HGVs in towns and cities

[cycling fisherman]

dondare YOU are a twat

 

[Rhythm Thief]

You can't avoid something that takes up the whole road and can move faster than you do.

Hmm, almost enough to make me wonder how I've managed to ride bicycles on the road for over 25 years without once having a close encounter with an HGV.

 

[Origamist]

I hope he does. Those things are a real menace.

I think he will succeed.

 

[dondare]

Hmm, almost enough to make me wonder how I've managed to ride bicycles on the road for over 25 years without once having a close encounter with an HGV.

I have been physically squeezed against the side of a parked van by a lorry that started to change lanes as he was overtaking me. But it's really not experienced cyclists like myself who are in the greatest danger. When I started cycling lorries were much smaller and also less common so the learning curve hasn't been too steep. But what about all those people starting out now? They're the ones who don't understand the risks of filtering or using cycle-lanes that direct them right into the killing zone; who don't know that when the cab turns across their path the trailer is coming at them from behind; and they're not going to learn from experience in this instance, they're just going to get killed. You can call them numpties (although a roll-call of the dead seems mainly to consist of people that you'd expect not to be numpties), or say that the should be better educated even though cyclists don't have to be trained; but the reality is that there have been a succession of tragedies that have occured simply because big lorries cannot be used safely on small public roads.

 

[dondare]

dondare YOU are a twat

And you have got a really annoying avatar.

 

[dondare]

Won't it get a bit cold though? it is approaching winter!

Have a glass door then. Like buses have.

 

[dondare]

On a more serious note, it has to be said again dodare that your posts are almost comical. Ban bendi buses, ban HGV's, you will be looking to ban cars next...

Ban dangerous drivers and dangerous vehicles. Every single aspect of road travel is under the control of human designers and human legislators: there is no reason at all why they can't be a lot safer than they are now.

A car or an ordinary bus can be used safely in town if the driver is careful enough, a lorry cannot and probably a bendy bus can't be either.

 

[gavintc]

I think you have lost the plot dondare, if you do not appreciate the value that trucks bring to our society and they are no longer desirable, but an essential, vital element of our life.

 

[dondare]

Lorries make up 2.5% of motor traffic and account for 25% of cycling fatalities. So, are lorry drivers 10 times as criminally incompetent as other motorists or are they driving a vehicle ten times as dangerous as anything else on the roads?

 

[BentMikey]

I'd say HGVs more than 10 times more dangerous than other vehicles, as I think most HGV drivers are rather better than average.

 

[dondare]

I think you have lost the plot dondare, if you do not appreciate the value that trucks bring to our society and they are no longer desirable, but an essential, vital element of our life.

It really makes no difference what either of us think; lorries will be part of London traffic until anti-pollution legislation stops them coming in or the recession means that all the haulage companies go bust; and until then we'll keep on hearing news of cyclists being killed.

 

[dondare]

I'd say HGVs more than 10 times more dangerous than other vehicles, as I think most HGV drivers are rather better than average.

That's what I'd say too.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

A car or an ordinary bus can be used safely in town if the driver is careful enough, a lorry cannot and probably a bendy bus can't be either.

I'm not sure why I have to keep making the same point - unless you're being deliberately obtuse in order to advance your increasingly flaccid argument - but the fact is that thousands of lorry movements are carried out safely every day in cities and towns up and down the length of Britain.

 

[dondare]

I'm not sure why I have to keep making the same point - unless you're being deliberately obtuse in order to advance your increasingly flaccid argument - but the fact is that thousands of lorry movements are carried out safely every day in cities and towns up and down the length of Britain.

Because:

lorries make up 2.5% of motor traffic and account for 25% of cycling fatalities.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

... or are they driving a vehicle ten times as dangerous as anything else on the roads?

Of course lorries are more dangerous than smaller vehicles; no one has ever claimed anything else. They're bigger, they bend in the middle (ish) and they have blind spots. Another fact about lorries is that we're stuck with them (and I wouldn't claim that this is ideal, I'd rather go back to some mythcal golden age when every man wore a trilby, half the world was owned by Britain and everything went via the railways), so the quicker cyclists learn to keep out of the danger zone, the fewer of them will be killed. Of course cyclists will sometimes be hurt or killed because of errors on the driver's part and I'd agree that drivers need training to increase their awareness of cyclists too, but (as I've said all along) it would be a stupid cyclist indeed who went cruising down the inside of a truck because the driver had been trained to look for him. You will never eliminate the risks posed to cyclists from other road users, no matter what you do.