Lorries cause more cycling accidents

[Pan Pan Pan]

Lucas CAV said:

316Mining said:

Many cyclists don't do themselves any favours - riding with earphones and music blaring doesn't help ....

but the biggest issue for cyclists is junctions and momentum - a cyclist doesn't want to stop as they prefer to keep moving to conserve their momentum. So a cyclist approaching a set of traffic lights on red will slow slightly in the approach, and try to keep moving, up the inside of traffic, rather than stop in the queue. So they get to the front of the queue just after the lights change and as the traffic at the front of the queue starts moving off. Then they don't even notice the lorry at the front intends to turn left. They've past his rear indicators without processing that info somehow. I saw a truck recently and it had indicators right up the side of his load area right to the front, a great idea.


The other factor I think is a planning issue. There are massively more trucks on the roads of London since they started Cross Rail. I'd love to know the stats for accidents involving Cross Rail employed trucks - who I guess are probably employed on a 'per load' basis. Perhaps that has had a bearing on the numbers killed? Perhaps the authorities need to rethink putting so many big trucks on the streets of London to achieve these big infrastructure works....

Well you either don't do the big infrastructure jobs or you allow trucks in.

How else would you shift soil, rubble or materials?

Being a very much rural bumpkin who has just spent a week in London, yes there are a fair few lorries about... But orders of magnitude more cars?

What tt takes a car to Central London?

Just about everything we can think of is moved about by trucks of all sizes, perhaps London could be supplied by boat via the Thames? but Londoners would have to arrange to visit the river, and carry their goods/rubble/soil etc to and from there? If it was a matter of facilitating one form of traffic over another trucks and HGV`s would have to be put first, for without them nothing else in the country would work.

[Lucas CAV]

Pan Pan Pan said:

Lucas CAV said:

316Mining said:

Many cyclists don't do themselves any favours - riding with earphones and music blaring doesn't help ....

but the biggest issue for cyclists is junctions and momentum - a cyclist doesn't want to stop as they prefer to keep moving to conserve their momentum. So a cyclist approaching a set of traffic lights on red will slow slightly in the approach, and try to keep moving, up the inside of traffic, rather than stop in the queue. So they get to the front of the queue just after the lights change and as the traffic at the front of the queue starts moving off. Then they don't even notice the lorry at the front intends to turn left. They've past his rear indicators without processing that info somehow. I saw a truck recently and it had indicators right up the side of his load area right to the front, a great idea.


The other factor I think is a planning issue. There are massively more trucks on the roads of London since they started Cross Rail. I'd love to know the stats for accidents involving Cross Rail employed trucks - who I guess are probably employed on a 'per load' basis. Perhaps that has had a bearing on the numbers killed? Perhaps the authorities need to rethink putting so many big trucks on the streets of London to achieve these big infrastructure works....

Well you either don't do the big infrastructure jobs or you allow trucks in.

How else would you shift soil, rubble or materials?

Being a very much rural bumpkin who has just spent a week in London, yes there are a fair few lorries about... But orders of magnitude more cars?

What tt takes a car to Central London?

Just about everything we can think of is moved about by trucks of all sizes, perhaps London could be supplied by boat via the Thames? but Londoners would have to arrange to visit the river, and carry their goods/rubble/soil etc to and from there? If it was a matter of facilitating one form of traffic over another trucks and HGV`s would have to be put first, for without them nothing else in the country would work.

Yes.

[316Mining]

Lucas CAV said:

316Mining said:

Many cyclists don't do themselves any favours - riding with earphones and music blaring doesn't help ....

but the biggest issue for cyclists is junctions and momentum - a cyclist doesn't want to stop as they prefer to keep moving to conserve their momentum. So a cyclist approaching a set of traffic lights on red will slow slightly in the approach, and try to keep moving, up the inside of traffic, rather than stop in the queue. So they get to the front of the queue just after the lights change and as the traffic at the front of the queue starts moving off. Then they don't even notice the lorry at the front intends to turn left. They've past his rear indicators without processing that info somehow. I saw a truck recently and it had indicators right up the side of his load area right to the front, a great idea.


The other factor I think is a planning issue. There are massively more trucks on the roads of London since they started Cross Rail. I'd love to know the stats for accidents involving Cross Rail employed trucks - who I guess are probably employed on a 'per load' basis. Perhaps that has had a bearing on the numbers killed? Perhaps the authorities need to rethink putting so many big trucks on the streets of London to achieve these big infrastructure works....

Well you either don't do the big infrastructure jobs or you allow trucks in.

How else would you shift soil, rubble or materials?

Being a very much rural bumpkin who has just spent a week in London, yes there are a fair few lorries about... But orders of magnitude more cars?

What tt takes a car to Central London?

For sure there is no simple straightforward cure all answer. But maybe when planning these big infrastructure programmes they need to consider mitigating strategies to reduce risk.

For example, perhaps putting a rule in place before the bids come in that loads can only be moved during non rush hour times (although defining rush hour in London is probably impossible!).

Or perhaps as has been said, utilising the river more (don't think it cant be done, it was done for hundreds of years - the main problem now is the river bank real estate has such high value there is no longer the required access).

Specialised routes designed for trucks before hand with de-confliction from cyclists built in as a priority (or the other way around, specialised routes for cyclists).

Proper policing of the works - mini convoys with escorts rather than free for all for individual trucks involved in the effort.

No single idea is going to stop the problem of cyclists and trucks meeting at junctions, but I would guess that many strategies could be employed to mitigate the risk, including the proper Policing of cyclists.

And of course, many accidents involve non infrastructure programme trucks, stuff like deliveries etc. There was a time though that these deliveries had to take place mainly overnight, nowadays it seems companies mostly operate as and when they require deliveries. Perhaps this is because of our 'just on time' delivery methodology now? Stuff arrives as its required, and very little room for storage.

My daughter recently started the daily commute with me, and within a couple of days stated the blindingly obvious - why the hell are HGV trucks allowed to use the roads during the rush hours? Perhaps we should hasten the arrival of autonomous drive truck technology would mean that trucks can use the roads during the overnight hours only, keeping the roads for cars during the day.

[heebeegeetee]

316Mining said:

My daughter recently started the daily commute with me, and within a couple of days stated the blindingly obvious - why the hell are HGV trucks allowed to use the roads during the rush hours? Perhaps we should hasten the arrival of autonomous drive truck technology would mean that trucks can use the roads during the overnight hours only, keeping the roads for cars during the day.

I'm not sure that clearing the roads of traffic whenever you personally want to use the roads is a blindingly obvious solution, however; Most of the articulated lorries you see already runs day and night. If you want to deliver at night only you'd need to greatly expand the fleet and drivers, but are you willing to pay for it?

[Lucas CAV]

Working on the distant ( very much) periphery of the haulage industry I very much doubt that there are enough "overnight" hours to deliver everything that a city the size of London needs.

The answer has to be segregated cycleways of some description.

Cutting stress and congestion to allow efficient use of the roads for the trucks needs to be addressed too (Ie fewer cars)

I last drove in London about 25 years ago and it didn't matter whether it was in a car or in a tipper... Some other road users were s.. Some were cyclists, some were car drivers.

[heebeegeetee]

Lucas CAV said:

Working on the distant ( very much) periphery of the haulage industry I very much doubt that there are enough "overnight" hours to deliver everything that a city the size of London needs.

The answer has to be segregated cycleways of some description.

I agree, and I think it's the only safe answer.

We'll now get all the reasons why we can't do what everyone else has managed.

[oyster]

Moonhawk said:

I wonder in how many of those accidents - the cyclists behaviour was a large contributory factor (i.e. Riding up the inside of a HGV making a wide turn)?

I'm in London at the moment and the cyclists behaviour is shocking. We came out of our hotel last night - crossed the road at pelican crossing in order to catch a cab on the opposite side. Must have taken all of 30 seconds - yet within that time I saw two cyclists 'filtering' through the traffic at speed, running the red light and weaving through the pedestrians who were crossing.

If you'd stayed to watch the green light sequence you'd have seen at least 2 pedestrians crossing in front of vehicles.
Then watched a further red light sequence and seen 2 motor vehicles go through red.

It's endemic in London whatever mode of transport.

[oyster]

fblm said:

As a biker IMO the uncomfortable truth is that 9 times out of 10 if a bike is in a position to be crushed it's the bikes fault not the HGV drivers. We've all seen it dozens of times. I sometimes wonder if cyclists shouldn't have to sit a test to be allowed on the roads.

Not sure that's actually a fact is it?
You've made that one up haven't you?

[RobinOakapple]

oyster said:

fblm said:

As a biker IMO the uncomfortable truth is that 9 times out of 10 if a bike is in a position to be crushed it's the bikes fault not the HGV drivers. We've all seen it dozens of times. I sometimes wonder if cyclists shouldn't have to sit a test to be allowed on the roads.

Not sure that's actually a fact is it?
You've made that one up haven't you?

It's a figure of speech based on the evidence of his eyes. I could provide the same evidence.

[Mandat]

RWD cossie wil said:

Natural selection indeed.... coming back from nights this morning, driving down a dark B road, I pick up a cyclist in my headlights, virtually all in dark colours, save one tiny strip of reflective on his back, no rear light at all, front light on but obviously hardly visible from behind.

I wound my window down & shouted "scuse' me mate, you have no lights on & you are really hard to see", only to be met with a barrage of abuse & being called "fking blind". I'd say I hope the tosser gets run over, but it's so unfair on whichever poor sod ends up killing the fkwit

Taken from the FCO travel advice for Poland

Pedestrians and cyclists must wear a reflective item between dusk and dawn when outside a built-up area, regardless of the weather. Anyone hit by a car or a bike when not wearing a reflective item is liable to be held responsible for the accident. Police may impose fines on those not wearing reflective items.

[frisbee]

Mandat said:

Taken from the FCO travel advice for Poland

Pedestrians and cyclists must wear a reflective item between dusk and dawn when outside a built-up area, regardless of the weather. Anyone hit by a car or a bike when not wearing a reflective item is liable to be held responsible for the accident. Police may impose fines on those not wearing reflective items.

The presence of a bike cancels out the effect of all reflective items and lighting. "Sorry mate I didn't see you."

Unless you're jumping a red light or wearing lycra...

[RWD cossie wil]

frisbee said:

Mandat said:

Taken from the FCO travel advice for Poland

Pedestrians and cyclists must wear a reflective item between dusk and dawn when outside a built-up area, regardless of the weather. Anyone hit by a car or a bike when not wearing a reflective item is liable to be held responsible for the accident. Police may impose fines on those not wearing reflective items.

The presence of a bike cancels out the effect of all reflective items and lighting. "Sorry mate I didn't see you."

Unless you're jumping a red light or wearing lycra...

Being a motorcyclist & cyclist myself, I am of the opinion that if I put my life in the hands of others then at some point I'm going to lose that gamble.... Car vs car chances are you will escape death, you have to be pretty unlucky now to get totalled with all the modern safety advances. Car Vs 2 wheels? There is generally only one winner & one loser, regardless of who is at fault.

You can be 100% in the right, & still be killed easily, so why increase your odds by placing yourself in positions that seriously compromise a) your ability to be seen by drivers, b) positions that you have no escape route from, c) relying on other drivers doing the right thing.

We can argue till we are blue in the face about who's fault it is, but the simple fact of the matter is that if you are in a collision on a bike, you are going to come off worse. Being a militant rider will end up with you getting squashed, ignoring the rules of the road will get you squashed, chances are even riding 100% within the law you will get squashed if you are not on your game, humans make mistakes, get impatient, get angry etc, if you don't ride in a manner that mitigate that risk then don't be surprised when you get deaded.....

[heebeegeetee]

Mandat said:

Taken from the FCO travel advice for Poland

Pedestrians and cyclists must wear a reflective item between dusk and dawn when outside a built-up area, regardless of the weather. Anyone hit by a car or a bike when not wearing a reflective item is liable to be held responsible for the accident. Police may impose fines on those not wearing reflective items.

Our Highway Code advises pedestrians to do the same, but it's advice that's pretty much totally ignored.

[anonymous-user]

oyster said:

fblm said:

As a biker IMO the uncomfortable truth is that 9 times out of 10 if a bike is in a position to be crushed it's the bikes fault not the HGV drivers. We've all seen it dozens of times. I sometimes wonder if cyclists shouldn't have to sit a test to be allowed on the roads.

Not sure that's actually a fact is it?
You've made that one up haven't you?

9 times out of 10? Call it an educated guess. Over a decade riding in London I don't recall ever seeing a close call or accident caused by an hgv. Every time it's the bikes fault. With bikes and cars it's usually the cars fault,fwiw. None of which should distract from the *fact* that the article doesn't say hgvs cause 58% of accidents as claimed by the op, it says they are involved in 58% of deaths. Which isn't exactly surprising.

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 27th October 04:56