Boris bike accident in Gray's Inn Rd, near Holborn

gabriel959

http://www.itv.com/news/london/story/20 ... collision/

spen666

Sounds painful

A man has been air-lifted to hospital after she was knocked off ...

On a serious note hope she/he/ they are ok

SteppenHerring

Is he/she still paying for the rental? Could get very expensive.

cookeeemonster

They were injured rather than killed fortunately: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12985494

Call to action from the ever excellent cyclistsinthecity blog (Danny Williams): http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/another-week-another-person-crushed-on.html

ooermissus

CookeeeMonster wrote:

Call to action from the ever excellent cyclistsinthecity blog (Danny Williams): http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/another-week-another-person-crushed-on.html

This is a powerful quote:

But you also need to sort out the lethal practices of the construction industry. Every week, it seems, another person is mauled or killed by a tipper truck. My view? The construction industry has a lot to answer for.

As ibikelondon blog puts it: "A combination of unscrupulous payment practices whereby some drivers are paid per load, a distinctly criminal element that runs through the haulage industry, and the fact that most drivers (no matter how careful) can't actually see the vulnerable road users around them, combine to ensure that HGVs are the most dangerous vehicles on the roads, and account for a shocking level of deaths."

I'd clarify that comment a bit and say it's not just any old HGV drivers. It is largely (but not exclusively) tipper truck drivers that are the menaces on our streets, driving waste for the construction industry.

Big_Paul

I've driven tippers, and can state quite categorically that I was never paid by the load, the company was paid by the load, but the driver received the same whether he was sitting in traffic or up and down the motorway. I'm not a Londoner, but I believe that HGV's are banned from the city centre overnight, this strikes me as odd, I remember drawing to construction sites that worked overnight and it was much easier from a drivers point of view, less traffic, fewer red lights, and you used a hell of a lot less fuel as well. Maybe banning construction vehicles during the day is the answer?

Sadly, there are people, not just cyclists, car drivers, pedestrians, motorcyclists etc, who just don't look, I've been sitting still in traffic and a cyclist has tried going up the inside and got stuck between my wheel and a parked car, he can't reverse, I can't move, whose fault is that? and I've lost count of the amount of people I have had undertake me on the inside at lights even when I have clearly had a left indicator on, I have to leave a gap so I can get round the corner without trailing my back axles over the footpath, but some people take it as a god given right to sail on up without a care in the world.

It's not like you'd be able to use a smaller truck, as most of the 7.5t-17t ones use the same cabs as the 8 wheelers with the same visibility issues. And one 8 wheel tipper will carry 20-22 tons of stone, you'd need 5x7.5t to carry the same amount.

davis

Thanks for that Big_Paul. Interesting to read. I still believe the lorries' blind spots coupled with their size renders them particularly dangerous -- but then we're all doing things evolution hasn't prepared us for!

Every cyclist should be taught to never, ever, go up the inside of anything truck-sized (or thereabouts). Ever. (Well it's a rule of thumb, but it'd be a good one to teach)

mybreakfastconsisted

Undertaking by cyclists isn't a significant factor in HGV/cyclist fatalities. Often, the cyclist is hit from behind.

Eilidh Cairns, an experienced commuter cyclist, was killed in February 2009, when a tipper truck driven by Joao Lopes ploughed over her from behind. Lopes was fined £200 for driving with defective vision, but the death was ruled “accidental” and he was free to kill again.

Catriona Patel, an experienced commuter cyclist, was killed in the Monday morning rush hour in June 2009. Pulling away from the Advanced Stop Line as the lights turned green outside Oval Station, a 32-tonne tipper lorry driven by Dennis Putz accelerated into her. Witnesses had to bang on the side of the truck before the oblivious Putz stopped. Putz was a serial dangerous driver, was hung-over — 40% over the limit — and talking on his mobile phone. He denied a charge of causing death by dangerous driving, but was sentenced to 7 years for it.

Brian Dorling, an experienced commuter cyclist and motorcyclist, was killed in the morning rush hour in October last year. A tipper truck turned across his path at the Bow Intersection. They had to use his dental records to identify him.

Deep Lee was struck by a lorry from behind as the lights turned green;

Svitlana Tereschenko was killed by a tipper truck whose distracted driver failed to indicate before turning and driving over her.

Daniel Cox was run over by a truck which did not have the correct mirrors and whose driver had pulled into the ASL on a red light and was indicating in the opposite direction to which he turned.

Try telling Ian McNicoll that his son Andrew, well versed in cyclecraft as a road and commuter cyclist, should have known better than to throw himself under the wheels of the articulated lorry that side-swiped while overtaking him in Edinburgh.

Try telling Debbie Dorling that her cycle and motorcycle-trained husband should have behaved differently at Bow.

Try telling Allister Carey that the death of his daughter Eleanor under the wheels of a lorry in Tower Bridge Road was her own fault.

http://waronthemotorist.wordpress.com/2 ... n-asshole/

veronese68

mybreakfastconsisted wrote:

Undertaking by cyclists isn't a significant factor in HGV/cyclist fatalities. Often, the cyclist is hit from behind.

That doesn't make undertaking lorries a safe or sensible thing to do. We have to look after ourselves as well.

rjsterry

Veronese68 wrote:

mybreakfastconsisted wrote:

Undertaking by cyclists isn't a significant factor in HGV/cyclist fatalities. Often, the cyclist is hit from behind.

That doesn't make undertaking lorries a safe or sensible thing to do. We have to look after ourselves as well.

True, but if the main risk is being run over from behind, then it may be the use of ASLs that is the problem - somewhere you might assume you we're 'safe'.

The Rookie

Well as we are using stat's of dodgy vintage, a cyclist can undertake into an ASL, never leave the blind spot and then be hit from behind.......

bails87

Which would suggest that gutter hugging cycle lanes and asls are a fatally flawed design...

SteppenHerring

bails87 wrote:

Which would suggest that gutter hugging cycle lanes and asls are a fatally flawed design...

I think there's a lot of truth in that.

bails87

Quite.

The Police wrote:

Hey guys, don't ride your bike in the area within the yellow line or you might die.

Local council wrote:

Hey guys, we've just built some great new cycle infrastructure for you to use, hope you like it.

rjsterry

That's a pretty arresting pair of pictures, particularly as the second has the word LADIES partly masked, to ominously read DIES.

cookeeemonster

amazing set of pictures, theres no vehicles in the ASL!!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!

Were they set up?

rubertoe

I dont even bother with the ASL most of the time - I assume that they are something for Addison Lee drivers.

bails87

I should give credit for the photos: http://londonneur.wordpress.com/2011/02 ... junctions/

mybreakfastconsisted

The Police wrote:
Hey guys, don't ride your bike in the area within the yellow line or you might die.

"Because I can't be arsed to, you know, actually look where I'm driving a twenty ton vehicle, can't be bothered to lean forward and check it's clear, and when I kill someone it's their fault for being in the blind spot that only exists because I can't be bothered to look where I'm going."

greg66_tri_v2.0

bails87 wrote:

Quite.

The Police wrote:

Hey guys, don't ride your bike in the area within the yellow line or you might die.

In that picture, how can the driver fail to see the heads of any of the three people standing there? You can draw a line from his eyes to their head, FFS.

Is the threat of death something to do with drivers having death rays that shoot from their eyes?

DonDaddyD

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

bails87 wrote:

Quite.

The Police wrote:

Hey guys, don't ride your bike in the area within the yellow line or you might die.

In that picture, how can the driver fail to see the heads of any of the three people standing there? You can draw a line from his eyes to their head, FFS.

Is the threat of death something to do with drivers having death rays that shoot from their eyes?

Not only that, but how big do they think London's roads are to have the option not to occupy the space within the yellow line and not be on, say, the pavement?

ooermissus

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

In that picture, how can the driver fail to see the heads of any of the three people standing there? You can draw a line from his eyes to their head, FFS.

Is the threat of death something to do with drivers having death rays that shoot from their eyes?

I have always tried to get well out front of an HGV and then look back and catch the driver's eye. Now it seems that even eye contact is putting me in greater danger. :shock:

pangolin

Surely the line is to demonstrate how much he can see at ground level. The blind spot doesn't extend vertically from those lines (unless the windscreen is blacked out), but rather from those yellow lines to the bottom edge of his window.

So right next to the cab, he can't see you. Middle of the marked area, he can see just your head / shoulders maybe. Edge of the area and it's only the bottom of your wheel he can't see.

greg66_tri_v2.0

pangolin wrote:

Surely the line is to demonstrate how much he can see at ground level. The blind spot doesn't extend vertically from those lines (unless the windscreen is blacked out), but rather from those yellow lines to the bottom edge of his window.

Exactly - that marked out areas is the shape of the ground that he can't see. Lie down in that area, and you're in his blind spot.

Bit silly to suggest that a cyclist in that area, standing upright, is in a blind spot. By the look of it, once you are forward of the front of the cab by a foot or two, you have a good chance of some part of your body being seen. The real killing alley is alongside and rearwards of the passenger door, forward of the area that the passenger mirror picks up. Which is what we all knew, no?

ooermissus

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

once you are forward of the front of the cab by a foot or two, you have a good chance of some part of your body being seen.

Assuming that the driver is looking where he's going which, as we know from recent fatalities, is not always the case. That's why eye contact matters.

greg66_tri_v2.0

ooermissus wrote:

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

once you are forward of the front of the cab by a foot or two, you have a good chance of some part of your body being seen.

Assuming that the driver is looking where he's going which, as we know from recent fatalities, is not always the case. That's why eye contact matters.

Eye contact can be important, but I don't usually try to pull lorry drivers during the day (there's a time, and there's a place - it's a medium sized lay-by off the A25 - but you really need to be a prostitute looking to be murdered first*), and I certainly don't want to risk laser holes burnt through my head, thank you very much.


*With due acknowledgement to that comedic genius, J Clarkson.

veronese68

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

The real killing alley is alongside and rearwards of the passenger door, forward of the area that the passenger mirror picks up. Which is what we all knew, no?

We on here know that, the vast majority of the great unwashed would appear oblivious to that rather useful little titbit.

rjsterry

Have to say that I don't trust eye contact at all. I've had too many cases of people looking straight at me, then pulling out/cutting me up/whatever like I'm invisible.

Kieran_Burns

rjsterry wrote:

Have to say that I don't trust eye contact at all. I've had too many cases of people looking straight at me, then pulling out/cutting me up/whatever like I'm invisible.

Just found a new article on this and a nice animation

http://tomroelandts.com/articles/the-looming-effect