5th cyclist dies in 9 days
Comments
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Except the usual thing is that the van/truck/bus turns left whilst overtaking the cyclist.rickeverett wrote:Apparently deaths such as the latest today that have involved trucks, have involved the vehicle turning Left.
Are people that daft as to travel up the inside of a bus or truck - esp if its turning? :shock:
Of course, missing the 70 lorry's stopped. What the BBC misses is of those there were 60 dangerous and illegal issues - mostly driver hours. So yes, it must be the fault of those cyclists not wearing bright clothes, rather than the overtired drivers driving dangerous vehicles. :roll:rickeverett wrote:"More than 100 cyclists were stopped at Vauxhall Bridge Road over "concerns about their behaviour" such as cutting corners or wearing headphones while riding.0 -
There are an awful lot of stupid 'cyclists' on the road, no matter how much some people might hate to admit it. I want to be as supportive as the next person, but, obsessive 'deniers' almost do more harm than good. Can I put in a plea for some of you to take a look at Trucknet, you may be very pleasantly surprised at some of the comments being made there. Ok there are some real tools on there as well as here, but, not as many as you might think. I feel that the real problem with these and accidents in general, is that we never seem to actually get the facts as to what happened. All we see are pathetic stereotypes in the media, which help no one. Found one thread that witnessed one of the accidents, where a rider went straight through a junction and, yes, did hit the lorry. It wasn't a case of 'it must have been the lorry always hitting the cyclist'. Another driver, really worried about cyclists coming up the inside, so much so, that he kept as close in to the kerb as possible - only to have a 'cyclist' hop along on one foot, with the bike leant over trying to squeeze past, unbelievable.0
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For all the issues raised above regarding poor cycling standards (including by me) driving is still equally bad with the difference being motorists are in charge of something likely to do serious harm to others rather than just themselves. Last week a mile or so from my house an elderly couple were run down by a car (30mph area) with the wife being killed and the husband seriously injured. Apparently the woman driving the car has admitted she was texting at the time.
This morning I was (slowly) filtering down the right hand side of walking pace traffic. Most cars kindly move to the left when they see my light but a few like to make it as difficult as possible by holding their ground. In one instance a car started moving to the right and was in danger of crossing the line into the path of an oncoming vehicle. I'd pulled in behind and realised the woman was texting, as I went down the line I saw another two of the cars that didn't move over had drivers texting and a third the driver was messing about with an iPad on his passenger seat. It really needs to be hammered home that driving a motor vehicle, even at low speeds, requires your full attention at all times.0 -
I never said the cycles were at fault. Just pointed out you cant automatically blame the drivers. Note how nobody in the truck cases has been arrested- why?. If the investigations found they were at fault they would have action taken against them.
No driver want to intentionally harm or kill someone either.
Looking at the images - none were at ASL junctions which is telling as if a cycle pulled up along side the truck- the driver wouldn't see them. How many do you see go down the sides of buses and vehicles? When I have been through town I have seen it happen + just take a look at YouTube for London.
Also we should be encouraging the police in there stops. We all know there are cyclists out on city streets don't have any protective gear, ride around dangerously and disobey the rules of the road. But also targeting drivers for infringements too.
Raising awareness on both sides should be praised.
Don't agree much with filtering either, some may do it wrongly .... http://www.access-legal.co.uk/legal-new ... u-2811.htm0 -
The drivers don't need to be arrested if they're co-operating with the Police.rickeverett wrote:I never said the cycles were at fault. Just pointed out you cant automatically blame the drivers. Note how nobody in the truck cases has been arrested- why?. If the investigations found they were at fault they would have action taken against them.0 -
I think us as cyclists should do more to promote weeding out poor cyclists and their blatant law breaking. The general opinion of cyclists in London is that they ALL are red light jumping, lane weaving, under-taking law breakers and as long as they remains the general opinion, we will fail to get the required respect or legislation to ensure our safety is improved.
Great example is Boris today diverting attention away from banning HGV's and bringing the focus onto potentially banning cyclists wearing headphones whilst riding. While I may agree with the sentiment, it is not headphones killing cyclists it is HGV's. They HAVE to be banned from coming into London during peak periods. Every cyclists safety is compromised while they are not.0 -
Crouching Peeky wrote:I think us as cyclists should do more to promote weeding out poor cyclists and their blatant law breaking.
How do you propose to do that? Self-policing isn't a very easy or practical thing to do on a bike...and I highly doubt that those who indulge in poor cycling practices would really listen to any cycling body.0 -
Not sure really. As a responsible cyclist it really does rile me up the attitude of pretty much all non-cyclists towards us riders but then again as I've mentioned on other threads, I cycle along the now infamous CS2 whenever I commute and even this morning around 40% of the riders I saw jumped through red lights. It's easy to see why people form this opinion.
The law may not be great with regard to red lights and cyclists, this isn't the place to discuss that, but whatever your opinion as soon as you ride through a red light you break the law and the opinion of cyclists decreases further with everyone who witnesses this.
I would whole-heartedly support a huge clampdown by the police on any reckless riding. I think that only once the visible majority start respecting the laws of the road will cyclists then in turn get the respect we're due and in turn the support to effect change in terms of safety.0 -
Interestingly I was out on an evening ride last night, turning right at a junction with traffic lights.
Waved a huge lorry past before signalling and turning into the right hand lane. A car that was a fair way behind me pulled up at the side of me in the left hand lane and the window went down. Here we go :roll:
The driver leaned out and said "What a nice change to see a cyclist signalling, keep at it pal!" Gave me the thumbs up, and that was it, off we went. I didn't sense any sarcasm either.
Now I'm pretty sure that most of us make our intentions clear enough and cycle pretty responsibly, but you have to admit, there are a lot of c**** out there as well.
We all see more than our fair share of mental driving (I saw what I originally thought had to be a total one off, for the second time this morning whilst driving to work :shock: :evil: ) and nobody deserves to be knocked off, but it's no good if some people believe we must all be whiter than white either.0 -
Is the concentration of HGV traffic in London unusually high?
i.e. What makes the situation in London different to banning lorries from Chester-le-Street?0 -
I don't know about the other recent incidents, but yesterdays had an ASL. Look here. The only legal entry point to the ASL is on the left, as usual. So the road is designed in such a way that it encourages people to cycle up the left hand side of the traffic. So as a result, even if there isn't an ASL, many people seem to think they should squeeze up the left hand side of the traffic.rickeverett wrote:I Looking at the images - none were at ASL junctions which is telling as if a cycle pulled up along side the truck- the driver wouldn't see them.0 -
I cycle that road regularly and Google must have been very lucky when they took that shot as it is normally very busy with buses. It's certainly not uncommon for there to be two lanes of traffic waiting at the lights, with a few buses at least. As such it's not unusual for the bike box to be taken up, especially as the lights don't tend to stay green for long. Couple this with a relatively narrow road and it's not always easy to go up the left hand side, nor indeed squeeze through the middle either.
It's a tight junction, but not one I've ever really thought of as at all dangerous, but then none of us really know what happened. I mean that road is very often used as a rat run for ambulances going to/from King's hospital. Given the tight nature of the road, maybe the truck was evading an ambulance and turned into the path of the cyclist. We just don't know.0 -
Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved0 -
MattC59 wrote:
Thats why I have been cautious to lay the blame.
Lots are defending cyclist full stop however stupid behaviour like that is a big part of the problem. City cyclists seem to be more dangerous. Perhaps its down to experience I don't know, but many have probably jumped on a bike recently for the first time in years with no training or road sense.
I think cycle clubs, forums, groups, whatever need to look at cycle behaviour and safety too. Like we are doing right now on this forum.0 -
no-ones defending stupid behaviour, the point is we dont know the cause of these accidents, so speculating about something youve seen other people do as the likely cause of an accident involving completely different people isnt likely to get us anywhere very fast, its like endless re-running debates in the guardian bike blog.
if I see pedestrians run across the road alot in front of cars as they do alot in London, and then read about a pedestrian killed by a car, I dont automatically assume the pedestrian who died did so because they ran in front of a car. yet we seem to be saying when a cyclist is killed by a HGV because we see other cyclists undertake HGVs that must be the, if not the only, cause.
whilst pretending all the near miss left hooks, sideswipes and pulling alongside at junctions we generally all encounter on our daily rides at somepoint, and of which youtube also has plenty of video footage too, dont happen
its like somebody said at our work this week, if only Id had a helmet, hi viz, lights, was stopped at a red light in a defensive riding position,not listening to an ipod, that taxi wouldnt have driven straight into the back of my bike and knocked me off...oh wait I was doing all those things :?0 -
I agree, that sort of behaviour is a problem. We don't know if that was the problem in these cases. But the problem is exacerbated because the design of road markings is such that it encourages people to cycle up the left hand side, whilst it should be discouraged. Unfortunately not everybody is as aware of the dangers as those of us posting here so they will follow what they believe to be right like lemmings.rickeverett wrote:MattC59 wrote:
Thats why I have been cautious to lay the blame.
Lots are defending cyclist full stop however stupid behaviour like that is a big part of the problem. City cyclists seem to be more dangerous. Perhaps its down to experience I don't know, but many have probably jumped on a bike recently for the first time in years with no training or road sense.
I think cycle clubs, forums, groups, whatever need to look at cycle behaviour and safety too. Like we are doing right now on this forum.0
