Another tipper truck death

[dellzeqq]

Nine long years ago I suggested to the LCC's Tom Bogdanovich that construction traffic caused half of all cycling deaths in London and that the way to tackle it was through the Contract. He told me that it was too complicated. Since then we've seen sweetheart deals with local authorities, and the relentless pursuit of infrastructure.

Deaths per million mile of cycling in London aren't a great deal higher than in the Netherlands. Take out construction traffic, and it would be lower.

Would anybody from the LCC like to take a minute away from their crayons and let us know if they think that making designers responsible for the assessment of off-site risks and, following on from that, impose a contractual duty to reduce those risks would be a good thing or a bad thing?

We rightly sneer at Zaha Hadid's lack of interest the deaths of migrant workers in Qatar. Would it hurt for civil engineers, structural engineers and architects to consider off-site risks in London when they put pen to paper? Would it hurt anybody if a designer were to say to a demolition contractor 'you may not use Thames Materials to muck away'?

The thread title refers to a death just half a mile from where I sit, at a junction I cycled through just half an hour beforehand. You can look it up if you want to, but it's not happy reading. The LCC (ever ready with the standard response) gave us the usual schtick about protected space for cyclists. We'll await the drawing for that one....

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I find it interesting that building sites have 'zero accident' safe working environments. The major road works also show banners about how many hours have been worked 'accident free'. Why do these practices, efforts and publicity not extend to building vehicles outside the construction site? I think one way to improve things is through the oxygen of publicity. There are probably many other approaches but lets start naming and shaming road hauliers and the construction firms that they are working for.

TfL did a report on this and the ownership of risk in the construction industry figured largely in the findings. Since 2013 nothing appears to have changed. (Nothing specifically about waste/skips though) Findings from middle of p12.
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/c...stics-and-cyclist-safety-technical-report.pdf

 

[mjr]

Nine long years ago I suggested to the LCC's Tom Bogdanovich that construction traffic caused half of all cycling deaths in London and that the way to tackle it was through the Contract. He told me that it was too complicated.

Seems like they listened to you and are trying anyway, pushing for council contract conditions at http://lcc.org.uk/pages/why-safer-lorries

The LCC (ever ready with the standard response) gave us the usual schtick about protected space for cyclists.

Be fair - that was only part of it: "LCC is calling for protected space for cycling at junctions and on main roads and for safer lorry designs to be adopted across the industry." http://lcc.org.uk/articles/cyclist-fatality-involving-hgv-at-bank

Would anybody from the LCC like to take a minute away from their crayons and let us know if they think that making designers responsible for the assessment of off-site risks and, following on from that, impose a contractual duty to reduce those risks would be a good thing or a bad thing?

Maybe you should send them a link to this thread at http://lcc.org.uk/pages/contact-us

 

[dellzeqq]

Old news, Mr. Jay. Six years ago I suggested to Charlie Lloyd that his 'safer lorries' campaign should switch its attention from Council refuse vehicles (see sweetheart deals above) to construction traffic - and, critically, look at the Contract (see also Rockymountain above). Answer came there none.

 

[srw]

I'm about to go across that junction for the second time today. It's a damn sight safer in the last year or so since the lights were rephrased than it ever was before. But I still get the willies occasionally when lorries come too close.

 

[srw]

This is interesting. According to the London Evening Conservative (front page - Zac Goldsmith's constituents would rather he were mayor than their MP), David Lammy is calling for a rush-hour lorry ban. I'm not entirely sure he's been on the streets recently if he thinks that evening rush hour ends at 6:30, but his heart seems to be in the right place. And he may actually be able to do something about it one day.

 

[mjr]

Old news, Mr. Jay. Six years ago I suggested to Charlie Lloyd that his 'safer lorries' campaign should switch its attention from Council refuse vehicles (see sweetheart deals above) to construction traffic - and, critically, look at the Contract (see also Rockymountain above). Answer came there none.

Let them get tomorrow's protest out the way, then let's ask again.

(By the way, are you dyslexic, disrespectfully mangling my name or something else?)