21/10/13 - female cyclist down in Camden - Tipper lorry

[dellzeqq]

i feel like dragging my ass to London and standing on the streets handing out some hard hitting leaflets to everyone who cycles past. I drill it into the cyclists at work not to do this, i bring it up in every safety meeting. Its all about education. Anyone coming with me?

maybe if they start to hear it from other cyclists rather than people in "authority" they will start to listen??

stay away. And take a little time ask yourself this. How do cyclists get crushed in London?

 

[CafGriff]

is that ' hit and runs' stat .... official reported numbers, Ibet the 'near missed' or the 'bloody 'ells' that was too close' far out number.
the other issue thatends to get my goat, is that once the newspapers reprt the accident, they don't really follow it up with the more human , how was/is the victim now sort of stories.

 

[buggi]

stay away. And take a little time ask yourself this. How do cyclists get crushed in London?

They get crushed by riding up the side of lorries/buses.

 

[dellzeqq]

They get crushed by riding up the side of lorries/buses.

no they don't.

Spend a bit of time finding out - a CCer has tabulated cycle deaths in London for about five years now.

 

[buggi]

no they don't.

Spend a bit of time finding out - a CCer has tabulated cycle deaths in London for about five years now.

educate me then

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

educate me then

I think it's this one here - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...bEZ1NVctVTBVeFRqTmNVbGZnbXc&pli=1&hl=de#gid=0

 

[dellzeqq]

Tipper/skip lorries will always work on the quickest turnaround time possible. So corners will be cut by some drivers, simply by virtue of the fact that they may be getting paid by the load.
Coming back into the urban road structure, the system forces them to have to slow down, but does little to alter their need to get back on site as quick as is possible.
I asked why is it London only that seems to be seeing an increase in this type of incident & no clear answer could be given. Every large city in the UK will have major building work going on somewhere, so why isn't the problem occurring outside of London? First thing that springs to my mind is that for over a year the eyes have been on London due to the Olympics & the build-up to them, so its reported more.
The lorry involved in this latest incident was carrying a skip that someone said was batterred, it was also capable of use by two differrent types of lorry. Skip lorry as shown or the type that uses an arm to load/unload it. The lorry itself, subject to wear & tear through use is subject to an MOT, the skip isn't, the lorry itself is less than 18 months old.

It may be - but remember that 85% of all the cranes in the UK are in London. Then again, the startlingly low incidence of cyclists killed by buses might say something about the people who drive the relatively small tipper lorries and skip trucks.

 

[classic33]

It may be - but remember that 85% of all the cranes in the UK are in London. Then again, the startlingly low incidence of cyclists killed by buses might say something about the people who drive the relatively small tipper lorries and skip trucks.

And how many cyclists have been injured by cranes, many of which are tower cranes?
As for the truck in this incident, its one of the largest allowed on british road fully loaded.

 

[dellzeqq]

And how many cyclists have been injured by cranes, many of which are tower cranes?
As for the truck in this incident, its one of the largest allowed on british road fully loaded.

my point was that a great deal of the construction activity in the UK is in London - that's all. And that construction traffic is responsible for getting on for half the cyclist death in London, and yet buses, which are undertaken all the time by cyclists are responsible for (iirc) three in the last six years.

 

[dellzeqq]

[QUOTE 2731055, member: 30090"]You're being unfair there, it might be to do with the design where there is a glass door on the n/s...[/quote]
or, alternatively it might be that bus drivers are properly trained.

when it rains I go to work on the 133 bus. In the 45 minutes it takes me the bus is probably undertaken by forty or more cyclists. Npw. I think that's daft, but the driver sees them all coming - because he or she is looking.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

or, alternatively it might be that bus drivers are properly trained.

when it rains I go to work on the 133 bus. In the 45 minutes it takes me the bus is probably undertaken by forty or more cyclists. Npw. I think that's daft, but the driver sees them all coming - because he or she is looking.

Oh, and they know where they're going. Not always the case when you're jobbing per load, to judge by the number of hand-held calls these construction vehicles make whilst driving.

 

[Dan B]

Well, I know it's just anecdata, but I've seen more skip truck drivers on the phone than I ever have bus drivers

 

[Dan B]

[QUOTE 2731068, member: 30090"]
Compare the amount of windows on a bus to a truck, and the height of the cab...lot easier to see.[/quote]
Well, if the suggestion is that something inherent in the design of a tipper truck cab makes it unsafe to share the road with other road users no matter how much training the driver has had, the logical conclusion is that they should not be allowed to share the road. So we should ban them or require them to get road closures/police escorts whenever they travel in cities - sure, the price of construction would rise, but the price of construction is dwarfed by the price of land anyway, so on a practical level how much difference would it make?

 

[Dan B]

That's vaguely reassuring, I suppose. So, what can be done with truck cabs and their drivers/operators to make them at least as safe on the roads as buses are? I suggest that's probably about the minimum acceptable to allow them to use roads that other people are also using

 

[MattyKo]

Regarding the bus versus lorry discussion; accountability for "cyclists down". Buses carry more passengers than any lorry, and are probably therefore more considerate to other people - including road users.

With regards to the disproportionate level of cyclist down by commercial / construction vehicles, I do think that lorry drivers expect a lot more of other road users, and probably too much! This may well be because their vehicles are limited at the top end to 55 miles per hour, and subsequently rush about more in city / town centres. There is a great deal of validity to the comments regarding piecework.