Lorry incident

[Notsototalnewbie]

On Friday me and a friend cycled out to Sussex to camp for a weekend. It was a great weekend apart from one incident.

Komoot planned a lovely route apart from when we turned out of a beautiful little lane onto the B-roads leading to and through Turners Hill. This bit was busy and drivers were impatient and aggressive and there were lots of silly close passes/overtaking on bends but nothing I'm not used to from cycling in London/Croydon. A couple of big lorries waited for a safe place then overtook on the other side of the road. Ah, I thought, at least there are some good professional drivers.

Then as we were cycling up towards Turners Hill, I heard a big engine accelerating to overtake me on a bend. I couldn't quite believe it when a massive, long Eddie Stobart lorry pulled up alongside me, partly over the central line.

Then traffic came the other way and he started to pull in towards me. I was now at the mid point of what seemed to be an endlessly long lorry and it was less than a metre away from me. I hollered and waved an arm madly; I could see his mirror so hoped he could see me, but I was ready to throw myself onto the pavement (luckily at that point there was one) and let the bike get crushed if he got any closer. It seemed forever that he was alongside with massive wheels spinning beside me.

It was the worst experience I have had in 20 years of cycling as an adult.

It can't have been much fun for the drivers coming the other way, either. My friend behind me was horrified (it had cleared her but she saw me sandwiched between the lorry and pavement) and asked to stop by the side of the road while we recovered. She then refused to cycle that road any further which I thought was fair enough and we walked to the top of the hill because there was a safe pavement.

I keep thinking about what I could have done differently.

Possibly I should have been riding wider, especially on the bend, but I was conscious that I was climbing very slowly with a camping load so that's easier said than done given the volume of traffic on the road. I certainly don't ride in the gutter but usually there's a balance to be struck.

Perhaps I should have stopped dead to reduce the amount of time he was alongside me, although I was already going extremely slowly.

(For further frustration, at the time I was testing out a new camera on my handlebars for the first time, which would have caught the incident, however because I'm  learning how to use it, I didn't realise the camera automatically overwrote the sd card when it got full, and hence managed to overwrite the footage which is presumably lost forever)

[Redlight]

That sounds terrifying and I'm so glad that you are now OK.  I had a bad experience  (although not as bad as yours) with a Stobart lorry a couple of years ago and wrote to the company with the details, including the registration number. I never got a reply.   

I don't think the Stobart family is as involved as it used to be but the current management still trade heavily on its 'quirky' reputation. It's certainly unpopular in Southend, where my parents live, for the way it has tricked the council and trampled over local concerns about its rampant expansion of the airport. 

[Jurek]

That sounds grim, Laura.
Glad you are intact.

[benborp]

My sympathies, the gamut of emotions these experiences generate and then leave to swill around just isn't understood by so many people. At least here you will have people that can empathize with you.

As to coming to a complete stop, I would recommend against it. In those moments where you have all the wrong sort of energy going on around you and you are aware that you are running out of options the momentum you possess is a commodity. It gives you stability and control and if it looks like the worst might come to the worst you can cash it in to throw yourself further away from the danger.
By the point you are stopped or wobbling to a standstill you are reliant on the actions of the driver not killing you. Overcoming the inertia of a stationary heavy bike and yourself when the space you need to push away from is full of heavy spinning machinery is going to take too much time.

[Notsototalnewbie]

As to coming to a complete stop, I would recommend against it. In those moments where you have all the wrong sort of energy going on around you and you are aware that you are running out of options the momentum you possess is a commodity. It gives you stability and control and if it looks like the worst might come to the worst you can cash it in to throw yourself further away from the danger.
By the point you are stopped or wobbling to a standstill you are reliant on the actions of the driver not killing you. Overcoming the inertia of a stationary heavy bike and yourself when the space you need to push away from is full of heavy spinning machinery is going to take too much time.

It wasn't my instinct to stop, but afterwards my friend said she thought I might stop which made me think about why I didn't. Wobbling to a halt on a heavy bike going up a hill didn't feel like the right thing to do.

Thanks everyone. I can't mention this to my family aside from my husband, they already hate me cycling.

Luckily as we pulled out to make the final few miles to the campsite (friend wanted to go 'another way' but at that point we were so close it wasn't really possible), a woman in a big 4x4 let us out.

I'm not sure if she felt sorry for us because we both looked worried/nervous by that point, but she then held back all the other traffic as we whooshed down the other side of Turners Hill until it was safe to pass.

[ElyDave]

Having been squeezed into the kerb and then verge (no footpath) by a tractor and large spiky towed machinery pulling out from my right as I was going uphill, I can totally sympathise, and can fully understand your feelings afterwards. 

I went through the same kind of after view of what else could/should I have done with hindsight including carry on, stop, anticipate better, and I still don't have an answer for myself.  I ended up stopping, luckily as the trailer wheel clipped my ankle as it went past and I ended up on the verge, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. In my case I think I might have handled it differently, but when you are in the situation it's reaction rather than thought.  Sounds like your walk afterwards was a good idea to calm the nerves if nothing else.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Had that happen on the A59 just outside York.  Lorry from Hull.  My plan B was to dive into a rather deep ditch.

I try to avoid the A59 since then and also not cycle too near the gutter.  It doesn't happen very often IME as most HGV drivers are more considerate, even skip hire lorries since a case not too long ago. 

[T42]

Had that happen years ago with a timber truck - an artic whose trailer consists mostly of trunks with a steerable bogie at the back and a cable connection between.  The lower logs were higher off the ground than my head and I had visions of the rear bogie coming straight at me, but in the end it missed by about a metre.

And of course we have any number of tractors with vast wheels & trailers around here, driven by farmers and the teenage offspring thereof.  Not always trailers, come to think of it - this is the season of wide and pointy attachments.

Scary.

[Ham]

Total sympathy, and no, stopping would have made matters worse, your balance would have been out and your direction of travel unpredictable. It's funny how it's the potential for worse things to happen that burns into our memory more than actual falls and scrapes. Expect flashbacks, and don't beat yourself up for feeling that way.

[Tim Hall]

What time of day did it happen? Operators like Stobart will have trackers in their vehicles, so identifying the particular wagon shouldn't be too difficult for them. Whether they CBA is another matter.

[citoyen]

It was the worst experience I have had in 20 years of cycling as an adult.

 

I'm very grateful you're here to tell the tale, at least.

I keep thinking about what I could have done differently.

Not sure there is anything you could have done. I know the road through Turners Hill and it's awful. But you didn't do anything wrong, so don't reproach yourself.

Possibly I should have been riding wider, especially on the bend, but I was conscious that I was climbing very slowly with a camping load so that's easier said than done given the volume of traffic on the road. I certainly don't ride in the gutter but usually there's a balance to be struck.

Sometimes, these arseholes decide they just have to get past anyway, regardless of your road position.

I had an incident with a tractor on Friday evening, the idiot driver deciding to overtake me at a pinch point. Luckily I'd anticipated it and there was a narrow hard shoulder to escape to, but it's still infuriating. Your incident sounds a lot more terrifying though, and I can totally understand why you would have been shaken by it. Hope you're OK now.

[ian]

It was a similar thing on the A22. An abandoned overtake by a lorry encountering on-coming traffic, it starts to pull in. Fortunately, there was a pavement to bail out onto, a second later the wheels were where I had been. About 50 metres further on, that escape plan wouldn't have been an option. Me, wall, lorry, the end.

So I won't cycle on it any more.

Complain, complain, complain and don't stop until you get a vaguely acceptable response. It's a pain, but if you don't, the next time he might actually kill someone.

[RichForrest]

Glad you weren't hurt!
Most of us are good drivers, but I Wasn't really surprised when you said it was Stobarts.
They are well-known for accidents and bridge strikes.
I second contacting the company, all their trucks will have tracking and possibly a dashcam. Most companies will act on it and discipline if needed.

[LMT]

Any pre-conceptions about Stobarts being a decent firm are bollox, they're your normal run of the mill groupage firm where time is money.

Write a letter of complaint, their trucks are fitted with gps and I'd be amazed if the cab did not have some sort of dash cam fitted.

[ElyDave]

Good point re dashcams, in my case they at least stopped and it was a tractor from a farm in my village.  Police not interested though - can't report via e-mail and Ely enquiries office now shut

[Jurek]

Didn't Jacomus otp go to work for Stobart on scoring his LGV ticket?

[Notsototalnewbie]

Thanks everyone 

They have a 'Well driven?' enquiry form on their website which I have filled out as I have an approximate time and know exactly which stretch of road it was. I didn't get a reg.

If I don't hear from that I'll harass them on twitter.

Rich, I know most of you are good drivers; the previous two lorries overtook completely over the white line on a straight stretch of road. On the way home through Purley an Amazon lorry held well back while we negotiated cars in the cycle lane and only overtook widely once it was safe; I gave him a thumbs up and got a little toot in return. They probably deserve an email too to be fair.

I might try to mark that road on Komoot as one to avoid, if I can figure out how. Don't exactly want to put it as a 'highlight' in case that makes the algorithm push more routes there. I'd only done in on a FNRttC before so I had no idea how bad it would be at that time. I didn't intend to be doing it at 4pm on a Friday either but various reasons conspired to make us later than intended. The first thing I did once set up on the campsite was plot a completely different route home and sod the extra miles.

[Wowbagger]

I'm glad you are OK, NSTN.

If it's the stretch of road I think it is, it's used on teh FNRttC up into Turner's Hill. It's as big a git to climb as is Ditchling beacon - just not as long.

As a company Stobarts have absolutely no social conscience or sense of community responsibility. They bought Southend Airport and ever since, local residents have been subject to a barrage of Easyjet and Ryanair jets blasting then to kingdom come, all day and lots of the night as well.

[Notsototalnewbie]

Thanks Wow - yep it is the same one on the FNRttC. To be honest the difficulty of the hill paled into insignificance alongside the standard of the driving along there. I will never go near that road again. A shame because there looked to be a nice LBS at the top.

[Andy64]

There is a chance you might be able to recover the overwritten footage with the right software.
This might be worth looking at
https://toolbox.iskysoft.com/video-recovery/can-you-recover-overwritten-video-files.html

[citoyen]

Thanks Wow - yep it is the same one on the FNRttC.

I think it's the standard London to Brighton route, isn't it? Probably OK on a closed road event (as long as you're not offended by it being practically blocked with non-cyclists getting off and walking), but definitely one I would avoid on the whole, especially on a sunny summer's day when it gets rammed with people driving down to the coast.

Totally unsuitable for HGVs as well.

Komoot doesn't seem to have a "traffic" option among its route warnings.

[Gattopardo]

Glad you are ok.

You ask what you could have done to avoid the situation, and I think the answer is nothing.  You are an experienced rider that did everything right, unfortunately the other road user was at fault.

[Jurek]

@Laura
Didn't we stop off at The Crown at the top of the hill following my Horley Head Over Heels incident?

[Notsototalnewbie]

@Laura
Didn't we stop off at The Crown at the top of the hill following my Horley Head Over Heels incident?

We did though I don't remember using the B2028 to get there. We were talking about that the other day when we found some similarly unmarked speed bumps.

It didn't appear to be open on Friday afternoon. We stood out the front of the Crown while I persuaded my friend to get back on the road.

[Tim Hall]

Should you be passing that way again, I'd suggest approaching Turners Hill from the West, ie Crawley. It's a longer, but much less steep, climb.  From, say, The Edifice, of FNRTTC fame, go straight over at the traffic lights on the B2037. Into Copthorne to the roundabout on the A264/A2220. Head along the A2220 for 400m then left in Old Hollow. It's a mostly quiet lane but does get a bit of traffic at either end of the day. Ho Big Lorries though. A bit of a ramp just at the end. Left onto Turners Hill road and follow your nose. Potentail tea stop at Tulley's Farm on the way. It'll eventually bring you out at Turners Hill.