Yet another woman cyclist killed by a lorry

[ericjarvis]

Get with the times old man! The roads are for traffic. Cyslists are there by choice and mix with the traffic. Slandering HGV drivers for 'killing' cyclists is my main gripe on this thread. Most cyclists kill themselves by making foolish, reckless manouvres, or being inexperienced when it comes to reading the roads and traffic on it.

Cyclists ARE traffic. So are pedestrians. So is anyone on the road. There is NOTHING in law that gives a motor vehicle any particular additional rights. It's just that drivers of said vehicles are used to being able to bully anyone else on the road.

I'm not saying cyclists don't have a duty of self preservation. Just that drivers of motor vehicles don't have any right to declare themselves to be some form of superior road user with any additional right to the road.

As for not reading the road. The last time I got hit was when I slowed to avoid being hit by a taxi doing a sudden U-turn and was hit from behind by a van driver who had not only been unaware of me, but who had also failed to see the taxi coming out of the inside lane. The time before was a van that pulled up alongside me at traffic lights, then forgot about me when the light turned green and cut across the corner without signalling, putting me through a railin. Neither of the bastards stopped. In neither case was I taking even the slightest risk. One was in broad daylight, the other was at night, but the guy had seen me clearly enough to pull alongside giving plenty of room, he just couldn't remember I was there for the thirty odd seconds the light was red.

So tell me what reckless manouvres were involved. Tell me how stopping at a red light or not running into the side of a taxi is a failure to read the road.

I'm not slandering anyone. Those were both incidents where a dickhead in a van nearly killed me. I accept that there are also numerous incidents where morons on bikes attempt a particularly messy form of suicide. None of it is relevant to the important point that the roads are not, and have never been, the exclusive preserve of motor vehicles. Anyone who thinks they are is unfit to drive.

 

[longdog]

None of it is relevant to the important point that the roads are not, and have never been, the exclusive preserve of motor vehicles. Anyone who thinks they are is unfit to drive.

You're quite right, they are not the exclusive preserve of the motor vehicle and those with the most destructive power if you want to look at it that way have an over-riding duty of care to those with the least. But to suggest as many have done on this thread that truck drivers are engaged in a murderous crusade to rid the world of cyclists is stupid and insulting.

As your story relates the problem is not so much with professional drivers with a hard to obtain licence but with dickheads with a car licence who don't have a fucking clue what they are doing.

I'd like to see a change in the driver licensing laws which required ALL people driving commercially be subject to the sort of stringent testing that HGV licence holders have to go through. Added to that a requirement for ALL commercial vehicle operators regardless of size or the type of vehicle they operate to have an operator's licence and Certificate of Professional Competence the same as truck operators have to have.

There is little the law can do to stop courier firms and the like setting unrealistic schedules for their drivers which encourage them to break speed limits and take risks to the detriment of other road users. HGV operators can (and do) have their operators licences revoked if they set 'challenging' schedules or penalise their drivers for late deliveries. The same should apply to all commercial vehicle operators from bicycle couriers to the heaviest trucks.

ETA: Plus speed limiters and tachographs in all vehicles used commercially with the same driving hours regulations.

 

[moose]

Truck drivers are probably the only road users who have their phone number emblazoned across their vehicle. That makes them pretty answerable for their actions.

 

[Spark]

I agree with this (longdog's last post).

Although through cycling I have developed a bit of an excess fear of HGVs this is because if I know that if I was involved in an accident with one the consequences are likely to be horrific. I can do a lot to avoid any accident with them though - basically stay as far away as I can by either safely getting ahead of one on my route or staying behind.

On a day to day basis I definitely feel most threatened by smaller commercial vehicles - transits and the like - as also illustrated by ericjarvis' post. I regularly see vans and the like making what I see as dangerous manouvers (undertaking, switching lanes suddenly without indicating, driving far too fast, often all while on their mobile) and when these occur in the presence of a cyclist its often accompanied by a tirade of verbal abuse (or sexual harassment).

I have also seen vans act in ways which are deliberately aggressive towards cyclists, eg. on a relatively narrow road where there would be sufficient space for me to pass in the opposite direction a van moved further over so they were on the wrong side of the road not only blocking my way but accelerating as they did this, forcing me to brake and swerve - then followed by another volley of abuse as they passed me.

 

[Roadkill]

Have to say, when I commuted by bike I found:

• Most HGV drivers were pretty good and HGVs manoeuvre slowly enough to be easily avoided: lots of cyclists aren't aware of their blind spots, though, and I saw quite a few people have near-misses cycling up the left side of them
• White Van Man is a stereotype with a fair bit of truth behind it: all too many drive like absolute bastards
• Taxi drivers aren't as bad as people make them out to be
• Boy racers in hot hatches are best steered well clear of
• Bus drivers are usually fine, but do follow a bit too close sometimes: it's a little intimidating peddling along with a double-decker a couple of feet from your rear wheel
• Some pedestrians don't seem to see bikes and blithely step out in front of you
• Some road users of all sorts are utter idiots, and pointing the finger at any one or other group is pointless and unproductive

 

[fredfelt]

I do

Now you say "The majority, if not all, were experienced, fit, strong, law abiding cyclists". Do you have any evidence for that or is that just an assumption? Isn't it possible that in a large if not majority of cases there is some form of Darwinism at work?

Undoubtedly there will be deaths caused as a result of truck drivers doing things they shouldn't be doing or not doing things they should've been but beyond a personal tragedy level is that a good reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

There's an argument for banning large trucks from city centres during rush-hour or even throughout the day but that leads to two problems... A substantially increased number of small vans which are often driven by less skilled drivers frequently on impossible schedules which encourage reckless driving and the problem of increased noise at night.

Something very few non truck drivers are aware of is the fact that as a condition of planning permission many commercial and retail developments are subject to restrictions on the hours during which they will accept delivery. The Tesco up the road from me for instance will not accept deliveries between the hours of 8pm and 8am.

Also as a consequence of planning and operators licence conditions many haulage firms have restricted operating hours.

Banning or restricting the use of trucks in towns sounds fine on the face of it until you look at the unintended consequences.

If you are interested in the cut and paste i posted you should look it up and do the research yourself.

(i just removed this sentence as I re-read your post!)

This happened to me 2 years ago. While riding in a straight road in a 30 limit an HGV obviously got impatient waiting for a safe place to overtake and decided to squeeze his way through in a gap that was not big enough.

Towards the end of overtaking he pulled in too quickly. The lorry actually rubbed against my arm and gave me a minor graze - somehow it did not clip my handlebars. I seriously felt like I just escaped death.

I took a picture of the graze and sent it too to the owners of the HGV. I guess in an effort not to take any responsibility they told me they would do nothing without witnesses.

I then went to the police, they told me that these things happen and that they would not follow it up.

I guess this experience make me think that many are far too complicaint. Yes, people make mistakes, but if it happens when driving an HGV you can very easily kill.