Coroner wants cyclists to be educated about danger of HGV's

[deptfordmarmoset]

It's worth reading Tom Edwards' feed from the court.

"TfL’s lawyer suggested to Mrs De Gerin-Ricard that it had been the lack of high-visibility clothing that had led to her daughter’s death."

Coroner: "But it was daylight".

I know, I saw that and it's the most disgusting thing that anybody representing TfL has ever suggested on behalf of TfL when, after all, she was on a TfL bike on a TfL paint strip wearing TfL recommended safety wear. Mrs de Gerin-Ricard reacted unbelievably well under the circumstances.

 

[glenn forger]

That was TFL's lawyer, of course.

 

[booze and cake]

I'm not implying anything, I'm asking if there is any evidence that cycle training reduces rtcs. Anywhere. In the world. Ever. If we're discussing a case where a driver killed someone whilst having a good old natter on the phone it's also irrelevant.

Have you asked anyone who has done cycle training what they thought of it? Have you asked if its made them aware of hazards on the roads as they are now, and given them skills to minimise the risk that they might not have known before? Surely thats whats its all about isn't it?

How many of the cyclists on the road have had cycle training? I've not got any figures but I guess its a comparatively low number. That does not mean its ineffective, if people who do cycle training have a positive experience of it, to me it indicates more people should have it. And I think there needs to be better training and awareness of cyclsts for drivers too. For the record I've not done cycle training but I know total novice cyclists who have and found it very beneficial. You seem to be vehemently against it for reasons I can't understand and I find it tiresome to hear you and the LCC bang on about segregation instead of training when the more obvious answer is to have a combination of the two.

And just to return to this bit, you say 'Can you find an example where cycle training has reduced road deaths, anywhere in the world, ever?' Can't you see this is a bit of a daft question? Its like saying how many people have'nt been killed as a result of receiving Health & Safety training.

Do they ask victims in cycle incidents if they've had cycle training? If they did we'd have some more insight into this maybe, but as has has been outlined already you can be the most experienced cyclist in the world and still be ploughed into from behind and killed.

And in relation the this bit of the quote If we're discussing a case where a driver killed someone whilst having a good old natter on the phone it's also irrelevant.[/quote]

This is not strictly true is it. Firstly let me say it was a tragedy this poor girl was killed and in my view the driver has been negligent. However I understand the driver was talking on his hands free phone which is not illegal. A driver on hands free can be prosecuted if the user is deemed to have been significantly distracted by it, but this does'nt seem to have happened. I'm not a legal expert but it seems as though they reached the verdict they did based on the fact that the lorry was an older one with large blind spots and poor mirrors, driving on a poorly designed bit of road and the cyclist put themselves in a high risk position. Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course, with better lorries with better mirrors, better infrastructure and better cyclist positioning this tragedy
could have been avoided. Thats what us cyclists, here on a cycle forum, want isn't it? So lets try and discuss it without getting all shouty.

Right I'm off to bed as I'm up early to cycle around every single London borough tomorrow, good night and ride safe people

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Right I'm off to bed as I'm up early to cycle around every single London borough tomorrow, good night and ride safe people

That sounds intriguing. How many miles?

 

[Linford]

No chance of London CM coming out in force to demand free cycle training for all living inside the M25 ?

 

[glenn forger]

No chance of London CM coming out in force to demand free cycle training for all living inside the M25 ?

Not much point, it's not lack of training that's killing cyclists. And there's whiff of sock puppets around here, check out the likes booze and cake (after 16 posts ) and boris have shared among themselves.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Not much point, it's not lack of training that's killing cyclists. And there's whiff of sock puppets around here, check out the likes booze and cake (after 16 posts ) and boris have shared among themselves.

Glen, I really doubt that there's anybody who's done a statistical analysis on the survival rate of untrained cyclists versus trained cyclists so I wouldn't question the validity of training on that basis. I actually would be happier to know that HGV drivers were cycle-trained as an essential part of being licensed. And I'm certain a few relatives would have been spared a whole lot of grief too, if that were the case.

No idea about B&C, but BB's been around for a while, and while BB admits to a permanent ''persona'' (in his own words) he would have wasted an awful amount of unproductive time just to be a troll. (Though, I confess, the thought that BB had a more straight-forward character on here did occur to me a couple of days ago)

 

[Linford]

Not much point, it's not lack of training that's killing cyclists. And there's whiff of sock puppets around here, check out the likes booze and cake (after 16 posts ) and boris have shared among themselves.

You mean that if every young woman cycling in London were given and observed specific instructions to not filter up the side of lorries, it would not make a scrap of difference to the most common scenario ?

You are forgetting that Boris Johnson was nearly killed a few years ago by a skip lorry, so to imply that the man doesn't consider the safety implications of these vehicles is a nonsense IMO

http://news.sky.com/story/695510/boris-johnson-narrowly-escapes-lorry-crash

 

[BigonaBianchi]

The single biggest danger is the attitude of hgv drivers who believe cyclists have no right on their roads. It's not all hgv drivers but it is a very large percentage. They consistently pass dangerously close at speed often in the face of on coming traffic. They seem to be on some kind of campaign to scare cyclists off uk roads. They are impatiant, unsafe, and often just plain aggressive. It is those hgv drivers they need educating and taking down a peg or two.

 

[Profpointy]

The single biggest danger is the attitude of hgv drivers who believe cyclists have no right on their roads. It's not all hgv drivers but it is a very large percentage. They consistently pass dangerously close at speed often in the face of on coming traffic. They seem to be on some kind of campaign to scare cyclists off uk roads. They are impatiant, unsafe, and often just plain aggressive. It is those hgv drivers they need educating and taking down a peg or two.

frankly that's bollocks. I commute daily in Bristol, and HGVs as a class, are largely better driven than other classes of vehicle, pass wide, and really do anything stupid or agressive. That's not to say they never make a mistake, and I have been beeped at merely for being in the lane, but dangerous - not seen it, though it must happen on occasion. To claim "most" HGVs are driven badly is lazy.

For the record, I'm a shiny arsed office worker, so don't drive a truck for a living.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

frankly that's bollocks. I commute daily in Bristol, and HGVs as a class, are largely better driven than other classes of vehicle, pass wide, and really do anything stupid or agressive. That's not to say they never make a mistake, and I have been beeped at merely for being in the lane, but dangerous - not seen it, though it must happen on occasion. To claim "most" HGVs are driven badly is lazy.

For the record, I'm a shiny arsed office worker, so don't drive a truck for a living.

Frankly that is my genuine experience or I wouldn't have said it.

 

[Boris Bajic]

The single biggest danger is the attitude of hgv drivers who believe cyclists have no right on their roads. It's not all hgv drivers but it is a very large percentage. They consistently pass dangerously close at speed often in the face of on coming traffic. They seem to be on some kind of campaign to scare cyclists off uk roads. They are impatiant, unsafe, and often just plain aggressive. It is those hgv drivers they need educating and taking down a peg or two.

What is a large percentage? If it's even five percent of HGV drivers who close-pass you at speed in the face of oncoming traffic, then I imagine your experiences are out of kilter with those of most cyclists I know. My percentage for close passes would be lower, but I might be lucky. My percentage for HGV close passes into oncoming traffic would be almost zero. Cars do that to me a fair bit. HGVs seldom.

But the mention of training in this thread has tendedto focus on riding at low speed on urban routes. I'd agree that cyclist training for riding among HGVs on fast,open NSL roads would have a negligible beneficial effect, or even none at all.

However, cyclsts can be trained, persuaded, enveigled and otherwise taught not to creep up the inside of HGVs and plonk themselves at the front nearside while waiting at junctions. Those who know this can lead to unhappiness do not do it. If people are still doing it, there is a case to be made for increasing rider awareness. This does not release the planners, the haulage firms and the drivers themselves from responsibility. But a cyclist who does not see the nearside and the front blindspots of an HGV as a death zone would benefit from learning otherwise through training rather than experience.

 

[Pale Rider]

In lorry driving circles, the drivers of the rigid aggregate lorries are known to be aggressive, so worth taking extra care near those.

 

[User6179]

In lorry driving circles, the drivers of the rigid aggregate lorries are known to be aggressive, so worth taking extra care near those.

I agree!!!!!!

 

[Sara_H]

When a pedestrian gets knocked over in similar circumstances, we don't get calls for peds to have training around traffic do we? How do you deliver that training formally to the entire nation, evaluate it's effectiveness and then organise redelivery when you find it hasn't worked.And remember it's a rolling programme, because loads new future pedestrians are born every day.

Well, a cyclist is no different to a ped in that we have to anticipate that anyone, trained or not, can legally hop on a bike and ride it. Which is as it should be, because the more restrictions you place on riding a bike, the fewer people who will do it which is bad in many ways for society as whole.

The problem is that after the age of ten we are legally obliged to ride on the roads with the horrible traffic. We wouldn't put our ten year old kids or any other pedestrian on the road walking in amongst the flow traffic, so why do we expect them to cycle there?

The laws about cycling in traffic haven't really altered since the massive boom in car ownership. Laws are pretty much the same as they were when private car ownership was relatively rare. Roads were not built for cars as Carlton rightly points out, but for decades now, they been designed for the convenience of drivers only in mind.
Something needs to change. People need an option that isn't forcing them to share the roads with lethal heavy machinery, operated with little care or attention.

If the road bikers want to mix it up with the traffic, then let them. For me, my family, I want something different. I want it to be safe, I want to be separate from the danger presented, and where I can't be separate, I want it to be explicit that I have priority (eg don't the dutch have some traffic rule about it being illegal for a driver overtake a cyclist on ordinary residential streets with no segregation? I may have made that one up).

Someone mentioned riding at 45mph on their bike. Well I live in a very hilly city (the last mile of my ride home I gain 400ft) My avarage speed is about 7.5mph. I can see why car drivers may get frustrated when they're stuck behind me. Give me a cycle path, everyones happy.

It's a sad fact that our children can't travel independently safely. Then you have the other end of the scale, my would be mother in law who used to be a keen cyclist, now at the age of 72 doesn't feel safe among the traffic on a bike, so she drives a skoda estate instead. My Mum, has some orthapaedic problems and finds walking painful, riding would be more comfortable, but as someone who's never passed a driving test she is too scared to go on the road. I know she'll be in a benidorm wagon soon, which is legal on the footpath. A bike would be so much more beneficial.

All these problems would be solved to very large extent by proper, high quality, segregated infrastructure. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. It's already been done and been shown to be effective by the dutch and in Copenhagen.

We can wait to change attitudes in drivers, but realistically we all know that with the dangerous infrastructure we have today, it's not going to happen.