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

[subaqua]

I think its one of those videos where you can both be in the right legally and still be putting yourself in danger unnecessarily, ie. he's got every right to use the cycle lane and lay blame on motorists who run him off the road, but its a dangerous looking facility and I wouldnt be going anywhere near that lorry.

The cycle lane is tiny, theres double lines painted down it and drains which probably make braking more exciting and it looks like it might be damp. Nothing against roadies, but isnt a gutter path like that very dangerous particularly with skinny road tyres?

I have a legal gas oven in my kitchen , I could unnecesarily stick my head in it and turn the gas on . would the gas board or the oven mker be responsible for my actions . NO. poor cyclecraft , and as i posted earlier thats with benefit of hndsight. looking at some of my cam footage after the rides makes me cringe with stupid things i did , but was lucky.

I have learnt from them though.

cycle lane doesn't look like it meets DfT guidelines at all.

 

[Mushroomgodmat]

Ultimately I would say the lorry driver is to blame.

It's clear (to me atleast) thr cyclist was pretty reckless...but, it also seems that he was so far ahead of the lorry that the lorry should have seen him. So regardless of his suspect cycling upto that point I do believe the driver should have seen him.

I don't believe the drain was the issue as he started yelling at the lorry prior to the drain, it's very likely that the lorry pushed him into the drain though, but the lorry (to me) was the element that started it all.

In addition...technically shouldn't you give vulnerable road users atleast 6ft space when overtaking? Is that not a valid argument for laying blame on the driver?

Kind of a pointless cycling lane though, seems so narrow it might as well not be there.

 

[marzjennings]

As mentioned it's hard to tell from video whether the cyclist ever cleared the driver's blind spot or not and the rider may be in error.

The truck seems to continue on a very straight line as and after the rider falls, oblivious to the rider, again indicating that the cyclist was never seen.

The cycle lane is ridiculously narrow and almost useless.

 

[subaqua]

Ultimately I would say the lorry driver is to blame.

It's clear (to me atleast) thr cyclist was pretty reckless...but, it also seems that he was so far ahead of the lorry that the lorry should have seen him. So regardless of his suspect cycling upto that point I do believe the driver should have seen him.

I don't believe the drain was the issue as he started yelling at the lorry prior to the drain, it's very likely that the lorry pushed him into the drain though, but the lorry (to me) was the element that started it all.

Kind of a pointless cycling lane though, seems so narrow it might as well not be there.

so why the urgency to pass the lorry. we all complain about the must get past mentality of drivers but the same logic applies to us.

hang back for a moment and asses the situation, the road ahead and then pass the lorry when the road conditions are more favourable. its possible with cameras doing strange things to perspective , that the rider hadn't cleared the lorry fully and was in the forward blind spot. which no rear view mirrors will help you see into no matter how well adjusted the mirors are !!

 

[HovR]

but, it also seems that he was so far ahead of the lorry that the lorry should have seen him. So regardless of his suspect cycling upto that point I do believe the driver should have seen him.

I'm not sure though.. When listening to the video, as soon as the lorry goes out of sight the engine noise doesn't get much quieter, indicating that he may not have gotten that much further in front of it.

 

[MrJamie]

I have a legal gas oven in my kitchen , I could unnecesarily stick my head in it and turn the gas on . would the gas board or the oven mker be responsible for my actions . NO. poor cyclecraft , and as i posted earlier thats with benefit of hndsight. looking at some of my cam footage after the rides makes me cringe with stupid things i did , but was lucky.

I have learnt from them though.

He seems to be defending his cycling on youtube rather than acknowledging it was risky.

 

[Mushroomgodmat]

so why the urgency to pass the lorry. we all complain about the must get past mentality of drivers but the same logic applies to us.

I agree that it was very silly of him to try and get ahead - not something I would have done, but that's irrelevant. Being stupid or negligent prior to being knocked of your bike by a lorry does not mean the lorry driver is somehow without blame.

The idea of the blind spot is valid though. And for that one I guess we will never know. Intresting that the insurance company has not mentioned the same thing (only going of what the OP said)

But I 100% agree that he should have hung back. If that where me I would have just kept at the speed of the traffic untill the traffic was sub 10mph.

 

[daSmirnov]

Not the best bit of cycling. Granted. Not the best painted gutter I've seen. Could probably be made into a video of how not to cycle through traffic. And how cycle infrastructure shouldn't be designed.

But at the end of the day the truck failed to overtake another road user properly. An attentive truck driver should have seen the cyclist move along side him, and remained very cautious if he wasn't sure where he was - he doesn't have to keep track of several cyclists moving along both sides of him like in heavy London traffic, just one, although granted he might have been watching his right-mirror due to the motorcyclists, but he still had what 4-5 seconds to see the cyclist coming up his inside. Was he thinking where's the cyclist? No.

Either way I reckon the cyclist was carrying enough speed to be visible in front of the cab.

The insurance company claiming it was the cyclist's fault for avoiding a wet drain cover is insane. This is one of the main reasons cyclists need plenty of space, because they may need to suddenly change direction. /facepalm

 

[Ian Cooper]

Comparable situation - three lanes of vehicle traffic, left lane turns in to a side road. Someone from left lane decides to continue straight on instead and a collision occurs with vehicle in middle lane. Who is to blame?

I understand your point, but the cyclist merged safely into the general traffic lane. The argument that he didn't merge safely would bear more weight if filtering was illegal, or if the accident happened immediately upon merging, but neither of those apply.

As for the road markings, cycle lanes always have a solid line, but this doesn't mean they have to stay within that line. The law generally allows them to exit the lane at will, and the cyclist could easily make a case that turning with the bike lane (which turns sharply left and then sharply right) was dangerous at that speed.

I completely agree that the cyclist was incredibly stupid in many of the (perfectly legal) choices he made, but the question is not whether he was stupid, but whether he was to blame. As I intimated in my earlier posts, I think the main portion of blame resides with the morons who decided that striping a 12 inch bike lane in the gutter was a good idea. Such a bike lane encourages both cyclists and motorists to behave in ways that will get cyclists killed.

 

[marinyork]

One more thought - the cycle lane actually turns off the road and on to the pavement at 1:27 and then turns in to a shared use path BEHIND the bus stop (where the collision was). So effectively he was in a left turn lane and then decided to continue straight on where the 3 lanes (cycle-vehicle-vehicle) became 2 (vehicle-vehicle). I suspect he will lose his day in court

It doesn't have much to do with it. The cycle lane peels off the road well before 1 road lane becomes 2 road lanes. In actual fact were there 2 lanes at the same time it would be an invitation for other road users to use it (signs and markings permitting - not actually as the case may be, but safer than a collision).

Whether the rights or wrongs of the situation I have an alternative theory. The lorry driver was watching the motorbike(s) that overtook the lorry on his other side from around 1min19 to around 1min 31. If you watch it the second motorbike is roughly the same distance ahead of the bicycle or may even have been level at some point when both went past the lorry.

 

[mr_cellophane]

The cyclist says that this is part of his commute so he should know what is coming up. He should therefore have known about the drain and adjusted his speed/cycling accordingly.
100% the cyclists fault. I would like to think I would never ride like that.

 

[Ian Cooper]

Having watched the video again, I seriously doubt that the cyclist ever emerged from the lorry driver's blind spot. If you look at the vehicle ahead of the cyclist, it's clear that the cyclist is maintaining the same distance from it until it starts to accelerate, which is the point where the collision happens. I suggest that the lorry driver was probably just behind the cyclist, maintaining that same distance from the vehicle in front, and he accelerated at the same point the vehicle in front did.

Not that this absolves the lorry driver from fault. He knew that a filtering cyclist was somewhere to his immediate left, and he should have made sure there was enough room in case he got undertaken again by that same cyclist. He had enough room to his right to move right to ensure safety, but he didn't.

 

[subaqua]

I agree that it was very silly of him to try and get ahead - not something I would have done, but that's irrelevant. Being stupid or negligent prior to being knocked of your bike by a lorry does not mean the lorry driver is somehow without blame.

The idea of the blind spot is valid though. And for that one I guess we will never know. Intresting that the insurance company has not mentioned the same thing (only going of what the OP said)

But I 100% agree that he should have hung back. If that where me I would have just kept at the speed of the traffic untill the traffic was sub 10mph.

maybe the motorcycles on the offside were why the lorry was over to the left. the lane they use seems to be clear from before the undertake up to the impact.

 

[marinyork]

Having watched the video again, I seriously doubt that the cyclist ever emerged from the lorry driver's blind spot. If you look at the vehicle ahead of the cyclist, it's clear that the cyclist is maintaining the same distance from it until it starts to accelerate, which is the point where the collision happens. I suggest that the lorry driver was probably just behind the cyclist, maintaining that same distance from the vehicle in front, and he accelerated at the same point the vehicle in front did.

Not that this absolves the lorry driver from fault. He knew that a filtering cyclist was somewhere to his immediate left, and he should have made sure there was enough room in case he got undertaken again by that same cyclist. He had enough room to his right to move right to ensure safety, but he didn't.

I read it differently. The lorry was watching the two motorcyclists - especially the second one - and accelerated as soon as they were clear safe in the other lane. There was a fair old gap for some time (no particular need to floor it until things went safely on their way after all lorry drivers have to drive more smoothly). I suspect the lorry driver knew that the right hand lane and bollard/divider before the lanes split off was coming up as a 'tempter' which was why he didn't accelerate. To be even clearer than my previous post and the one directly above the lorry driver was watching the motorcycles for 12-13 seconds.

 

[400bhp]

Personally, if I wrote the law and got to make up my own laws and sentences, I'd give the lorry driver a month in jail and ban him from driving for a year; I'd give the person or persons who decided to make that gutter into a bike lane six months in jail for endangering numerous cyclists' lives (prior sentence of shooting commuted because I'm not really a monster), and I'd fine the cyclist a month's pay for suicidal cycling.

Thank god you don't.

You''re going on igonre for a bit, sick of your inane babble.