Brighton Cyclist Down

[betty swollocks]

Thought are with the poor victim and their friends and family.
Hope they pull through.
Please, no helmet comments, they're irrelevant.

 

[Tynan]

if he broke his ribs then body armour would be relevant

irrelevant? how?

almost all of these threads are a long list of speculations and wishing a stranger well so very little has any real worth

 

[Matthames]

Police are appealing for witnesses to come forward and call them on the 0845 60 70 999 quoting operation Stanwell:

http://www.sussexsaferroads.gov.uk/...eriously-injured-in-milk-float-collision.html

 

[Red Light]

Hope they are ok.

I regularly see road and cycle path commuters not wearing helmets where I cycle. I feel like shouting to them please wear a helmet to protect yourself.

Do you feel like shouting the same to pedestrians too?
Head injured pedestrian, Lancing, 25 July 2011
Head injured pedestrian, Brighton, 17 July 2011

If not why not?

 

[Red Light]

seems a relevant post if it's serious head injuries

I'd say start a book but we may never find out whether they were you know what...

The journalistic tradition seems to be:

No helmet and head injury: mention helmet
No helmet and no head injury: mention helmet
Helmet and no head injury: mention helmet
Helmet and head injury: don't mention helmet

 

[007fair]

Heard of a similar incident near me in Glasgow recently - and it really puts me off cycling in cities on roads You just have very little chance with a 1 to 2 ton vehicle and concrete involved - even when there very little speed (of the vehicle) involved

Vehicles and bikes just shouldn't be on the same road for the same reasons as people and vehicles shouldn't

I would vote for consistent separate cycle paths and leave the cars to it

I used to live on the front at brighton too (and then lived in Haywards Heath) Have good memories of both Sorry to hear of both places in such circumstances

 

[Red Light]

Heard of a similar incident near me in Glasgow recently - and it really puts me off cycling in cities on roads You just have very little chance with a 1 to 2 ton vehicle and concrete involved - even when there very little speed (of the vehicle) involved

Vehicles and bikes just shouldn't be on the same road for the same reasons as people and vehicles shouldn't

I would vote for consistent separate cycle paths and leave the cars to it

I used to live on the front at brighton too (and then lived in Haywards Heath) Have good memories of both Sorry to hear of both places in such circumstances

I think you've sorted most of it in recognising its the big lorries that are the problem However I think you have come to the wrong conclusion for the following reasons.

• Despite it being gruesome when it happens, it is extremely rare. Taking London as an example its about one death per 20 million journeys (Boris Bikes have managed 6 million trips without even a single serious injury and segregated facilities are rare in London). At say four hundred journeys a year that's about 50,000 years on average before its likely to happen to you. You have about the same chance of it happening to you this year as you have of being the sole winner of the lottery jackpot this week. Yes, somebody is going to win it but its very very unlikely to be you.
• Knowing that big lorries are the problem and being alert to that either when approaching them or they are approaching you is most of the way there to stopping it happening to you. You will get a far greater safety advantage from that than you could ever get from segregated facilities and the even better news is you can get it from today, not some time far off in the future when Utopia has been achieved.
• The biggest problem is at junctions, not the bits in between, and segregated facilities don't solve the problem of junctions, only the bits in between. In fact they exacerbate it at junctions. The difference is that now instead of being in front of that truck in primary position in the traffic flow at the junction you are tucked away out of sight and out of mind in a segregated area and having to look out not only for the lorry but traffic coming from all the other directions of the junction as well. Pedestrians have a pretty good segregated network. Watch how motor vehicle treat pedestrians leaving their network to cross the road at a junction. Its far worse than how cyclists on the road get treated.

 

[2Loose]

Anyone have any more news of the victim and driver?

If not I suggest that this thread gets diverted into the helmet threads area as it has gone seriously o.t.

 

[007fair]

And what is your plan for those roads where there is no space for total segregation?

I don't propose a cycle patch for every road But in Cities there should be good clear clean cycle routes which have no cars I take the point of Red Light that intersections will still be a problem but there can be under and/or over passes where possible
I also think that outside cities there should - if at all possible - be separate cycle routes This is happening a bit but will be a long time before satisfactory due to logistics and costs .. but this is the way it should be going When I am PM ...

cycling should not be seen as a high risk sport (not counting Mountain biking or road racing) but as a healthy and cheap alternative transport option Plus I feel alot of motorists really don't care if they knock someone off a bike, its their risk (the cyclist)

Red Light - I know statisically its fairly rare But I hear of more serious injuries / deaths around town to cyclists than anything else Car accidents won't cause injuries in town due to the low speeds Its only on country roads and motorways that car deaths increase

 

[007fair]

Sorry.. thoughts are with the cyclist Not trying to be disrespectful

 

[Red Light]

Car accidents won't cause injuries in town due to the low speeds Its only on country roads and motorways that car deaths increase

Are you sure about that? About one third of all road fatalities occur on 30mph speed limit roads and half of them on built up roads (RRCGB2009)

 

[Red Light]

I take the point of Red Light that intersections will still be a problem but there can be under and/or over passes where possible

Lets take a simple cross roads. Would you care to provide a sketch of how these under and over passes are to be arranged, not forgetting that cyclists are likely to want to turn left, turn right or go straight on at the junction coming from all four directions and are unlikely to want to cycle up a steep ramp at every junction?

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Firstly, my best wishes to the rider involved for a speedy recovery.
Secondly this thread makes me sad, someone is hurt and all you lot can do is bicker about helmets and segregation, some posters on here should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[007fair]

Firstly, my best wishes to the rider involved for a speedy recovery.
Secondly this thread makes me sad, someone is hurt and all you lot can do is bicker about helmets and segregation, some posters on here should be ashamed of themselves.

I thought it was more debate than bicker. Road safety is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear of this sort of thing No intended disprespect to the injured, so I'll raise a new thread on the segregation thing

 

[CliveA]

The cyclist in question is a guy I used to work with - a very nice bloke. All of us who know him are quite shaken by this news.

I won't give full details of his situation without relevant permission to do so, but it's fair to say there is some waiting to do before we learn more about the effects of this collision.

It upsets me that the helmet subject gets brought up by those who feel the need to lecture others on their behaviour. So so much has been written and debated already on the myths and assumptions around helmets.

For the information of the person who "feels like shouting to them please wear a helmet to protect yourself", I can inform you that he was wearing a helmet when he was hit by the van.


This is not about helmets.


The full facts are not yet known, but the two thoughts in my mind are:


- Rather than looking for road layout or helmet-wearing as a way of reducing risks, responsibility has to be taken for the awful driving that is too abundant on our roads. I rode across this junction twice a day for six years. Vehicles zoom down Dukes Mound treating it like a speedy seafront short cut. I have had several near misses.


- The new(ish) cyclepath along that area of the seafront is awful. It takes space away from pedestrians and then presents eastbound riders with a terrible swerving path across the road. Some parties' constant begging for cyclepaths does not always solve problems. Sometimes it makes them worse.