Unmarked trucks used by the police.

[Dammit]

Condi said:

No, actually I wouldn't. I would accept that if I am going to stray into the tigers natural environment then its me who needs to change to avoid them.

Same with our roads, they are full of very dangerous animals (cars/lorries) and you need to show respect to them. Our roads, in general, are designed with cars, lorries and buses in mind. Until we get dedicated cycle lanes/paths which are separate from the main carriageway it will always be the cyclists responsibility to be extra careful. It doesnt matter who is 'right' if one party is dead. Being 'right' wont bring you any comfort when your body goes cold.

That's a hell of a sense of entitlement you have there - and it's demonstrably false.

Why is one type of vehicle disproportionally represented in the KSI's? It's because it's very badly designed for the roads of London.

This is a design problem - it can be addressed by changing the design.

The vast majority of people in this thread sound like Americans talking about the possibility of gun control.

[Dammit]

berlintaxi said:

And what would that prove, even if you could raise £500.

LOL. Chicken?

[Cfnteabag]

Dammit said:

Cfnteabag said:

It would appear that the best option would be to remove the cyclists and make it illegal in built up areas as the trucks have a purpose, they are delivering goods, collecting waste and generally contributing to society, cyclists dont do anything that couldn't be achieved using public transport, a car or a motorbike which means that there would be a 100% reduction in cyclist deaths.

Plus his statement that a cyclist is qualified because they have a car license, by this logic I will allow my daughter to drive herself to school tomorrow as she has recently completed her cycling proficiency

To follow the same logic as yourself we could reduce rape by making it illegal for women to leave the house - but as that would be targeting the victim it sounds a little unfair, not to say stupid, just like your argument.

Actually it wouldn't as someone who is raped is having an illegal act carried out against them. A cyclist who is run over is putting themselves at risk by putting themselves in a dangerous position that should be against their better judgement if they were paying more attention.

I will concede that there are times when there is nothing that the cyclist has done wrong but if you are going up the left hand side of an hgv in any situtation then you have to be aware of the fact that you are putting yourself at a risk.

If you were insisting on countering my post, a better example would be to ban the carrying of expensive electronics as it would stop them being stolen.

If you were perfectly honest what negative effects would banning cyclists from london have once the intial adjustment was made?

[Dammit]

Cfnteabag said:

Actually it wouldn't as someone who is raped is having an illegal act carried out against them. A cyclist who is run over is putting themselves at risk by putting themselves in a dangerous position that should be against their better judgement if they were paying more attention.

I will concede that there are times when there is nothing that the cyclist has done wrong but if you are going up the left hand side of an hgv in any situtation then you have to be aware of the fact that you are putting yourself at a risk.

If you were insisting on countering my post, a better example would be to ban the carrying of expensive electronics as it would stop them being stolen.

If you were perfectly honest what negative effects would banning cyclists from london have once the intial adjustment was made?

That's an impressive bit of doublethink you've gone through to try to validate your earlier, stupid, post.

But then you do make up for it by giving a text-book example of victim blaming - it's the "fault" of the person with the iPhone that they get mugged.

No free will for the mugger, of course.

Well done - give yourself ten "thick bigot" points.

[Collectingbrass]

Dammit said:

Condi said:

No, actually I wouldn't. I would accept that if I am going to stray into the tigers natural environment then its me who needs to change to avoid them.

Same with our roads, they are full of very dangerous animals (cars/lorries) and you need to show respect to them. Our roads, in general, are designed with cars, lorries and buses in mind. Until we get dedicated cycle lanes/paths which are separate from the main carriageway it will always be the cyclists responsibility to be extra careful. It doesnt matter who is 'right' if one party is dead. Being 'right' wont bring you any comfort when your body goes cold.

That's a hell of a sense of entitlement you have there - and it's demonstrably false.

Why is one type of vehicle disproportionally represented in the KSI's? It's because it's very badly designed for the roads of London.

This is a design problem - it can be addressed by changing the design.

The vast majority of people in this thread sound like Americans talking about the possibility of gun control.

Firstly if any vehicle is disproportionally represented in the startistics it is cycles, as they always come off worse, and I would be interested in how you propose to redesign that, and who should pay for the replacements. If you mean, as I assume you do, that it is freight vehicles, the same question stands; who should pay for the change and how exactly would you unilaterally impose that on a Europe wide industry?

Secondly, I would contend that HGVs, box trucks, Luton vans and transits are properly designed and fit for purpose within the lead assumption that the Highway Code is followed by all road users. Designers and vehicle manufacturers cannot (yet) design out the human outside the vehicle. I believe we are close to that point, and the next but one generation of vehicles will be sufficiently autonomous to negate the risk of collision. But we are not there yet and we all must do something different if we are to reduce the deaths and serious injuries. For cyclists this has to start with defensive riding.

I have been a civil engineer all my working life - I am now head of construction logistics at Heathrow(1) - and have followed the debate about how to reduce KSI incidents on our roads with interest for years. There is only so much the vehicle side can do, and I believe TFL are doing the right thing by the introduction of the FORS scheme in London, the cycle routes where they can and mandating no left turn on logistics routes to construction sites. However, we cannot live without the lorry. We cannot service our buildings in the city, we cannot build them and we cannot maintain the city infrastructure without trucks (every pipe burst requires 7 lorry movements...).

If we were to ban large trucks we would still need to move the product and in smaller trucks, say transits, the number of vehicles would increase 6 - 7 fold (3.5 T payload v 20 - 25 T). Aside from the congestion and pollution this would cause and regardless of cost, the greater number of vehicles would put cyclists at greater potential of harm just through the 6 - 7 fold increase in interactions alone.

Until we have autonomous trucks with 360 degree radar cyclists will always be at risk, and will always be entering the Tigers den. The industry has done as much as it can, if not far more than it should, it is time cyclists played their part too. Banning vehicles is a utopian solution that does not stand up to reality.

[(1) believe me, if I could get the runway closed for a track day I would, don't think I haven't thought about the circuit!]

Edited by Collectingbrass on Monday 23 November 21:32

[Cfnteabag]

Thank you very much most kind of you.

But the fact remains if put yourself in harms way and get hurt then are you really a victim?

I didn't say blame the person with the iphone I was giving you an example of how you could have given a better example than that of rape.

[SVTRick]

Collectingbrass said:

Firstly if any vehicle is disproportionally represented in the startistics it is cycles, as they always come off worse, and I would be interested in how you propose to redesign that, and who should pay for the replacements. If you mean, as I assume you do, that it is freight vehicles, the same question stands; who should pay for the change and how exactly would you unilaterally impose that on a Europe wide industry?

Secondly, I would contend that HGVs, box trucks, Luton vans and transits are properly designed and fit for purpose within the lead assumption that the Highway Code is followed by all road users. Designers and vehicle manufacturers cannot (yet) design out the human outside the vehicle. I believe we are close to that point, and the next but one generation of vehicles will be sufficiently autonomous to negate the risk of collision. But we are not there yet and we all must do something different if we are to reduce the deaths and serious injuries. For cyclists this has to start with defensive riding.

I have been a civil engineer all my working life - I am now head of construction logistics at Heathrow(1) - and have followed the debate about how to reduce KSI incidents on our roads with interest for years. There is only so much the vehicle side can do, and I believe TFL are doing the right thing by the introduction of the FORS scheme in London, the cycle routes where they can and mandating no left turn on logistics routes to construction sites. However, we cannot live without the lorry. We cannot service our buildings in the city, we cannot build them and we cannot maintain the city infrastructure without trucks (every pipe burst requires 7 lorry movements...).

If we were to ban large trucks we would still need to move the product and in smaller trucks, say transits, the number of vehicles would increase 6 - 7 fold (3.5 T payload v 20 - 25 T). Aside from the congestion and pollution this would cause and regardless of cost, the greater number of vehicles would put cyclists at greater potential of harm just through the 6 - 7 fold increase in interactions alone.

Until we have autonomous trucks with 360 degree radar cyclists will always be at risk, and will always be entering the Tigers den. The industry has done as much as it can, if not far more than it should, it is time cyclists played their part too. Banning vehicles is a utopian solution that does not stand up to reality.

[(1) believe me, if I could get the runway closed for a track day I would, don't think I haven't thought about the circuit!]

Edited by Collectingbrass on Monday 23 November 21:32

Get yourself to Wings & Wheels at Dunsfold next year, you will enjoy ragging your car along the runway.

Do you work from the Logistics Centre just off the A4 by Lakeside EFW ??

[simoid]

Dammit said:

simoid said:

Unfortunately, sometimes the natural punishment for dangerously disregarding the advice of the Highway Code and common sense can be death.

Every vehicle has blind spots and every other road user should be driving to accommodate this.

And if we all took that attitude we'd be dying in our droves from consumption and cholera.

I think we're approaching that situation where you can't tell if someone is seriously holding their view as you are so far removed from what I expect a rational person to believe.

No, in order to avoid getting various diseases we stay clean and hygienic, and even get vaccinations if we're going off abroad, as recommended. Some might say we're taking reasonable common sense steps to prevent death.

I can't say the same for cyclists in HGV blind spots. I note you didn't address the issue that if someone is in an HGV blind spot they are either ignorant of, or wilfully disregarding, the Highway Code and shouldn't really be on the road in the first place.

Edited by simoid on Tuesday 24th November 11:05

[petkar]

First time i have seen an unmarked(white)Police truck on the M1 tonight,just before J9 Northbound they had pulled over another truck,it had its rear lights flashing and there were also blue lights flashing in the grill,this was about 17:45.
It seems that Beds/Herts police have got in on the act now.

[OldGermanHeaps]

The problem of people coming up the blind spots of trucks is easily fixable , sub £100 cctv systems have video analyltics in them so powerful they can do object entering zone detection, object leaving zone, facial detection and numerous other fancy tricks and far more reliable than trafitional motion detection then trigger a relay to sound a buzzer to alert the driver and show the offending item on the already present reversing camera screen so he can see exactly what triggered the buzzer and take action as needed. For around a grand a truck you could have a top notch recording hd cctv and accident avoidance system which compared to the purchase and running cost of a truck is nothing. With its current firmware you end up with a few false positives changing lanes or debris on the road but the manufacturer is working on it.

[simoid]

OldGermanHeaps said:

The problem of people coming up the blind spots of trucks is easily fixable , sub £100 cctv systems have video analyltics in them so powerful they can do object entering zone detection, object leaving zone, facial detection and numerous other fancy tricks and far more reliable than trafitional motion detection then trigger a relay to sound a buzzer to alert the driver and show the offending item on the already present reversing camera screen so he can see exactly what triggered the buzzer and take action as needed. For around a grand a truck you could have a top notch recording hd cctv and accident avoidance system which compared to the purchase and running cost of a truck is nothing. With its current firmware you end up with a few false positives changing lanes or debris on the road but the manufacturer is working on it.

Sesms expensive in comparison to The Highway Code which is available online for free

[OldGermanHeaps]

Yes that seems very effective, relying on people with the mentality of a cyclist being able to read and comprehend the non pop out version on a book that long. Dont you realise all those terrible diesel drivers caused them catastrophic brain damage from the exhaust emissions?

[FurryExocet]

OldGermanHeaps said:

The problem of people coming up the blind spots of trucks is easily fixable , sub £100 cctv systems have video analyltics in them so powerful they can do object entering zone detection, object leaving zone, facial detection and numerous other fancy tricks and far more reliable than trafitional motion detection then trigger a relay to sound a buzzer to alert the driver and show the offending item on the already present reversing camera screen so he can see exactly what triggered the buzzer and take action as needed. For around a grand a truck you could have a top notch recording hd cctv and accident avoidance system which compared to the purchase and running cost of a truck is nothing. With its current firmware you end up with a few false positives changing lanes or debris on the road but the manufacturer is working on it.

The problem is, its an extra cost for the company which unless they have to, won't spend it. A lot of the accidents that I deal with involving HGV's and their blind spots, are the foreign ones. There is already an option available to them, one agency (can't remember who), was offering clip on wing mirror parts at the ports, which would allow them to see down the offside of the unit, but they wouldn't pay for them.

The current trend is, sit with your indicator on for a long enough time, for anyone that is there, to see it and move out of your way.....then after that time, they pull out........

[blueST]

FurryExocet said:

The problem is, its an extra cost for the company which unless they have to, won't spend it. A lot of the accidents that I deal with involving HGV's and their blind spots, are the foreign ones. There is already an option available to them, one agency (can't remember who), was offering clip on wing mirror parts at the ports, which would allow them to see down the offside of the unit, but they wouldn't pay for them.

The current trend is, sit with your indicator on for a long enough time, for anyone that is there, to see it and move out of your way.....then after that time, they pull out........

European trucks can get free Fresnel lenses off Highways England www.lens-tech.com/lhduk