Who's at fault....Lorry driver, cyclist or the cycle lane designer?

[Hector]

Undertaking is illegal, ''filtering'' is what occurs in slow moving traffic. And in the vid beside the truck I'd estimate that the cyclist was doing more then 20 mph. I'd hardly state this as slow moving.

 

[dawesome]

Undertaking is illegal,

Source?

 

[gaz]

And the two motorcyclists who'd just overtaken him?

The HGV driver is utterly blameless.

Hold on.. we don't know if the cyclists got fully in front of the HGV or not. We can't say he is blameless.

 

[Peowpeowpeowlasers]

What about them? Are you saying that someone overtaking on the right removes your duty to be observant on the left?

I'm not sure how you can come to the definite conclusion that the driver was utterly blameless.

I don't know about you but I have only one pair of eyes.

Cyclist undertakes HGV. Cyclist barely gets ahead of HGV, if at all. Road narrows. Cyclist almost becomes mincemeat.

In case you need to be reminded of just how poor visibility can be on such vehicles:

 

[Peowpeowpeowlasers]

Hold on.. we don't know if the cyclists got fully in front of the HGV or not. We can't say he is blameless.

I'm going to arrive at the obvious conclusion that he didn't. He took about 4 seconds to traverse the length of the lorry and just as he passes the cab you can hear its engine increasing revs. The driver was probably watching the two motorcyclists that had just squeezed through his offside and was completely unaware of the idiotic (yes, idiotic) cyclist who decided to nip up the inside of 30 tonnes of lorry.

I'm as passionate about road safety as most, moreso in fact, but I can at least recognise when someone's done something utterly stupid and can refrain from blaming someone obviously innocent.

 

[Boris Bajic]

And they have trouble with being drunk, like the lorry driver that killed Catriona Patel, or they have trouble with being unable to see and falsifying their tacho like the lorry driver who killed Eilidh Cairns, or they have trouble with indicating or encroaching the asl, like the lorry driver who killed Daniel Cox.

I'm not sure what this post adds to the debate. Are you linking the behaviour of drivers proved in court to be driving drunk or otherwise illegally or inattentively to the situation in this thread?

If so, what is the link? If not, are you somehow tarring all lorry drivers with the same brush?

There is no ASL in the clip, no suggestion the driver was drinking or falsifying his tacho records and no need to have used indicators.

Wider society has trouble with alcohol. There was an amusing thread here some days ago seeking advice and anecdotes about cycling home drunk in the evening. There were many admissions from cyclists. Lorry drivers are not the only section of society who drink.

A cynic might wonder whether you just wanted to make morbid mention of some tragic deaths in traffic. I am not a cynic, but I would see their point if they made it.

I'm sure the cases you cite are as tragic as they were horrific and needless. We've all lost someone in horrid circumstances and it stains the soul. I'm not sure it dignifies the tragedies to trawl them up in threads where they seems to have no place.

 

[gaz]

I'm going to arrive at the obvious conclusion that he didn't. He took about 4 seconds to traverse the length of the lorry and just as he passes the cab you can hear its engine increasing revs. The driver was probably watching the two motorcyclists that had just squeezed through his offside and was completely unaware of the idiotic (yes, idiotic) cyclist who decided to nip up the inside of 30 tonnes of lorry.

I'm as passionate about road safety as most, moreso in fact, but I can at least recognise when someone's done something utterly stupid and can refrain from blaming someone obviously innocent.

Whilst it may be an obvious conclusion. It is still an assumption.

 

[dawesome]

are you somehow tarring all lorry drivers with the same brush?

.

You betcha:

Turning to the issues of lorries, Inspector Aspinall told the meeting about a day of City of London spot checks on HGVs, carried out on 30 September 2008 as part of the Europe-wide Operation Mermaid, which is intended to step up levels of enforcement of road safety laws in relation to lorries. On this one day, 12 lorries were stopped randomly by City Police.

Five of those lorries were involved in the construction work for the 2012 Olympics.

All of the twelve lorries were breaking the law in at least one way.

Repeat: a 100 per cent criminality rate among small random sample of HGVs on the streets of central London.

The offences range included overweight loads (2 cases), mechanical breaches (5 cases), driver hours breaches (5 cases), mobile phone use while driving (2 cases), driving without insurance (2 cases) and no operator license (1 case).

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...ticle/city-of-london-police-road-safety-forum

 

[Hector]

Source?

Road traffic act classes undertaking as careless/dangerous driving.

And tarring all lorry drivers with the same brush is exactly the narrow minded view 'we' don't need.

After all it's not like cyclists complain about motorists classing them as RLJing lycra louts. Pot, kettle black, another HGV incident down the tube because of some narrow minded individual.

Rule number one when out riding a bike:

You are utterly blameless for anything and everything that happens to you despite how you may ride.

 

[dawesome]

Do HGVs form a relatively small part of road traffic?

Yep.

Are HGVs involved in a disporportinate number of fatalities?

Yep.

Do HGVs have an appalling record of dangerous driving and illegal vehicles?

Yep.

 

[gaz]

Road traffic act classes undertaking as careless/dangerous driving.

Does it really? Then you won't have a problem telling us which section of the road traffic act that comes under.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/contents

Would you like a ladder?

 

[dawesome]

Road traffic act classes undertaking as careless/dangerous driving.

.

Source?

 

[subaqua]

And they have trouble with being drunk, like the lorry driver that killed Catriona Patel, or they have trouble with being unable to see and falsifying their tacho like the lorry driver who killed Eilidh Cairns, or they have trouble with indicating or encroaching the asl, like the lorry driver who killed Daniel Cox.

do all lorry drivers do this? No didn't think so. bet the figure that 100% of vehicles stopped in the city had a legal defect gets trotted out. did the police release what the legal defects were. I could go out and pick 100 vehicles with a defect that are on the road so who is to say they didn't justy pick the ones that they knew they would get a result from and ignore the others that they knew would pass.

 

[dawesome]

The offences range included overweight loads (2 cases), mechanical breaches (5 cases), driver hours breaches (5 cases), mobile phone use while driving (2 cases), driving without insurance (2 cases) and no operator license (1 case).

These aren't trivial offences.

 

[benb]

I'm going to arrive at the obvious conclusion that he didn't. He took about 4 seconds to traverse the length of the lorry and just as he passes the cab you can hear its engine increasing revs. The driver was probably watching the two motorcyclists that had just squeezed through his offside and was completely unaware of the idiotic (yes, idiotic) cyclist who decided to nip up the inside of 30 tonnes of lorry.

I'm as passionate about road safety as most, moreso in fact, but I can at least recognise when someone's done something utterly stupid and can refrain from blaming someone obviously innocent.

We all agree the cyclist shouldn't have gone up the inside. I'm saying the lorry driver should have either been aware of it anyway (by not fixating only on the motorcycles) or at the very least properly considered the possibility of a bicycle being there, as he had been driving alongside a cycle lane for some distance.