And yet still it's all the cyclist's fault

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markemark

Veteran
Lucky to have survived that.
 

a.twiddler

Veteran
Driving on the right in some country with different traffic rules and priorities, who can say how this sort of thing is regarded there?
Anywhere in between, "Ho ho, guess what I did today. Knocked one of those cyclists off their bike" to much back slapping from his mates, or seen as attempted murder where the perpetrator spends his sentence in a different prison from his gonads. Or something in between.

The truck driver was obviously passing too close, so close that something protruding from the truck snagged her T shirt and pulled her down. If you scroll slowly through the video you can see it. It also looks as if the truck started with a bit of space then moved closer as it went past though it might be a feature of the lens. Fortunate not to have fallen under the wheels and been crushed. What was the follow up? Did the driver stop? Were the police involved? It certainly looks pretty shocking.

I don't see anything to suggest that the thread title has any relevance to this incident. Is the video part of some anti cyclist trope on Twitter/X suggesting that this incident is somehow the fault of the victim?
 
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That nearly happened to me once only more so. Well I was cycling along the A6 north of Lancaster when they were building the heysham link road. Due to that trucks and cars going north from Heysham, Morecambe and the Ferry at heysham would rat run up the A6 to Carnforth M6 junction. Trouble is that road is not really made for heavy trucks almost continuous.

Well I was actually quite fit and still a lot faster than I am now back then which was fortunate when the HGV with a bed less trailer and reinforced concrete beams overtook me at about 20-25mph as if I was a stationary object, just like the truck in the video. Only thing was it trapped me beetween the front and back wheels of the trailer as in I was practically under the concrete beams. It then accelerated away. I had to keep up and as close to the wheels in front of me too scared to look behind to see how much space I had behind me.

Anyway. I looked down and 25mph, then 30mph, then 32mph. Now I am no racer and I was blowing by then but I had a big motivator to keep in speed with the truck. Then I saw a drop kerb and went for it. Sure I ended up in the hedge but at least I was not under the wheel. You can probably guess how I felt when I picked myself up out of the hedge. I think that if I was a cat I would have no spare lives left for that. I have never, ever managed to ride that undulating stretch of road as fast as I did that day!! I was actually really putting the effort in when I got half overtakend by that truck as in I was breaking my personal speed record that afternoon!!

Can I just say that truck drivers have limited visibility in those sorts of HGVs? That is not a justification or being a appeaser of these potential killers. This is about how such trucks are not suitable for narrow roads even if they are A roads. IMHO the council should have changed the rating of the A6 when that work was going on in the roads and trucks should have been banned completely except for access if they are small enough or have adequate visibility. There are some larger trucks with sensors, cameras and windows in the cab that give better allround visibility. I remember seeing something about it on TV news a good few years ago. Without those I think trucks should be motorway or dual carriageway / wide road only. With smaller and higher visibility trucks and vans to carry stuff into towns and local use. The larger trucks industrial estate to industrial estate effectively. Then transfer to smaller trucks. Whatever I think the council could have made that road restricted to long and heavy vehicles. Once they got to Carnforth's narrow streets those trucks were quite scary if you are inches away from them on the pavement. Our son was young then and walking with him in Carnforth was scary to say the least. All because it was a rat run that saved less than 10 minutes due to the traffic on it anyway. Could even have been slower it was so busy!!
 
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