The article contains some nice thoughts but is unfortunately flawed and factually wrong.
"There isn’t even a mirror that would have revealed them indirectly."
Yes there is, two of them, one out front and one at the side. God knows what footage the writer was looking at?
And he then goes on to suggest the cyclists have no choice other than to endanger themselves in front of the lorry. Well yes they do, and as I keep pointing out, the lady in the white jacket makes the sensible choice and shows the other riders to be the imbeciles that they are!
I thought it was quite a reasonable article, and I think you're focussing on points that the author made in passing, rather than the message he would
like you to take away. So what if the driver had mirrors that he might have seen the cyclists in, if he doesn't have time to look in them?
We (collectively, as a society) expect cyclists to filter down the left hand side at junctions to get to the front. We encourage that behaviour as road designers by painting cycle lanes on the left and ASLs at the junctions. We encourage that behaviour as drivers by leaving more space on the left than the right when we are queuing, and by giving grief to cyclists who try to take their position in the queue (by revving engines, tailgating, beeping, close overtakes etc). We (again, meaning "society" and specifically not meaning any individual who's posted on this thread) encourage that behaviour as cyclists by doing it ourselves.
We shouldn't, because (as everyone on this thread is fully aware) it's bloody dangerous. But until we stop, it's not reasonable to pin the full blame on individuals for doing the things that the system incentivises them to do. As the cyclist said, "it's London, everyone does it" - well, start by asking why that's the case, and fix the system to make it not be the case.