Preventing lorry vs. bike collisions

nwallace

Tonymufc wrote:

spen666 wrote:

amnezia wrote:

Anyone that wants apply to the cycle to work scheme should have to attend a mandatory road safety session in order to qualify.

There could be some mileage in this idea- but one issue would be who pays for course and where are courses held- if not near enough it will just oput people off buying bikes

Just playing devils advocate here, but wouldn't this discourage new cyclists. For what its worth I do think its a good idea.

Having mandatory training and testing doesn't seem to discourage the use of the classes of vehicles for which it is currently mandatory. The road is not a toy, to use it you need a bit of training; and that includes pedestrians from a very young age.

If cycle and horse training was as good as and started as early as pedestrian training it may help the next generations. Also note that this is exactly what is happening with driving.

wyadvd

not sure rfid tags have a long enough range for this application. Used in the fresh produce industry with a range on 1 m max.

wyadvd

on thinking about it, why not get all cyclists to switch on their bluetooth with a certain phone name assigned from a database. The lorries could then know that nearby vehicles were cyclists. But the shouldnt be stuck on the left of a lorry anyway!

spen666

wyadvd wrote:

on thinking about it, why not get all cyclists to switch on their bluetooth with a certain phone name assigned from a database. The lorries could then know that nearby vehicles were cyclists. But the shouldnt be stuck on the left of a lorry anyway!

Erm doesn't thisplan require lorry drivers to be looking at their phones and searching for bluetooth devices.

I'd rather thay were looking at the road

wyadvd

noooo some sort of blue tooth enabled computer able to recognise the cyclist's bluetooth tags and flag them up automatically . Maybe some sort of gps hookup too?

shouldbeinbed

and the day you forget your phone, or the battery is low and you turn it off. you've given the driver the lifebelt of a bluetooth warning, there no bluetooth warning ergo there no cyclist.

In almost all the instances I've seen where bike and lorry have been in killing proximity it has been the bike filtering to the lorry not the other way round.

it's lke blaming the Lion for eating you when you've climbed into its cage smeared in reggae reggae sauce.

lorries at nights aren't only the lorrydrivers, its all of the ancillary workerrs needed for the loading and unloading, its the additional breakdown, recovery, police etc needed to cope with this huge nighttime deluge of traffice - costs and council tax would rocket, peoples family lives would be affected all for what?

So brain dead pillocks like the ones DDD has highlighted recently can fulfil the 11th commandment of the Bible that says all cyclists have a god given right to be at the front of any queue and its always someone elses fault if it goes wrong.

to those advocating night time trucking - do you fancy that life for yourself and your family? not for me thanks so why should I be arrogant enough to expect to impose it on someone else.

That said though where it is the trucker that arrives second then the penalities for hitting someone that they should have seen should be far harsher.

vertical

I agree with education on the issue, for both lorry drivers and cyclists. It seems to be the option with the lowest barrier to entry.

The problem is that even if you educate, misjudgments will still get made. If drivers were infallible then airbags would see very little use. Proximity sensors (feasible or not) would have similar application to airbags, reducing the consequences once a mistake has been made.

Canny Jock

To summarise my earlier point then, why don't we work on a flier and find out more about email distribution?

Discuss.

deptfordmarmoset

Canny Jock, this might be a start - Graham Snook, who I believe used to post on here under the name ''Snooks,'' has put this up on a Facebook group. The group states that all content is public.

Canny Jock

Yep, that looks good. I can start finding out about suitable distribution groups, maybe everyone on here could send it to all the cyclists they know?

wyadvd

ive got some bumper stickers that declare' SHARE THE ROAD SAME ROAD SAME RULES SAME RIGHTS' wITH PICTURES OF bikes and cars. Was stuck in a jam today and a taxi driver saw the one i have on my front bumper (of my car) and then looked up at me with what i can mildly call disdain ......oh well another convert then ....not

deptfordmarmoset

I was thinking about the Snook poster: A good number of us have set up blogs, some of them centred on or at least dealing with cycling. Though the individual readership on any one blog might be small, if everyone who's willing to take part were to post it up on their blogs with an invitation to pass it on to every reader who visits, it could slowly reach an audience bigger than that poster is currently reaching. From experience, I know that often the biggest blog readers are bloggers themselves. (As I write this, a blogger has just posted a comment on my own blog...so that has just proved itself in my case.)

So, the idea would be to post a short article on one blog using the image plus the image in downloadable PDF form in A4 and 2xA5 (quality's probably not good enough for bigger sizes) together with an invitation to copy the short article plus PDFs to their own blogs or write their own article.

If I can get myself organised this busy weekend, I'll have a go at posting a example up, and then invite comments and suggestions for amendments/additions.

While this should logically go on the campaign thread, I'm aware that a number of people don't visit there very often, and the discussion has taken place on this forum.

deptfordmarmoset

EDIT: technical hiccup - double post.

zanes

I'm sure last time Snooks (or others) circulated that flier here people objected on the basis "it implies cyclists are at fault" or some such crap, so it was relegated.

deptfordmarmoset

I just put a small blog article with the poster up here: http://deptfordmarmoset.blogspot.com/

Any comments welcome.

I failed with the plan to upload the poster as PDFs for downloading and printing in A4, and 2 x A5 format , via google.docs. Anybody have any clues as to the easiest way of doing this because I got nowhere?

cjcp

zanes wrote:

I'm sure last time Snooks (or others) circulated that flier here people objected on the basis "it implies cyclists are at fault" or some such crap, so it was relegated.

I think that's right; he copped some stick for it. He was right.

zanes

cjcp wrote:

zanes wrote:

I'm sure last time Snooks (or others) circulated that flier here people objected on the basis "it implies cyclists are at fault" or some such crap, so it was relegated.

I think that's right; he copped some stick for it. He was right.

Who, Snooks?

cjcp

zanes wrote:

cjcp wrote:

zanes wrote:

I'm sure last time Snooks (or others) circulated that flier here people objected on the basis "it implies cyclists are at fault" or some such crap, so it was relegated.

I think that's right; he copped some stick for it. He was right.

Who, Snooks?

Yup.

always_tyred

I don't remember it being that badly received.

I thought it was a good idea, but I didn't like the colour!

In seriousness - I thought there was way too much information on the sticker, but the idea is okay. If a cyclist bimbles down the inside of an HGV or a bus, yes they ARE at least partially to blame. On that basis, I don't understand the objection.

Didn't someone suggests something like a symbol of a bicycle (the white on blue one), with an arrow to one side, labelled "Overtaker" and a no cycling sign with an arrow to the other side labelled "Undertaker"?

easyboy

the reason why freight has drastically reduced its shipping by rail is the fact that the rail unions went on strike all the time for no reason (running out of ketchup in the canteen is not an excuse to go on strike for a week while everyone waits for the delivery of whatever) freight by rail does not work in most applications

As soon as a large vehicle starts to turn he/she can no longer see what is behind or at the side of them this is especially so in articulated vehicles
i drive an hgv around the uk and also venture into city centres (not by choice)and see on a daily basis cyclists making the same mistake,riding up the nearside of a moving or just started moving hgv ,this is a recipe for disaster
I am not a minority i drive and ride,when i drive i take extra care when in the close proximetry to cyclists
But on the flipside i have been witness to some horrendous driving by hgv drivers and quite how the cyclist has remained alive is a mystery.
There is no way you can ever stop incidents happening between vehicles and cyclists,all we can do is ensure we as individuals,either rider or driver are aware of each other and take steps,to not be part of the statistics
I do not ride in the gutter but about a metre from the curb, yes i get people beeping the cars horn and doubting my parentage,but it does stop them from forcing you into the gutter and they always slow down

cjcp

@Easyboy - thanks for posting. When you say that you go through city centres "not by choice", do you mean that (i) you are instructed to go the shortest route and that this involves driving through the city centres, or (ii) that your contracted destination takes you into or unavoidably through a city centre?

Also, what do you think of the idea that HGVs be restricted to travel through city centres during certain times?

And, finally , do you know whether HGV traffic in ciy centres would be reduced if greater use was made of coastal sea transport?

easyboy

Some very good points there cjcp
1...all truck drivers avoid town centres like it were plague infested,the only time a truck should be in a town centre is when its delivering there,some factories are only accessable via tc's...sometimes the local council in there wisdom impose weight restrictions/width restrictions along routes which occasionally forces trucks through tc's
2...If you restricted hgv's to certain times then not only would you make it difficult for hgv's,but would it not make it more dangerous for cycles .ie the other road users would wait for the hgv banning time to come around then rush around themselves,while on paper it looks simple i feel you would only move the problem
3...in answer to the coastal sea freight no idea but you would have problems with tides,wind,port access the ports we have are nearly to full capacity,a good wind shuts most ports down and you have to travel through city centres to get to most ports
Cycle lanes are the way to go and if used correctly by all road users,would cut cyclist fataities
2 vehicles leave Dover to go to Halifax one goes the speed limit while the other can go any speed they want,the difference in journey time believe it or not is 9 mins yes nine mins
what i'm saying is if you set off a little earlier to go to your destination then you would not have to rush around, you would have the time to see more of whats going on and you would get to your destination more relaxed
many Dutch vehicles are fitted with blind side cameras this allows them to see clearly elliminating the blind spot
proximaty alarms don't work as articulated vehicles are 16 metres so you would have to set it at 16 metres but what about everything else aroud the vehicle it would pick that up as well
Cycle lanes work in Europe so why not here in the UK
Incidents will always and have always happened its up to you as an individual to take as many steps as possible to ensure YOUR safety
sorry for the long posting

cjcp

2...If you restricted hgv's to certain times then not only would you make it difficult for hgv's,but would it not make it more dangerous for cycles .ie the other road users would wait for the hgv banning time to come around then rush around themselves,while on paper it looks simple i feel you would only move the problem

Moonio mentioned a similar, good, point, too. OTOH, though, delivery trucks park outside shops or stop on busy streets during rush hour. If HGVs and delivery trucks were limited to certain times, do you think this would ease congestion and the feeling of needing to rush around (btw, I'm not saying that is a better approach)?

3...in answer to the coastal sea freight no idea but you would have problems with tides,wind,port access the ports we have are nearly to full capacity,a good wind shuts most ports down and you have to travel through city centres to get to most ports

Given the congestion on the roads, it does make you wonder whether money is better spent on expanding port capacity (we are an island, after all) than on road development to reduce the distances HGVs need to travel. This is going a bit OT, though.

Cycle lanes are the way to go and if used correctly by all road users,would cut cyclist fataities

Unfotunately, the condition of the road in many of the cycle lanes I travel in aren't in very good condition, presenting a hazard themselves. So, the condition of many roads need to be improved first.

2 vehicles leave Dover to go to Halifax one goes the speed limit while the other can go any speed they want,the difference in journey time believe it or not is 9 mins yes nine mins
what i'm saying is if you set off a little earlier to go to your destination then you would not have to rush around, you would have the time to see more of whats going on and you would get to your destination more relaxed

In that case, do you think there's an argument to limiting HGVs to 20 mph in city centres even on roads such as - and I apologise for being London-centric here - Embankment, if there's no real advantage to being able to travel at 30+mph in parts?

Cycle lanes work in Europe so why not here in the UK

IMO - there's a culture of cycling on the continent which we don't have here. Traffic density in places like SE England is also a problem.

Incidents will always and have always happened its up to you as an individual to take as many steps as possible to ensure YOUR safety

Very true.

easyboy

Unfortuanately cjcp it has been proved in europe that if you restrict hgv speeds then you will make other road users take unecessary risks to overtake said hgv resulting in an increase in road based fatalities, take the A14/A47 from newark to great yarmouth.
implement 20 mph for all road users in a specific town centre area
But this topic is taking the original post a little off thread so.........
You can lose sight of a medium sized van in the blind spot area of a large truck,this has been improved dramatically by the introduction of an extra blind spot mirror to the near-side.now if you can lose sight of a van what chance for a bike
Speaking from experience here i have squashed and written off cars who came up my near-side while i was turning left .2 of the 3 occasions in felt like a gust of wind had caught the cab the other occasion i didnt feel anything except a power loss and this was a police car luckily lots of witnesses ,if i was to hit someone on a bike i would probably not feel a thing
Imagine 32-44 tonne setting off then turning left powering up to take the 90 degree left turn scrubbing the 6 large footprint tyres that contact the road the driver will not know that they have driven straight over you result is not pleasant
cyclist v truck no contest think before you undertake

Eau Rouge

As I understand it, the "HGVs" involved in most of the London incidents are not a cab and trailer but a 2 or 3 axle lorry like a rubbish truck, or is there really a lot of articulated traffic in London too?

Cycle lanes aren't a great answer. They work in other countries because they are designed from the start as traffic-carrying routes for traffic whereas here they are designed from the start as footpaths for pedestrians who happen to be on a bike. They are built to get cyclists out of the way, not to provide better infrastructure for cyclists the way they are in some parts of the continent. Until that changes they should be opposed as drivers expect us to use the dangerous, inconvenient, stupid things.

roger_merriman

Eau Rouge wrote:

As I understand it, the "HGVs" involved in most of the London incidents are not a cab and trailer but a 2 or 3 axle lorry like a rubbish truck, or is there really a lot of articulated traffic in London too?

Cycle lanes aren't a great answer. They work in other countries because they are designed from the start as traffic-carrying routes for traffic whereas here they are designed from the start as footpaths for pedestrians who happen to be on a bike. They are built to get cyclists out of the way, not to provide better infrastructure for cyclists the way they are in some parts of the continent. Until that changes they should be opposed as drivers expect us to use the dangerous, inconvenient, stupid things.

i do see the odd articulated lorries, though they are normally very well driven. in the outer reaches of london.

cycle lanes like you say never seem to be thought though. I avoid one road on my commute as it has a cycle lane plus pinch points and frankly I don't want that hassle every day.

wyadvd

dont know if this has been posted on the thread yet , but from the ROSPA site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL-1dKJX ... r_embedded

a little patronising but might be a " ahhh" moment for a few newbies (me included)

wyadvd

easyboy wrote:

Cycle lanes are the way to go and if used correctly by all road users,would cut cyclist fataities

Unfortunately the above statement is ill informed as is the entire cycle path idea. there is a considerable body of research proving around a 30 % INCREASE in cyclist accidents comparing before and after the introduction of cycle paths/lanes :

the safest way to go is competant well lit cyclists using the roads along with everyone else.

http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/digest/research.html

http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/digest/sustrans1.html

wyadvd

the only benefit of cycle paths is that they make you FEEL safer and might make you more likely to get on a bike in the first place. Unfortunately they also make you feel safe at the many intersections with side roads at which many motorists are niot expecting to see cyclists and many inexperienced cyclists assume they have right of way (duh?).. a trap that nearly got me killed on my first day of cycle commuting. I now avoid the cycle paths like the plague and instead follow a 50mph dual carraige way on which I now feel much safer and am always given ample room when overtaken by all vehicles.

easyboy

I am sorry wyadvd,but i cannot dis-agree with you more
.
You will find that most junctions have one or two lines of white dashes painted onto the mouth of the junction depending on whether you are turning into the junction or coming up to the junction to turn
But regardless of which direction you approach the junction the dashes of paint mean the same

Give way to other road users this includes cyclists and pedestrians,and on every cycle lane that i have used,they also have give way marking,so in theory the only way that an incident can occur is if one party was not paying attention to the meaning of the give way or the rules of the road