Truck hazard

[MacB]

Now, while I don't necessarily agree with the specifics of this, and would take issue because it doesn't cover trucks left hooking riders, or turning without indicating, or passing too close or any of the other things the worse sort of truck driver gets up to, it does make the point that creeping up the inside of lorries at traffic lights is a bad idea, and it's a lot easier for the cyclist to avoid doing that than it is for the truck driver to see them once they're there.

Immediately your list of instances not covered is a great deal larger than the one instance the suggestion does cover, going up the inside of a lorry. I don't disagree with educating cyclists but all this does is pander to the 'can't see won't see' mindset. Large vehicles need to be made safe via training and design regardless of what we do with other road users...unless you make the roads lorries only.

I'm also not convinced the concept that it's not going to happen any time soon so we all need to work around these vehicles is valid. The lack of will for change exists only within a minority of the population and the basis is entirely financial. Any public highway, let alone the centres of towns and cities, is not the place to be tooling around in a massive piece of machinery that is unfit to share the space with others. In fact if you remove the financial implications then the list of alternatives is enormous.

 

[theclaud]

Ian Walker ‏@ianwalker 2m
Remember! Be careful on the roads today (unless you're operating dangerous machinery, in which case you can apparently do what you like)

 

[Frood42]

Yes - sorry - I was using your "I can think of nothing else" as a general prompt, rather than taking it at face value. Take the persistent issue about poor visibility down the left-hand side of the truck. How about a second person in the cab who was responsible for ensuring that the turn is clear?

I see another person in the cab as another patch for vehicles not designed for an urban area, and they could potentially be a distraction if they decide to talk about the "footy" (insert sport/topic of choice) instead... and again, just like technology, do we want the drivers to become to reliant on them..?

It would lower unemployment, but as with alot of things, sadly, it will come down to the choice of profit margin vs collateral damage, and the cynic in me tells me that a larger profit margin will win out, but then businesses do need to make money...

 

[Stephen C]

Not sure if this has already been posted, but I found it quite good: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25007830

 

[Frood42]

[QUOTE 2778611, member: 30090"]IMO you are being unfair to RT there, and I suggest you read the rest of his post.

And RT, whilst a HAT (like myself although I'm retired), is about the most balanced individual on this site I've seen when it comes to trucks and cycling (far more then me) whose opinion should be respected.

Great to have you back RT, (User3143).[/quote]

No, I was being fair to the quote that was pulled from another forum and trying to put forward my point of view...
If I came across as overly assertive/aggresive to @Rhythm Thief then I apologise to him/her (no sex noted on profile), that was not my intention, my opinion instead was aimed at the rather "different" view point by the person who made the original post quoted by RT from another forum.
.

 

[Euro]

I meant to continue with:

I believe that:

truck manufacturers will not make a great effort to solve the problem. It is up to us

Boris will not ban trucks and buses from London

More mirrors are not the answer. Our vision is already obstructed by two square feet of mirrors

reducing the accepted norms of drivers might help. Employers expect us to work to the legal limit of a 15 hour working day, 10 hours driving per day, four and a half hours driving without a break. e.g. that 44 tonner is driven by someone who worked a 15 hour shift the day before yesterday. He then drove an hour to get home. Fed and washed for one hour, had 6 hours sleep, drove for an hour to get to work, worked another 15 hour shift, repeated the procedure and has now been driving for 10 hours today. All legal.

 

[snorri]

Perhaps the technology is available to develop a "person detector" which would give an audible warning in a vehicle cab if said person is in a danger zone..

 

[Frood42]

[QUOTE 2778615, member: 30090"]Because the industry that they work in dictates this.
Most food deliveries happen early in the morning on a JIT basis which allows a full shop that is clutter free come opening time.
Tipper/construction can't work like this.[/quote]

All I will say is that if there is the will then the industry CAN be made to work differently.
Lets use rail, lets use river, lets change how the companies can make their money from these projects.
Lets make it more profitable to work differently, and to use other methods to haul material, and things will change, as they will chase the money/profit.

Lets change how they access the roads, have them pay a charge (so they make less profit at the end of/during a contract), make it more expensive to use the capital roads during rush hour, less expensive or free outside of rush hour. Want to use a cycle/private car heavy route, again make it expensive to use those routes.
Give subsidies to use river or train movement of freight over long distances rather than trucks.
In future contracts make it more expensive to use non-urban friendly vehicles, and free if they use urban friendly vehicles.

Combination of stick and carrot should do it, and I am sure brighter people than me have other ideas.

 

[snorri]

[QUOTE 2779422, member: 259"]It already exists apparently.[/quote]
Well well, what are we waiting for?

There's no need to answer that question

 

[Frood42]

I meant to continue with:

I believe that:

truck manufacturers will not make a great effort to solve the problem. It is up to us

Boris will not ban trucks and buses from London

More mirrors are not the answer. Our vision is already obstructed by two square feet of mirrors

reducing the accepted norms of drivers might help. Employers expect us to work to the legal limit of a 15 hour working day, 10 hours driving per day, four and a half hours driving without a break. e.g. that 44 tonner is driven by someone who worked a 15 hour shift the day before yesterday. He then drove an hour to get home. Fed and washed for one hour, had 6 hours sleep, drove for an hour to get to work, worked another 15 hour shift, repeated the procedure and has now been driving for 10 hours today. All legal.

Hi Euro,
Good to see you back

You are right, they will not ban trucks completely from London, and we have already seen Boris diterhing around or trying to deflect from that, but there are alternatives to complete bans.

The working hours scenario is not a complete shock to me.
Not something we should ignore, but could be one layer in a many layered approach.

Cemex seems to be one company that has stuck in my mind since the the BBC 1 programme “War on Britain’s Roads”, with increased safety features and driver training (which took an outsider, someones mother, to come in and push), but I would like to see what the industry is doing to re-design these vehicles or use alternative transport methods..?

If 99% of the time a vehicle is on the road, should the vehicle not be designed for the road, and the site where it spends 1% of its time made to accomodate this?

In London we have the Thames and a Rail network, these are alternatives and London could try and make these an inviting alternative.
I know this may not be of much help outside of London though...

I just don't think an Air Horn on my bike is going to be of benefit to me personally, if I had to use that air horn to get a drivers attention then they have already done something badly wrong (as jarlrmai already showed in three videos), thankfully it seems to be a minority in my time on the road when it comes to lorries and only one really, really bad situation with an HGV.

7,000+ miles and counting with no offs on Central London and Greater London roads this year (2013), which is not bad considering most of it is commuting miles
.

 

[theclaud]

I see another person in the cab as another patch for vehicles not designed for an urban area, and they could potentially be a distraction if they decide to talk about the "footy" (insert sport/topic of choice) instead... and again, just like technology, do we want the drivers to become to reliant on them..?

I'm not talking about someone just for company who occasionally looks out of the window. At the moment the haulage industry is taking a gamble in response to the recent outcry. It is going out of its way to demonstrate that its vehicles are unfit to share public spaces. Not to take responsibility for this as they should, but to do the exact opposite - using fear to warn other users out of the way, and having done so, blaming them if they get squashed. Or to put it more simply, bullying. In the video below (which I think may have been posted already) the driver says "I cannot see at all [down] that side of my trailer". It doesn't occur to him for a second that it is an admission which should bar his vehicle from the road entirely. The rhetorical task needed is to frame these bullying tactics for what they are. My suggestion above is a response to the fact that it is clearly beyond the power of a driver alone to guarantee safe operation of many of these kinds of vehicle on the road. It may not be beyond the power of a two-person team, one of whom has defined responsibility when driving for nearside clearance, and can also act as a banksman when required.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25007830

 

[dellzeqq]

if Cemex can do it, Thames Materials should do it. But they won't unless they are told to do it. And they would do it if designers, by which I mean Architects and Civil and Structural Engineers wrote a provision in to the Contract. They would do it if the HSE demanded it. And they would do it if the DfT cared enough to put a regulation in place. Which makes you wonder which planet Architects, Civil and Structural Engineers, the HSE and the DfT are on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Materials for those who can't bring the name to mind.

 

[dellzeqq]

Now, while I don't necessarily agree with the specifics of this, and would take issue because it doesn't cover trucks left hooking riders, or turning without indicating, or passing too close or any of the other things the worse sort of truck driver gets up to, it does make the point that creeping up the inside of lorries at traffic lights is a bad idea, and it's a lot easier for the cyclist to avoid doing that than it is for the truck driver to see them once they're there.

there's a bit of a problem with this. The great majority of London's deaths caused by trucks are caused by trucks travelling faster than the cyclist. The whole 'undertaking' thing is a convenient myth put about by those who want to shift the blame on to the cyclist. And, without wanting to labour the point overmuch (as in state the obvious for the umpteenth time) if you look at the nature of the trucks involved, you will see that the deaths co-relate to the vehicle and not the cyclist.

It's sad to see some of our less bright fellow cyclists falling for this schtick.

 

[Frood42]

I'm not talking about someone just for company who occasionally looks out of the window. At the moment the haulage industry is taking a gamble in response to the recent outcry. It is going out of its way to demonstrate that its vehicles are unfit to share public spaces. Not to take responsibility for this as they should, but to do the exact opposite - using fear to warn other users out of the way, and having done so, blaming them if they get squashed. Or to put it more simply, bullying. In video below (which I think may have been posted already) the driver says "I cannot see at all [down] that side of my trailer". It doesn't occur to him for a second that it is an admission which should bar his vehicle from the road entirely. The rhetorical task needed is to frame these bullying tactics for what they are. My suggestion above is a response to the fact that it is clearly beyond the power of a driver alone to guarantee safe operation of many of these kinds of vehicle on the road. It may not be beyond the power of a two-person team, one of whom has defined responsibility when driving for nearside clearance, and can also act as a banksman when required.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25007830

Yes, I understood your point and what you are suggesting or telling me.

While they would not really be there for being matey, I can see it happening, or I can see the company deciding they are not doing enough while they are in the cab, and being asked to do other things, like talk on the phone instead of the driver. We all know drivers should not be talking on phones, but it is happening...
A mobile phone using driver is unlikely to have any qualms about chatting about Saturdays football results...

I like the idea and if done properly I think it could be good.

But the cynic in me is saying, but...

 

[Rhythm Thief]

there's a bit of a problem with this. The great majority of London's deaths caused by trucks are caused by trucks travelling faster than the cyclist. The whole 'undertaking' thing is a convenient myth put about by those who want to shift the blame on to the cyclist. And, without wanting to labour the point overmuch (as in state the obvious for the umpteenth time) if you look at the nature of the trucks involved, you will see that the deaths co-relate to the vehicle and not the cyclist.

It's sad to see some of our less bright fellow cyclists falling for this schtick.

I wouldn't like anyone to think that I was falling for anything. But I do have some experience - quite a lot, in fact - of driving big vehicles around city centres, and a comparable amount of experience cycling in the same environment.
I take your (and TheClaud's) point about trucks travelling faster than the cyclist, and I've been left hooked by trucks on two occasions that I can remember. There was nothing I could have done on either occasion: the driver in each case had obviously seen me and simply decided to pass me immediately before turning left. I've also had the opposite experience of sitting in the cab at traffic lights indicating left. The lights change, I do my all round mirror check before releasing the handbrake and moving away, only to see a cyclist between the front end of my trailer and the pedestrian fence. Sometimes this manoevre was performed by unlit cyclists on a wet winter's evening, when - with the best will in the world - they're almost impossible to see in the mirrors.
I appreciate that not every incident between a truck and a cyclist is the result of the cyclist undertaking, and I appreciate that in cab technology may help prevent some of the incidents which are (though personally I would never rely on the driver's proximity sensors working, or him paying attention to them: I'd just keep myself out of the danger zone wherever I could), but I also know from my own experience that some cyclists put themselves in dangerous places. In cab technology may well have a part to play in all this, but I bet it wouldn't be as effective as training cyclists to take and hold a strong primary position, and educating drivers to understand just why they might be doing that.