This discussion is taking flights of fancy (including my own)

We need accurate figures for the number of injuries and fatalities from left turning vehicles in all major cities.

Also, exactly what are the fatal injuries sustained, the continual call for cycle helmets needs to be challenged because many unthinking people think that they would help, I suspect fatality from head injury to cyclists is not of a significant number.

The BBC is a publicly funded enterprise and I think that the government should just commandeer air time to advertise the danger of getting between a lorry and the railings.

At the moment, I think that many cyclists are lulled into a false sense of security that as long as they have a yellow jacket and helmet, they will be OK.

 

Well said. A little over a hundred cyclists are killed annually on UK roads, and only a small minority of the deaths involve left turning trucks. A number are hit from behind, especially after dark, some killed though a collision with groups of bikes on narrow road blind bends, plus an assortment of other reasons. This year I believe the left turn accident deaths in London total seven, about half the average total London annual cycling deaths in recent years. Many of those killed were wearing helmets which obviously didn't help, and that's certainly true of the left turn accidents where death is due to body crushing.

 

Currently some 540,000 cycle journeys are made daily in London on weekdays, so a total of over 140 million journeys a year on working weekdays alone, which rather puts an average of around 14 deaths into perspective, one per 10 million journeys.

 

That means the average cycle commuter would have to ride to work for nearly 27,000 years for their turn to come round.

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Edited December 5, 201312 yr by flecc

"drivers must sit on right hand side for safety" , so ALL the Left Hand drive vehicles, inc hgv's, are operating UNsafely? Mmm, I think continental drivers might disagree!

What would a glazed cab look like? Wonder no more Why the London Cycling Campaign designed a bike-friendly lorry | Environment | theguardian.com. And there are examples on the road, guess which!

I'm sorry you feel nothing can be done for cyclists as such. Try to bear in mind that Pedestrians make up 51% of the Killed or Seriously Injured on road.

Perhaps we should have an Ad campaign. like the Train Level-Crossing one...children cycling home from school, along the road, then loud truck sound and screen goes black with message "Watch out for Trucks"...would that suit?

Why do you ignore the answers Mike? I posted above why that sort of low cab truck cannot be used instead of the ones involved in the accidents.

 

Saying something wrong repeatedly doesn't make it right.

"drivers must sit on right hand side for safety" , so ALL the Left Hand drive vehicles, inc hgv's, are operating UNsafely? Mmm, I think continental drivers might disagree!

What would a glazed cab look like? Wonder no more Why the London Cycling Campaign designed a bike-friendly lorry | Environment | theguardian.com. And there are examples on the road, guess which!

I'm sorry you feel nothing can be done for cyclists as such. Try to bear in mind that Pedestrians make up 51% of the Killed or Seriously Injured on road.

Perhaps we should have an Ad campaign. like the Train Level-Crossing one...children cycling home from school, along the road, then loud truck sound and screen goes black with message "Watch out for Trucks"...would that suit?

It's been rather common knowledge for years. A couple of pages that came up on the first page of searching google for information on lhd uk crashes.

 

Accidents caused by foreign lorries increase by 10 per cent - Telegraph

 

LHD HGV 'Blindspot' Crashes Cost £57 Million a Year | Legal Advice | Honest John

 

If you still aren't convinced try to get car insurance for a LHD car, most insurance companies want nothing to do with them.

Which cannot be used on the construction industry trucks that are so often involved Mike, for the same reason that they cannot have side fences to stop cyclist going underneath. They leave the road onto sites with very uneven rutted surfaces that demand high ground clearances. In addition that sort of cab on a truck considerably lengthens it, creating a new set of problems.

 

As Clockwise says, it's all a tricky balancing act to reach a suitable compromise. Reaching a compromise that mainly suited bikes, the least used of all vehicles in the UK, would be madness, we have to be realistic.

 

Try using Rubber Skirts and Height Adjustable Air Suspension, up on site, down on road

How would Fully Glazing a truck cab make it longer ? Oh, U mean Low Floor, well a Flat Engine is a start.

And "make anything forward of the Trailer or Bed/Box/Body of Rigid visible" if that helps!

Which cannot be used on the construction industry trucks that are so often involved Mike, for the same reason that they cannot have side fences to stop cyclist going underneath. They leave the road onto sites with very uneven rutted surfaces that demand high ground clearances. In addition that sort of cab on a truck considerably lengthens it, creating a new set of problems.

 

As Clockwise says, it's all a tricky balancing act to reach a suitable compromise. Reaching a compromise that mainly suited bikes, the least used of all vehicles in the UK, would be madness, we have to be realistic.

 

Try using Rubber Skirts and Height Adjustable Air Suspension, up on site, down on road

How would Fully Glazing a truck cab make it longer ? Oh, U mean Low Floor, well a Flat Engine is a start.

And "make anything forward of the Trailer or Bed/Box/Body of Rigid visible" if that helps!

Don't forget 51% of KSI's are Pedestrians, which we ALL are.

Edited December 5, 201312 yr by MikeyBikey

I'm sorry you feel nothing can be done for cyclists as such. Try to bear in mind that Pedestrians make up 51% of the Killed or Seriously Injured on road.

 

Indeed, and it's no coincidence that these are the two groups not trained, tested and licenced. Time to introduce cyclist and pedestrian training with proficiency tests and licencing perhaps?

 

 

Perhaps we should have an Ad campaign. like the Train Level-Crossing one...children cycling home from school, along the road, then loud truck sound and screen goes black with message "Watch out for Trucks"...would that suit?

 

We've had very large scale TV and newspaper ad campaigns in London and cyclists have just ignored them. Presumably they all think as you seem to, that the accidents are everyone else's fault

Indeed, and it's no coincidence that these are the two groups not trained, tested and licenced. Time to introduce cyclist and pedestrian training with proficiency tests and licencing perhaps?

I wonder if any of them would have been crossing the road at places other than crossings? No, nobody would be dumb enough to step out into traffic so all the evil motorists must be zooming up on the pavement all the time, it's funny when you think just how rarely you see cars on the pavement and how often they must have attacked people like that

Try using Rubber Skirts and Height Adjustable Air Suspension, up on site, down on road

How would Fully Glazing a truck cab make it longer ? Oh, U mean Low Floor, well a Flat Engine is a start.

And "make anything forward of the Trailer or Bed/Box/Body of Rigid visible" if that helps!

Don't forget 51% of KSI's are Pedestrians, which we ALL are.

 

Again all hopelessly impractical Mike. I won't waste any more time explaining, clearly your mind is closed and in any case none of these madcap ideas will ever be adopted.

 

Though every death is a tragedy, the rate of cycling deaths is amazingly low*, considering what vulnerable vehicles they are. Our fellow two wheelers, the motorcyclists, have several times our death rate.

 

* See my post above on the relative safety of cycling.

Seeing as trucks are about £100,000 each..... good luck with getting the transport industry to fork out the billions needed to change all their trucks, just to accommodate the few cyclists stupid enough to cycle up the inside of trucks.

Not to mention the fact that these modified trucks could only replace certain models of trucks.

Maybe Blind Spots are not the problem, but spots before the eyes, eh? A TFL report from Transport Research Laboratory. Construction lorries 'disproportionately responsible for cyclist deaths' | Life and style | theguardian.com

"Peter Walker

Lorries carrying materials to and from building sites are disproportionately responsible for cyclist deaths, something the construction industry is failing to take sufficiently seriously, an expert report has suggested.

 

The study, commissioned by Transport for London (TfL), recommends contractors give drivers "realistic" delivery times to prevent them rushing, plan safe routes to and from sites and treat accidents involving construction trucks as seriously as they do deaths or injuries among building workers.

 

Overall in the construction industry, the study concludes, "road risk is viewed as less important than general health and safety risk".

 

The relatively high incidence of serious cycling incidents involving all heavy goods vehicles, particularly in London, has long been a worry for campaigners. In the capital around 50% of all cyclist deaths involve lorries, which comprise only about 5% of traffic, with a high proportion happening when left-turning trucks crush cyclists".

Edited December 5, 201312 yr by MikeyBikey

Maybe Blind Spots are not the problem, but spots before the eyes, eh? A TFL report from Transport Research Laboratory. Construction lorries 'disproportionately responsible for cyclist deaths' | Life and style | theguardian.com

"Peter Walker

Lorries carrying materials to and from building sites are disproportionately responsible for cyclist deaths, something the construction industry is failing to take sufficiently seriously, an expert report has suggested.

 

The study, commissioned by Transport for London (TfL), recommends contractors give drivers "realistic" delivery times to prevent them rushing, plan safe routes to and from sites and treat accidents involving construction trucks as seriously as they do deaths or injuries among building workers.

 

Overall in the construction industry, the study concludes, "road risk is viewed as less important than general health and safety risk".

 

The relatively high incidence of serious cycling incidents involving all heavy goods vehicles, particularly in London, has long been a worry for campaigners. In the capital around 50% of all cyclist deaths involve lorries, which comprise only about 5% of traffic, with a high proportion happening when left-turning trucks crush cyclists".

You are still ignoring the point that the cyclist staying back will save them. I just can't understand the idea other road users should be burdened by your safety as you might decide to place yourself in more danger than needed. Learn to share the road, 5% of traffic, 0% of cargo, 0 multi passenger trips, lucky to get a look in for funding/planning tbh.

 

Here is a novel idea. Most accidents happen on A roads as the larger HGVs are too large to take most B roads, most bus routes also follow A roads. Ban cyclists from all A roads unless a separated path has been made, problem solved and we are all inconvenienced taking weird routes. Mopeds and bicycles are banned from motorways for similar safety reasons so extending it doesn't seem too out there.

 

Or maybe expect cyclists to modify bikes to have moped/motorbike spec head lights and tail lights. Might seem unreasonable to expect anyone riding any old beater to splash out £100 on lights but it is for safety.

 

We can all have these "great" ideas, the 2 above commonly come out of anti cycling motorist groups and tbh seem more reasonable than bodged truck modifications. I don't think either makes for a healthy balanced transport system.

Why not make all cyclists take out compulsory insurance, nominal fee.

 

Should a cyclist decide to play Russian roulette with a truck and get squashed to death, this insurance could be used to pay the driver for the massive amount of stress and nightmares he will suffer for the rest of his life.

 

Like I have said before, most of these truck drivers are professional drivers. They do the best job they can on the small and busy roads we have in our cities and do not set out to kill anyone.

"Turning to the issues of lorries, Inspector Aspinall told the meeting about a day of City of London spot checks on HGVs, carried out on 30 September 2008 as part of the Europe-wide Operation Mermaid, which is intended to step up levels of enforcement of road safety laws in relation to lorries.

 

On this one day, 12 lorries were stopped randomly by City Police. Five of those lorries were involved in the construction work for the 2012 Olympics.

 

All of the twelve lorries were breaking the law in at least one way.

 

The offences range included overweight loads (2 cases), mechanical breaches (5 cases), driver hours breaches (5 cases), mobile phone use while driving (2 cases), driving without insurance (2 cases) and no operator license (1 case)."

Recently, the proportion of Vehicles stopped found to be ILLEGAL was 50%, so that's an *improvement*, yes? providing they weren't tipped off in advance, so why not go on removing these UNSAFE drivers and their UNSAFE vehicles from the highway until we're down to ZERO, eh?

"Turning to the issues of lorries, Inspector Aspinall told the meeting about a day of City of London spot checks on HGVs, carried out on 30 September 2008 as part of the Europe-wide Operation Mermaid, which is intended to step up levels of enforcement of road safety laws in relation to lorries.

 

On this one day, 12 lorries were stopped randomly by City Police. Five of those lorries were involved in the construction work for the 2012 Olympics.

 

All of the twelve lorries were breaking the law in at least one way.

 

The offences range included overweight loads (2 cases), mechanical breaches (5 cases), driver hours breaches (5 cases), mobile phone use while driving (2 cases), driving without insurance (2 cases) and no operator license (1 case)."

Recently, the proportion of Vehicles stopped found to be ILLEGAL was 50%, so that's an *improvement*, yes? providing they weren't tipped off in advance, so why not go on removing these UNSAFE drivers and their UNSAFE vehicles from the highway until we're down to ZERO, eh?

I'd be happy with that if we also remove all the unsafe cyclists and bikes at the same time Mike.

 

For each truck taken off the road there would be a number of bikes and riders.

Wearable Tech as a Life Saver?

 

Although more people are getting around by bike, cyclists remain the most vulnerable group of road users. Could a range of wearable technologies keep them safer?

BBC News - Could hi-tech accessories make cycling safer?

In the UK, the number of people killed in cycling accidents is on the rise.

Most serious incidents involve another vehicle and commonly occur when the cyclist is travelling straight ahead and another vehicle turns into it, research suggests.

That's why Emily Brooke, founder of Blaze, says she designed a light that projects an image of a green bike onto the ground about 5 metres (16ft) ahead of the cyclist.

This sort of idea has been tried but isn't bright enough in daylight and even in brightly lit city night situations the images often don't show up.

 

Also it's misleading to say only that UK cycling accidents have been rising. They've risen in recent years as the popularity of cycling has risen. That has meant that in low cycling areas the rate of accidents has remained the same, while in high cycling areas like London, the rate of accidents has fallen.

 

For example, cyclist deaths in London where cycling has doubled over the last decade:

 

The highest number of London cyclist deaths in a year was in 1989 with 33 deaths.

 

The lowest number of London cyclist deaths in a year was in 2004 with 8 deaths.

 

The cyclist deaths in London have stayed at around 12 per year average over those years, while the cycling has doubled, the net rate of deaths therefore halving.

 

The overall number of London KSI accidents has risen, but by far less than the increase in cyclists and cycling trips, so again a net reduction.

 

The figures show that increases in cycling actually make things safer, something that's been reported everywhere in the world where cycling increases. This is presumed to result from drivers being more aware of cyclists when their numbers are larger.

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Edited December 6, 201312 yr by flecc

Lasers - Pros, everyone likes a toy, but prob not the answer coz..

Cons - you have to have regular lights anyway, black tarmac doesn't make a v.good projection screen and gov prob not keen on everyone shining lasers in the street!

A pair of separated, flashing, dipped Cree's would throw a better beam, but not in daylight, back to drawing board

[quote=flecc;20051

The figures show that increases in cycling actually make things safer, something that's been reported everywhere in the world where cycling increases. This is presumed to result from drivers being more aware of cyclists when their numbers are larger.

.

 

Yep, relax people, the answer to safe cycling is to always take.. ooh a shedload of friends with you, in middle of lane and everything will be ticketyboo Oh, except when a driver ploughs their vehicle into your group, better take a mob! Or will even that be enough? Hit and runs reported at London Critical Mass ride + VIDEO | road.cc

Given the ready availability and affordability of the optical-digital technology we have today, there is absolutely no excuse for any vehicle on our roads to have a blind spot. It's all down to indifferent politicians and an industry that's a law unto itself (as evidenced by the huge proportion of lorries found to be defective at spot checks), all mixed up with a propensity towards victim blaming, as demonstrated by some of the ill-informed and distasteful posts above.

One for the Truckies on the forum;)

"Islington Council has announced that all lorry drivers working for the council or on building sites in the borough will have to take a cycling course to help make them aware of the needs of vulnerable road users, including cyclists" from 'road.cc'.

One for the Truckies on the forum;)

"Islington Council has announced that all lorry drivers working for the council or on building sites in the borough will have to take a cycling course to help make them aware of the needs of vulnerable road users, including cyclists" from 'road.cc'.

 

Good to hear. Only those who live or have lived in both camps really know the true situation.

 

A pity we can't get cyclists trying some truck driving in London's congested streets with numerous cyclists around to see what huge problems some of the cyclists cause and the impossibility of total safety in such a shared road system.

a propensity towards victim blaming, as demonstrated by some of the ill-informed and distasteful posts above.

 

Instead of such sweeping generalised accusations Andy, please indicate just one of the posts in this thread that is ill-informed and distasteful, justifying why that is the case.

The Metropolitan Police’s Chief Commissioner has warned that trucks and large vehicles in the capital are ‘killing machines.

In an interview with LBC Radio’s Nick Ferrari, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said that "one wobble" could see riders end up under the wheels of a lorry or bus, in the wake of a week that saw five cyclists killed on London’s roads.

"It's a tragedy that we've had so many deaths in the last few days. I think overall it looks as though there are fewer cycle deaths per cycle journey, but that's no comfort to the poor families who've lost someone."

"We've all got to think about the way that we drive and the way that we cycle. It is difficult for the drivers. They're big vehicles, they can't always see out properly but they've got to take a little bit more care. When you've got such a big vehicle, then obviously they can be killing machines."

Met Police boss: Trucks in the capital are

Edited December 7, 201312 yr by MikeyBikey