What I can see in my NS truck mirrors.

[snorri]

i would like to ask why, in my experience, is it the large lorry drivers who pass closest? They are the ones who seem most reluctant to pull out far enough when overtaking. Why is that?

They don't in my experience.
I can't remember when I last had a close pass from an HGV, if all cars gave me as much space as the average HGV then I'd be a happier cyclist.

 

[snorri]

[QUOTE 2639092, member: 9609"] there is one or two other things to be concentrating on when taking a 60 foot long articulated vehicle through heavy traffic.[/quote]
A need for a co-driver?

 

[Sara_H]

Yes the lie was seen through, on this occasion, but it doesn't stop the "in my blind spot" being both offered and often accepted as a reason for killing people.

He hasn't been convicted for killing Hope, but for the dangerous driving that was coincidental to the fact that he'd just killed her.

 

[mark st1]

Yes the lie was seen through, on this occasion, but it doesn't stop the "in my blind spot" being both offered and often accepted as a reason for killing people.

Bang on there ! Sounds alot better than "i wasnt looking"

 

[Sara_H]

Bang on there ! Sounds alot better than "i wasnt looking"

The ultimate SMIDSY _ YWIMBS.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

[QUOTE 2639071, member: 9609"]You're probably not too far out with that figure. I think 80% is a reasonable figure to apply to all road users when the choice is between slowing down or going too close when passing a cyclist. . Car drivers may appear to give more room more of the time, but that is just because they have more room to play with.[/quote]

All vehicles have the option to pass fully out into the oncoming lane, cars and trucks. They should ONLY do this when it is safe to do so, and that means that if they cannot do so then they should wait until they can. The big lorries dont do this , they are the main culprits for squeezing past even when they have a lane to pull out into. Just because the truck is so dam big doesnt give the driver the right to mow a cyclist down. Move out, slow down and and BACK OFF! Human life is worth more than getting a delivery target met or whatever else it is that these drivers have to meet.
No excuses, just back off and pass slow and wide. Simples.

 

[asterix]

[QUOTE 2639092, member: 9609"]I think it does get used too much as an excuse, but on the other hand cyclists do put themselves into the most stupid positions, and it is unreasonable to expect a driver to be paying 100% attention to an area where no body should be, there is one or two other things to be concentrating on when taking a 60 foot long articulated vehicle through heavy traffic.[/quote]

Perhaps it is the 60 foot artic that is in the wrong place?

The great thing about inner York is that many of its streets are physically too small for HGVs. They can't get round the corners or through the arches.

Maybe it is time to realise that even if you can drive an HGV round a corner it is still not sensible to use one in crowded city streets.

 

[Arch]

The great thing about inner York is that many of its streets are physically too small for HGVs. They can't get round the corners or through the arches.

Those bendy buses are a great idea though, eh?

The centre of York does have some daftly big trucks though - even a 7.5 tonner is really too big for some streets, and with overhanging medieval buildings and weak cellars they struggle to negotiate Petergate and Stonegate. They still do it of course, because the retail infrastructure requires a lorry that size to deliver a box of frocks to Jigsaw.

Of course, once you're outside the walls, all the roads are fair game for anything. For the record, I find HGV drivers to be among the better ones, compared with WVM, taxis and private motorists.

 

[Sara_H]

Perhaps it is the 60 foot artic that is in the wrong place?

Spot on. These vehicles have no place mingling with vulnerable road users. Depots at motorway entry/exits and smaller vehicles to take goods to the ultimate destination.

 

[Linford]

is filtering and undertaking the same thing?

Filtering is when the traffic is either stationary or moving at a crawl. The legal definition of undertaking was as i understand rescinded a few years ago

 

[Sara_H]

[QUOTE 2639502, member: 9609"]

Is that not how most of it is already working. It isn't cost effective to put a artic onto local deliveries, if it is in a town centre there is probably a good reason.[/quote]

Stil see plenty of them about though. I live a couple of hundred meters away from a co op shop, a sort of mini market made out of a few old terraced housed knocked together - twice a day a massive HGV reverses along side it. Ordinary residential street.
The HGV reversing often occurs when the pavement being full of kids on their way to and from the primary school a few hundred yards down the road. I watched my own son walk in front of it once as it was just pulling across the pavement back out of the unloading area. He will have been well in the drivers blind spot.

Terrifying really.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

...yep...lots of them here as well in tiny streets, they block the road, cut corners, double park to deliver and expect the world to bow down to them just because they are so ridiculously oversized.
Our road infrastructure in towns is not designed for such large trucks, regardless of the economic reasons the trucking companies are placing peoples lives at risk by driving unsuitably sized vehicles, often in a dangerous manner, on small local roads.
Got a huge truck? Stick to the motorway!

 

[Primal Scream]

It doesn't matter how near or far, or how well intentioned, it isn't your decision to make.

Actually it was his decision to make as coming to a halt with your vehicles wheels very close to the kerb is not a motoring offence, his reasons for doing may however be debatable.Good for him I say.

 

[Primal Scream]

Oh good, thank you. I may continue to debate them then.

Dont go all reg on me your better than that.

 

[Spinney]

As someone else has already said, I fail to see the difference between:
- an HGV driver attempting to prevent dangerous actions by other road users by staying close to the kerb under certain circumstances
- a cyclist attempting to prevent dangerous actions by other road users by staying in primary under certain circumstances