Author Topic: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks  (Read 8046 times)


hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #1 on: 31 May, 2017, 02:57:48 pm »
Indeed.
RIP.

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #2 on: 31 May, 2017, 04:10:10 pm »
Especially awful when you read this report from 2015 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-32899109
 :(

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #3 on: 31 May, 2017, 04:26:24 pm »
:demon:
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #4 on: 31 May, 2017, 04:41:33 pm »
Predictable, preventable, dreadful.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #5 on: 31 May, 2017, 04:54:04 pm »
...and probably foreseen, like Ford Pinto gas tank failures.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #6 on: 31 May, 2017, 06:40:09 pm »
Especially awful when you read this report from 2015 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-32899109

Though today's accident wasn't at the Haymarket blackspot.

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #7 on: 31 May, 2017, 11:13:34 pm »
Especially awful when you read this report from 2015 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-32899109

Though today's accident wasn't at the Haymarket blackspot.

That junction is almost as bad.   

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #8 on: 01 June, 2017, 10:49:17 am »
Awful awful awful.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Pingu

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Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #9 on: 02 June, 2017, 10:48:59 am »
I wonder what position the vehicle was in before the cyclist was hit.

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #10 on: 02 June, 2017, 11:54:56 am »
I wonder what position the vehicle was in before the cyclist was hit.
The implication from a Scottish newspaper article (I followed a link from road.cc) is that the cyclist fell from an adjacent lane into the lane the bus was travelling in. While bad driving is often a contributory factor (if not the direct cause) of cycling injuries/fatalities, it doesn't appear to be case in this circumstance.
Terrible road design/execution on the other hand.... :(

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #11 on: 02 June, 2017, 12:15:04 pm »
There is no adjacent lane there. There is only 1 lane which goes west from princes street across the foot of Lothian road. The tram rails are in this lane. 

The road design is very poor for sure, but in this instance its the bad driving which I think is mostly to blame. 
The bike was under the rear wheels of the bus.  How close / inattentive would you need to be not to see a cyclist falling in front of you and then driving over them.   I'm sickened by this.

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #12 on: 02 June, 2017, 01:32:50 pm »
I yield to your greater knowledge on the road layout.

Stopping distance (for a car) at 20mph is 12m. https://www.drivingtestsuccess.com/pages/stopping-distances-and-the-theory-test
How many drivers drive either at 20mph or further away than 12m? Far too few. :(

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #13 on: 02 June, 2017, 03:20:53 pm »
Now that we have had trams in the UK for number of years I'm curious to know how our 'accident rate' compares to our European cousins where trams are, and have been for decades, very common in thier city centres.

The question them follows, if thier accident rate is lower than ours, why?


Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #14 on: 02 June, 2017, 04:37:16 pm »
There is no adjacent lane there. There is only 1 lane which goes west from princes street across the foot of Lothian road. The tram rails are in this lane. 

The road design is very poor for sure, but in this instance its the bad driving which I think is mostly to blame. 
The bike was under the rear wheels of the bus.  How close / inattentive would you need to be not to see a cyclist falling in front of you and then driving over them.   I'm sickened by this.

Yes, from looking at the photos of the vehicle positions after the incident and from streetview, its hard to see how it could be anything but a case of the minibus being too close to the cyclist, either not leaving sufficient stopping distance or passing too close at a narrow section of road.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #15 on: 02 June, 2017, 06:06:08 pm »
There is no adjacent lane there. There is only 1 lane which goes west from princes street across the foot of Lothian road. The tram rails are in this lane. 

The road design is very poor for sure, but in this instance its the bad driving which I think is mostly to blame. 
The bike was under the rear wheels of the bus.  How close / inattentive would you need to be not to see a cyclist falling in front of you and then driving over them.   I'm sickened by this.

That's what I thought, but I also thought that there would be little chance of it being viewed this way by investigators.
It is simpler than it looks.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #16 on: 02 June, 2017, 09:32:14 pm »
Now that we have had trams in the UK for number of years I'm curious to know how our 'accident rate' compares to our European cousins where trams are, and have been for decades, very common in thier city centres.

The question them follows, if thier accident rate is lower than ours, why?

I don't think ANY of our continental cousins route cyclists between tram tracks EVER for starters....

Cyclists are mostly routed away from tram lines and otherwise cross these at right angles.

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #17 on: 02 June, 2017, 09:40:53 pm »
I don't think younger people necessarily have any awareness of the danger of train and tram lines until they have experienced something bad on them. My own daughter didn't suss out she couldn't mount the dropped curb of someone's drive at angle until she tried it. I think that was the last time she rode her bike.

Since cycling requires no driving licence, it seems absurd the road layout would require some knowledge of what happens when wheel gets pulled off line into a groove to stay alive.  :'(

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #18 on: 02 June, 2017, 10:14:19 pm »
Since cycling requires no driving licence, it seems absurd the road layout would require some knowledge of what happens when wheel gets pulled off line into a groove to stay alive.

And the corollary is equally true - since the driving test doesn't include a practical cycling proficiency test, drivers may well be unaware of the danger that trams tracks present to cyclists.

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #19 on: 02 June, 2017, 10:16:09 pm »
Since cycling requires no driving licence, it seems absurd the road layout would require some knowledge of what happens when wheel gets pulled off line into a groove to stay alive.

And the corollary is equally true - since the driving test doesn't include a practical cycling proficiency test, drivers may well be unaware of the danger that trams tracks present to cyclists.

Never mind, if they stick to the advised allowing a whole car's width when overtaking they won't run over a cyclist who falls off in such a way anyway.

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #20 on: 02 June, 2017, 11:33:00 pm »
Never mind, if they stick to the advised allowing a whole car's width when overtaking they won't run over a cyclist who falls off in such a way anyway.

I very much doubt that the bus was attempting to overtake the cyclist at that location.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #21 on: 02 June, 2017, 11:44:54 pm »
I don't think younger people necessarily have any awareness of the danger of train and tram lines until they have experienced something bad on them. My own daughter didn't suss out she couldn't mount the dropped curb of someone's drive at angle until she tried it. I think that was the last time she rode her bike.

I think there's truth in this.  Most people who aren't of an engineering mindset or taught about the dangers of specific cases only learn this sort of thing through practical experience.  Given the wrong kind of good luck, their first practical experience might be the last one they ever have.

Same goes for the hazard of left-turning HGVs.


FWIW I've ridden amongst trams in various cities, and find that the tram drivers themselves seem to be aware that cyclists might spontaneously fall over (or take unintuitive routes to cross lines perpendicularly) and usually leave a decent amount of stopping room.  It's the general motorists that are the problem.  I'm not sure what Europeans do substantially differently, other than perhaps less motor traffic on city centre tram routes.

Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #22 on: 02 June, 2017, 11:50:57 pm »
Never mind, if they stick to the advised allowing a whole car's width when overtaking they won't run over a cyclist who falls off in such a way anyway.

I very much doubt that the bus was attempting to overtake the cyclist at that location.

Depending on where exactly it happened (I haven't seen any detail other than that BBC report), I wouldn't be so certain. I'm fairly sure I've been overtaken by a bus, not just a minibus, between the end of Princes St and Shandwick Place.

(I ride there I infrequently enough that I can't really remember the details, mind.)

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #23 on: 03 June, 2017, 07:00:41 pm »
"Cyclist hit by minibus" just isn't newsworthy.  :(
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rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Cyclist killed after fall on tram tracks
« Reply #24 on: 03 June, 2017, 07:59:43 pm »
I do think tram lines in streets are a bit like slavery and hanging; relics of a less enlightened past*.  Surely by now there is a technologival solution? 

Of course there is (stiff flaps over the grooves), but it's presumably not worth the money to save a few lives.


*UKIP members may want to look away
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.