Cyclist fatality Druid Street/Tower Bridge Road, London SE1

MadammeMarie

Happened yesterday, at around 9:30 am. Male cyclist, left turning skip lorry.

http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/4337

Very sad indeed.

DonDaddyD

Very sad indeed.

My thoughts on this are:

With all the road construction work, diverts and increased traffic jams I wonder if there is or has been an increase in traffic collisions/accidents.

Why isn't there a cyclist awareness campaign like the 'Think' campaign with their shocking adverts. If the charity I worked for focused on this area I'd really force this one through.

Obviously, my deepest sympathies are with his family and loved ones.

Roastie

Why isn't this part of the Think! campaign?

deptfordmarmoset

My thoughts go out to his family and loved ones. What a dismal place to die: bad road surfaces, heavy traffic, tight bends under arches, bad visibility, kamikaze pedestrians and, as DDD mentions, eternal roadworks.

Clever Pun

oh no that's horrible, my sympathy goes out to the loved ones. RIP

I'm a little confused why cyclists take that particular road as the ones either side are better...

artaxerxes

My condolences go to his family too. I don't like that road as HGVs and other motor vehicles seem to treat it as some sort of race track.

Wallace1492

Not good. Puts things in perspective. RIP, and condolences to the family/friends/colleagues.

Have a safe trip tonight.

downfader

Another one?

We have as much redevelopment as London and as many HGVs. Perhaps we have less cyclists here and thats why this doesnt seem to happen down here in Southampton? Just seems wrong and odd this keeps happening in London regardless :?

moonio

Oh what a start to the year, another cyclists life wasted. Why isnt boris funding an awarenes campaign on this issue??? Do we need another petition?

amnezia

downfader wrote:

Another one?

We have as much redevelopment as London and as many HGVs. Perhaps we have less cyclists here and thats why this doesnt seem to happen down here in Southampton? Just seems wrong and odd this keeps happening in London regardless :?

to put things in perspective

On average there are 545,000 cycle journeys made every day in London.

The population of Southampton is about 300000

Eau Rouge

It's statistics. There are "only*" just over 100 cyclists killed on the roads most years, and about 10% of those will be in London. The London Met area has about 20% of the population, so actually London probably comes out a little ahead of the numbers. (actual numbers for "london" being hard to find)
It seems more because pretty much all of them get reported here in a thread which isn't the case for those who are killed outside London and 10% tagged to one specific location will be far more than anywhere else smaller than a county, so it will seem like it's the only place it happens.
Southampton is a lot smaller so in absolute terms will "only*" have a few deaths per year.
The danger there is that nothing at all could see an apparant doubling of the cyclists deaths in the city, leading to knee-jerk reactions that will probably only make it harder to be a cyclist in Southampton. Still, I'd rather have that than a situation where the stats are more reliable because more cyclists are being killed.


*any death at all being a tragedy, but in terms of nation road safety 100 is a small amount when you have over 2500 people being killed on the roads each year

Canny Jock

That's terrible, and the worst thing is you can't see anything that is going to stop it happening in the short term. I can't imagine what his family is going through now.

To downfader - as you get closer to the centre of London, cyclists converge and you see a lot in that area. It's quite typical to have a group of 10 cyclists waiting at the lights (well, most of them wait :shock: ), so you would think that the council would do more to ensure their safety. However, the cycle lanes just don't seem to have been thought out properly - just near there the right hand turn on to London Bridge from Tooley Street always scares me, as the cycle lane goes up the left hand side of the traffic, which is 50% lorries and buses, many of which turn left as you are going right. That's one of the reasons this will keep happening.

I'm not saying there are easy solutions, as most of the roads just aren't wide enough to safely accommodate pedestrians, bikes and vehicles.

Awareness needs to be raised amongst all road users, including cyclists. Most of the people on this forum are well aware of the dangers, but many of those who aren't members of this, or other groups, may not be aware of the dangers that HGV's in particular present.

Education of drivers is critical, but I also think that there could be a legal requirement to have signs on the back of lorries warning cyclists not to filter up the left - I've seen a few of these and they are certainly good reminders. It's only a tactical fix but hey, it might help.

I really don't know how to improve things properly, I've only been commuting by bike for 4 months so this is just my opinion so far.

downfader

Southampton is about a 10th of the size of the population in central London, I'd guess.

Still, I do think the best plan of action to educate cyclists about lorries is TV. The trouble is the guys and girls who do filter down the left (and I'm not suggesting this cyclist did) probably dont read here, and probably arent in a cycle club, or rarely talk to more experienced cyclists.

BentMikey

Another biggie is to remove pedestrian railings so that we have a bail-out option onto the kerb. Besides which, railings only cause drivers to drive faster and take more chances.

spen666

downfader wrote:

Another one?

We have as much redevelopment as London and as many HGVs. Perhaps we have less cyclists here and thats why this doesnt seem to happen down here in Southampton? Just seems wrong and odd this keeps happening in London regardless :?

I'm sure there are no where as near as many redevelopments or HGV's in Southampton as in london - and there are certainly no where near as many cyclists

Eau Rouge

downfader wrote:

Still, I do think the best plan of action to educate cyclists about lorries is TV.

Resources are limited and all lives are equal. The view of those who's job it is to spend the money to pay for the TV campaign feel it is better value for money to spend it on other road safety campaigns instead. It's a horrible way to talk about peoples lives I'll grant you, but it's hard to say they aren't right.

shoulder_of_orion

Condolences to the family, such a pity.

Feck me another one on my route (although my route/job has changed since the last one, that's 3 in the past year).

Tower Bridge Road is a friggin nightmare especially that junction. I am super cautious at that junction and nearly got left hooked by a WVM at the very spot the other day. We both swore at each other at the time because it was very close, but as I was cycling away I realised it was neither of our faults. It's simply bad road design.

At 0930 weekdays, cars might have taken 20mins to travel the past mile. They then RLJ through frustration. I had a run in with a skip lorry on this very stretch a couple of weeks ago the driver changes lanes without indicating and almost hit me. I shouted at him and the goon next to him in the cab started to verbally abuse and mock me - to paraphrase, I said something along the lines to the driver: "If you kill me, I'll be dead and you'll have the guilt on your conscience". To be fair he acknowledged this and we parted on good(ish) terms (i.e. I think he acknolwleged his error)- despite the goon who continued to attempt to get a rise out of me.

http://bit.ly/aac2co

They need to add ASLs on tower bridge road as well as perhaps reducing to one lane or one way, though obviously if they did either of those things they would have to find alternative routes for cars.

Another major issue is that this is the edge of the congestion zone and people use it to avoid paying the charge. It's not worth someone's life in my view and I think they should extend the zone beyond this point (i.e. to include Tower Bridge). Unlikely to happen under the bafoonish one.

In the past few days I have changed my route to travel over London bridge to avoid Tower Bridge Road (even though it adds distance, timewise it's roughly the same - Think! auto-stop people...)

Apologies for the essay, but I am super-interested in road deaths on my route for obvious reasons...

_Brun_

I have to disagree about ASLs. All they do is encourage cyclists to filter to the front, and generally that will be done on the inside.

Cyclists need to be aware that there is rarely anything to be gained by going to the front of a queue at a red light. Unfortunately a lot of them appear to have very little sense, and have more in common with the impatient drivers who we're always berating on these forums.

Speculating about the incident itself is pointless, but it's a horrible waste.

RIP.

Bassjunkieuk

Another very unfortunate accident and my thoughts go out to the family

I have used that route on some of my commutes (having check the almighty google maps)
as as SoL said it's scary to hear about deaths on sections you use.

I do however agree with Brun, speculating on how the death happened is pointless. An ASL at the junction "may" have helped if the lorry and cyclist where at the front of the queue but it's no help if the traffic was already moving when this happened. All it takes is for the cyclist to not spot an indicator or the driver to either not indicate or throw it on whilst the rider is alongside and it's never going to end well. If had a few times where I've been going up the inside of traffic only to have to slam the anchors on as I spot a flashing amber light on the vehicle alongside me.

el_presidente

A Dutch artic lorry was waiting at the lights this morning, with a big space up the inside. I sat behind him - lights go green and he turns left without indicating. Chilling how easy it would have been to get hit. Be careful out there people.

Rich158

_Brun_ wrote:

I have to disagree about ASLs. All they do is encourage cyclists to filter to the front, and generally that will be done on the inside.

Cyclists need to be aware that there is rarely anything to be gained by going to the front of a queue at a red light. Unfortunately a lot of them appear to have very little sense, and have more in common with the impatient drivers who we're always berating on these forums.

Speculating about the incident itself is pointless, but it's a horrible waste.

RIP.

I agree with your point about ASL's, I really don't understand why people feel the need to filter to the the front of any traffic, taking the most dangerous route up the inside.

It is wrong to speculate on the circumastances of this death though, my thoughts go out to his familly, RIP

londonbairn

I find it far safer to sit behind the car ensuring the car behind has sight of me through eye contact, never had any problems, but you always get the keenos going to the front even when it is dangerous. Usually catch up with them anyway.

shoulder_of_orion

You all make good points about the ASL and you're right it's probably not the best place to discuss the merits or to speculate about what happened.

I am just shocked that another cyclist has died on a stretch I frequently use and that I know to be dangerous...

DonDaddyD

On ASL's and filtering:

I find that people don't know how to filter or are just merely looking at the vehicle ahead and not further up the road.

When I filter I look at the traffic queue ahead (not just the vehicle I'm ahead of me) to determine if any of the cars are moving and whether I can filter before the car I'm filtering past starts moving.

I think it's important cyclist learn this.

Bikequin

As has been said its another tragic loss and my thoughts go out to cyclists friends and families.

I completely agree with DDD, if you filter sensibly and have your wits about you then ASLs are of benefit, especially when there is a pinch point on the far side of a junction.

As a general rule of thumb I never filter up the left of anything bigger than a van when within 30m of a junction.

fnegroni

Bikequin wrote:

As a general rule of thumb I never filter up the left of anything bigger than a van when within 30m of a junction.

+1

il_principe