced and less experienced cyclists are still being killed by large trucks.  I'm sorry, but, if something can be done to improve the safety of these vehicles it needs to be done. Cemex managed it in quite a short period of time. Apparently, it is not expensive ( the article I linked to gives a sum of £545 per vehicle).

Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #27 on: 04 October, 2011, 06:20:54 pm »
It is an accident in the sense it (probably) wasn't a deliberate killing.  That is what is meant by the word in this context.  But use "collision" or "incident" instead if "accident" sounds too light.

I was making the difference in the context of the benefit of splitting education efforts 50/50, and didn't intend to imply anything more.

Looking through the stats http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/PC-Cas-Factsheet-Final-1986-2007.pdf it appears that the overall cycling accidents are distributed by gender according to proportion of usage (78/22), but HGV deaths are disproportionately female.
 
To quote

Quote
Cars were by far the most common vehicle involved in collisions where a pedal cyclist was
injured, representing 74% of other vehicles involved overall.  This was the case for all
severities and for male and female, with the exception of female fatalities where heavy
goods vehicles (greater than 7.5t) were the most common vehicle involved (100% of other
vehicles).  Goods vehicles represented 21% of other vehicles involved in collisions where
female P/C casualties were seriously injured (11% light goods vehicles, 2% medium goods
vehicles and 8% heavy goods vehicles).
After cars, the second most common vehicle involved in male P/C fatalities were medium
goods vehicles and heavy goods vehicles, with each representing 20% of other vehicles
involved.

I believe 2010 was substantially worse for female cyclist fatalities, as well.

Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #28 on: 04 October, 2011, 06:24:00 pm »
It's not realistic to expect efforts to make trucks safer to be FULLY successful, therefore as much effort needs to go into cyclist education.  Splitting it 50/50 also has the diplomatic advantage of appearing neutral.  The trucking industry will listen more if they don't feel they're getting all the blame, regardless of how much blame we think they deserve.
In London there has been quite a widespread programme of education already.  People, men, women, experienced and less experienced cyclists are still being killed by large trucks.  I'm sorry, but, if something can be done to improve the safety of these vehicles it needs to be done. Cemex managed it in quite a short period of time. Apparently, it is not expensive ( the article I linked to gives a sum of £545 per vehicle).

But whatever education has happened, it obviously is not enough. I'm all for making lorries safer but the ONLY thing you CAN do something about for sure is your own behaviour.

jane

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #29 on: 04 October, 2011, 06:30:40 pm »
I also remember reading somewhere that the GLA will no longer fund the Metropolitan Police’s Commercial Vehicle Education Unit (CVEU).  I believe it is their job to  conduct spot checks on vehicles they suspect are non compliant with even the existing legislation. 

jane

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #30 on: 04 October, 2011, 06:35:36 pm »
But whatever education has happened, it obviously is not enough. I'm all for making lorries safer but the ONLY thing you CAN do something about for sure is your own behaviour.
Cynthia Barlow would take issue with you on this, I'm sure.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ca1fca5e-9f6c-11df-8732-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1ZprWHZf5

Biggsy

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #31 on: 04 October, 2011, 06:42:31 pm »
In London there has been quite a widespread programme of education already.

It's not widespread and intensive enough.  Much more still needs doing on this front.

I've ridden in London and, apart from noticing warning signs on lorries, I would have been oblivious to any campaigns if I had not known about them from the internet through beeing a cycling geek.

Quote
People, men, women, experienced and less experienced cyclists are still being killed by large trucks.

Partly, only partly, because some of them are not doing enough to keep themselves out of the danger zones at the danger times.

Quote
I'm sorry, but, if something can be done to improve the safety of these vehicles it needs to be done. Cemex managed it in quite a short period of time. Apparently, it is not expensive ( the article I linked to gives a sum of £545 per vehicle).

I'm in favour of the vehicles having all the safety features available, and the drivers being given all the best training and advice possible, but we mustn't fool ourselves into thinking this will be enough.
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spindrift

Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #32 on: 04 October, 2011, 06:46:28 pm »

Alex was an experienced cyclist on a familiar route along London Wall, and she was wearing a high-visibility sash. She was alongside the lorry for a considerable distance and the police evidence found that she was visible in at least one of the driver’s mirrors the whole time. He pulled out to the right at a junction in order to turn sharp left, cutting across her path. He didn’t know he’d run her down. The noise of passers-by alerted him and he stopped.

I was never allowed to see her at the mortuary. I wasn’t even offered the chance of holding her hand. I know now that they were protecting me from the sight of her, but I wish they had told me that, or given me a choice.


From the FT link. The FT also did an article on Sebastien Lukowmski, whose death under a lorry was seen by a work colleage when I worked at the FT.

jane

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #33 on: 04 October, 2011, 06:57:02 pm »
One of the safety features that can be fitted are proximity sensors on the sides of trucks.  Once they detect a  cyclist beginning to drift down the inside of the vehicle, a voice message is activated which warns the cyclist not to do this.  Educative and life saving at the same time, wouldn't you say, Biggsy (and Ham)?

Wowbagger

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #34 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:00:11 pm »
One of the safety features that can be fitted are proximity sensors on the sides of trucks.  Once they detect a  cyclist beginning to drift down the inside of the vehicle, a voice message is activated which warns the cyclist not to do this.  Educative and life saving at the same time, wouldn't you say, Biggsy (and Ham)?

It could also activate an alarm in the cab.
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Biggsy

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #35 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:04:03 pm »
One of the safety features that can be fitted are proximity sensors on the sides of trucks.  Once they detect a  cyclist beginning to drift down the inside of the vehicle, a voice message is activated which warns the cyclist not to do this.  Educative and life saving at the same time, wouldn't you say, Biggsy (and Ham)?

Yes, good idea.  Not all vehicles will end up having it though, or it won't work perfectly every time.  So we should encourage this system, yes, but do other things to educate as well.
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jane

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #36 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:07:29 pm »
One of the safety features that can be fitted are proximity sensors on the sides of trucks.  Once they detect a  cyclist beginning to drift down the inside of the vehicle, a voice message is activated which warns the cyclist not to do this.  Educative and life saving at the same time, wouldn't you say, Biggsy (and Ham)?
It could also activate an alarm in the cab.
I believe it does. I was just trying to make a point to some who seemed to be arguing that changing cyclist behaviour will have the same effect on reducing these terrible collisions as improving the safety and controls on these large vehicles.  I believe the effect of improving vehicle safety will do more to lower the KSI statistics involving large trucks and cyclists and its possible to do it more quickly.

Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #37 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:09:03 pm »
Any reasonable safety feature should be campaigned for and promoted strongly. But even if it becomes compulsory on mew vehicles, it will take a long while before that has a substantial effect, and then depends on someone else doing something to keep you alive.

Against that, a simple message "DON'T GO DOWN THE INSIDE OF A LORRY", that can save a life.

That's why effort should be split between cyclists and lorries.

There will always be incidents that with the best technique in the world you may not be able to avoid, but that happens wherever you are on the road: car, cycle, ptw, ped and proves nothing.

jane

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #38 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:17:16 pm »
 Of course I agree that cyclists should hear and heed that simple message.  And you seem to agree with me that lorries should be fitted with the latest safety equipment.  I know that not all KSI's on London roads at least are as a result of this dangerous manoeuvre so my emphasis on the truck is because that's an all round approach which, I believe, will save more lives, more quickly (if enforced adequately) . You and Biggsy disagree.  There is no way of proving who is right here, so we'll just have to agree to differ.

Biggsy

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #39 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:20:06 pm »
I believe the effect of improving vehicle safety will do more to lower the KSI statistics involving large trucks and cyclists and its possible to do it more quickly.

Maybe so, but we don't know, and still it will not be enough in any case.  There are enough campaigning resources* to promote improvement in cyclist behaviour at the same time as getting improvements made within the haulage industry.

* This includes everyone reading this - be it enough just to sign an online petition, or to do something more active such as chatting to individual cyclists at risk, or whatever.
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David Martin

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #40 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:20:54 pm »
There is a simple and easy way to make sure every lorry has working visibility/proximity sensors. The technology is there. A blind spot is not an excuse, it is the result of a deliberate choice to not look.

"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

jane

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #41 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:22:18 pm »
I believe the effect of improving vehicle safety will do more to lower the KSI statistics involving large trucks and cyclists and its possible to do it more quickly.

Maybe so, but we don't know, and still it will not be enough in any case.  There are enough campaigning resources* to promote improvement in cyclist behaviour at the same time as getting improvements made within the haulage industry.

* This includes everyone reading this - be it enough just to sign an online petition, or to do something more active such as chatting to individual cyclists at risk, or whatever.
You have the last word my dear. Work to do.

Biggsy

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #42 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:22:29 pm »
You and Biggsy disagree.

I don't necessarily disagree.  I just know it won't be enough.
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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #43 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:40:39 pm »
You and Biggsy disagree.

I don't necessarily disagree.  I just know it won't be enough.

I don't think we do disagree at all, tbh. I'm all in favour and would be prepared to devote time and energy to an initiative that might help, if we can think of one. I'm 100% with a 50-50 approach in principle, although in practice that might not work given our limited resources and the size of the problem. If all we could do, say, was to wear a message on a shirt, that at least would be something. Having people who cycle the same streets as me die really hurts.

Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #44 on: 04 October, 2011, 07:58:51 pm »
  I wonder if YACF members could band together and help?  I don't know in what way yet, but feel an urge.  Don't you?

How about demanding that rather than putting an extra 2m on lorries, they add an extra 2 mirrors (at least) and side impact warning. Manouveuring any large vehicle with restricted visibility in public should require a banksman if you can't see the ground you are moving into. Simple to add increased visibility aids.

..d

Adding mirrors, or even warning devices, is still not enough if the driver doesn't use them or the cyclist rides into a hazardous location.

These are examples I have seen.
1) Me, driving, sitting at a roundabout entrance.  Although I DO look in my mirrors the cyclist undertaking me was in my blind spot (despite me having blind spot mirrors fitted) and I was lucky that he was going just fast enough to get into my peripheral vision before I "closed the door" on him getting closer to the apex of the kerb as I pulled away due to road layout design.

2) Me, driving, pulling out into lane 2 of a dual carriageway on a slight right hand bend.   This strange turn of my car put the rapidly approaching car in lane 2 into a blind spot.  I couldn't believe that a fluorescent lime green Mondeo could vanish, but it did.  I was lucky in that I heard the horn and aborted the lane change.

3) Me, cycling in Southend Dangerous Cycle Town.  Approaching a new ASL where traffic was stopped at a red light.  I used the new cycle feeder lane as there was not a left turn at that junction so I calculated it might be safe.  As I blasted up the inside of the bus the lights went green and it pulled away and cut into my path so it could stop in the bus layby  :facepalm:   Driver had good mirrors, but even with an electronic beeping device there would not have been time for it to alert me or the driver due to the speed differential.




There is a solution, and it is not trying to invent the technology or retrofit it to every vehicle.  (and would you really be able to force every vehicle to retro fit all these new devices?  Old trucks are still seatbelt and other such items exempt.   What about 1920's vintage trucks etc?)

The solution is a combination of doing what we can with mirrors etc, but more importantly driver and cyclist education.   The split between male/female casualties is worrying, but when on the road I can understand it as I see a definite trend of one sex undertaking whilst the other sex has the balls to pull out and overtake.

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #45 on: 04 October, 2011, 08:21:07 pm »
Putting on more mirrors will not work, you only have 2 eyes and can only look in 1 place at one time. The main trouble is when turning left you have to move away from the kerb to get the rear end around the corner. When people see a gap they will go up the inside whether you are indicating or not. I have had this with car drivers too.
People are always in a rush and will not wait to allow you to turn.

This has also been part of the training for years, I passed my HGV in '92 and it was drilled into me at the time about looking up the inside when turning.
The drivers CPC card takes in road safety, all drivers have to have done 35hrs worth of training every 5 years or else you are not allowed to drive.
All new lorries are fitted with proximity sensors that go off in the cab when something is close, the closer it is the faster it bleeps.
As Nutty says it is worrying that the majority of those killed are female, and that male cyclists are more likely to overtake than go up the inside.

Rich

clarion

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #46 on: 04 October, 2011, 08:37:57 pm »
In London at least there has been masses of cyclist education.  At the launch of the Superhighways, the Police seemed keen to alert cyclists to the dangers of the road, rather than educating motorists on how to drive responsibly.  At the Cycle Show, at local fairs, markets, at roadshows on Clapham Common, Figges Marsh and Tooting Bec Common and in Southwark, as well as leafleting at lights etc, I have been getting the message not to ride up the side of trucks.

But the deaths haven't happened this way.  Witnesses to some of the women casualties say that they were at the lights when the truck pulled up alongside, then cut across left as the lights changed.  That's not an accident, and there is sod all that cyclist education can do about it.  Why is it women?  Because, ironically, men are much more likely to have RLJed before the lights changed.

The incident at E&C was of a truck in the wrong lane cutting across the apex of the corner, ignoring the fact that there was a cyclist who had been in plain view who got crushed as she came off her bike at the kerb. 

It's just wrong to say that cyclist education is the crucial factor.  Sure there are idiots who do dash up the side of trucks, but doesn't it make it all the more important if you are a truck driver and know this to keep an eye on your mirrors?

Blaming victims like that is what led to a driver's mate hitting me with a newspaper while I was trying to talk to the emergency services to get an ambulance for the cyclist (a member here) who was mown down by a truck driver making a classic left hook.  The cyclist disappeared from his forward vision and was supposed to have immediately dematerialised.  I see this kind of behaviour all the time, and truck driver education is one of the ways in which it can be tackled, but it's a drop in the ocean.
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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #47 on: 04 October, 2011, 09:02:15 pm »
In London at least there has been masses of cyclist education.  At the launch of the Superhighways, the Police seemed keen to alert cyclists to the dangers of the road, rather than educating motorists on how to drive responsibly.  At the Cycle Show, at local fairs, markets, at roadshows on Clapham Common, Figges Marsh and Tooting Bec Common and in Southwark, as well as leafleting at lights etc, I have been getting the message not to ride up the side of trucks.

But the deaths haven't happened this way.  Witnesses to some of the women casualties say that they were at the lights when the truck pulled up alongside, then cut across left as the lights changed.  That's not an accident, and there is sod all that cyclist education can do about it.  Why is it women?  Because, ironically, men are much more likely to have RLJed before the lights changed.

The incident at E&C was of a truck in the wrong lane cutting across the apex of the corner, ignoring the fact that there was a cyclist who had been in plain view who got crushed as she came off her bike at the kerb. 

It's just wrong to say that cyclist education is the crucial factor.  Sure there are idiots who do dash up the side of trucks, but doesn't it make it all the more important if you are a truck driver and know this to keep an eye on your mirrors?

Blaming victims like that is what led to a driver's mate hitting me with a newspaper while I was trying to talk to the emergency services to get an ambulance for the cyclist (a member here) who was mown down by a truck driver making a classic left hook.  The cyclist disappeared from his forward vision and was supposed to have immediately dematerialised.  I see this kind of behaviour all the time, and truck driver education is one of the ways in which it can be tackled, but it's a drop in the ocean.

Education is not THE crucial factor, it is A factor and crucially the ONLY one you can somewhat control. While I know what you are trying to say, the way that you are saying it shows that you may not have understood the education. For all the "masses of education" at the police roadshow I was astounded that I appeared to be the only one of a group of about 20 ( at 07:00 ) who had seen the lorry education before.

Look, though, at what you said.

Quote
But the deaths haven't happened this way.  Witnesses to some of the women casualties say that they were at the lights when the truck pulled up alongside, then cut across left as the lights changed.  That's not an accident, and there is sod all that cyclist education can do about it

Well, it is an accident or it was outright murder, but it is also a collision, with the  cyclist and the lorry occupying the same space at the same time. Education teaches you to position yourself where you can be seen, even if you were there first if you are where the driver can't see you, he can't see you. Wait a couple of seconds till the lorry has passed, if you can't scoot off first. Just DON'T be in the same space.

Biggsy

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #48 on: 04 October, 2011, 09:12:23 pm »
Even if the cyclist in one case would have been just as vulnerable in the primary position, are you saying that there hasn't been a single case of a cyclist being killed that wouldn't have been killed if they had been in the primary position or any other better position?  I don't believe it.

Please no one say I'm blaming the victim.  I'm not.  People have the right to cycle how ever they like as long as it's within the law, and they don't dererve to be hit whatever they do or don't do, and I will defend them and their rights (though I will encourage them to look after themselves).  I'm trying to escape the blame game altogether, hence the 50/50 approach.  There wouldn't be anyone to blame anyway if the incident didn't happen in the first place.

Quote
It's just wrong to say that cyclist education is the crucial factor.

I don't say it's THE crucial factor.  I say it's A crucial factor.  Vehicle and driver improvements being other crucial factors.  Doing one doesn't stop you doing another.  It may even help for diplomatic reasons to be seen to be dealing with all factors at once.
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clarion

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Re: HGV's and cyclists. How can we share the road safely?
« Reply #49 on: 04 October, 2011, 09:16:32 pm »
Why was she near the kerb?  Because the truck had forced her across there, FHS!
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