Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

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pjclinch
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pjclinch »

pwa wrote:
Vorpal wrote:I don't see why 90% of deliveries can't be made that way, and exceptions made only for items that are too large for cargo bikes.

Our nearest Tesco, where their delivery vehicles come from, is about four miles and a couple of hills away, and vans coming from there deliver to Bridgend and the neighbouring towns of Porthcawl, Pencoed and Maesteg. One of our neighbours has Tesco deliveries and at a guess he has about ten trays delivered. A cargo bike is not going to replace that service.


People getting deliveries by Transit tend to buy in sufficient bulk to make the delivery charge less of an issue: if it costs less to get 10 trays every x days that's what people will do, and that's also a lot of why people do a Big Shop and fill up a car at an out-of-town supermarket. But that doesn't mean it has to be that way, and if there's a lower delivery charge then smaller deliveries of fresher produce look more appealing. Little and often rather than lots but occasionally. Unless he's eating 10 trays of food a day.

Whenever it comes to moving on from the existing car culture it's fairly typical to start off with deciding anything else won't work, and having started off with the answer to rationalise the evidence back. "Different" is not necessarily a problem, and it might be better once you're used to it.

The usual "and you can't do that with a bike" reminds me of when I picked up a fridge by bike from Comet. The lads took the box out the door, "where's your car?" and I pointed to the 8 Freight. They put it down next to it and went off scratching their heads and I set to work strapping in in place. Just as I was ready to go the manager came out, and the ensuing conversation went a bit like this...
"Errrrr. That looks very dodgy"
"It'll be fine"
"Errrr, I want to say that if you take it home on that we can't be responsible for your safety"
"So you would be responsible for my safety if I was driving?"
"Errrrrrrrr"

Pete.
Often seen riding a bike around Dundee...
MikeF
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by MikeF »

pjclinch wrote:......
Whenever it comes to moving on from the existing car culture it's fairly typical to start off with deciding anything else won't work, and having started off with the answer to rationalise the evidence back. ......

Pete.
You're right. A different thought process is needed ie how can we.....? rather than we can't do that because......?
"It takes a genius to spot the obvious" - my old physics master.
I don't peddle bikes.
pwa
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pwa »

But our Tesco vans travel upto 15 miles from their base with one driver carrying shopping for around 20 customers in one go. He/she will drop those deliveries off in their shift. That is never going to happen by cargo bike. Unless Tesco decide they want to employ three or four times as many personnel. It's not Deliveroo, just dropping off a couple of high price pizzas.

An Asda driver friend told me how much he delivers in a shift. I can't remember the exact figure quoted but it was something in the order of 600kg. And the furthest he travels from base is something like 20 miles.
Last edited by pwa on 10 Jan 2019, 7:28pm, edited 1 time in total.
pwa
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pwa »

pjclinch wrote:The usual "and you can't do that with a bike" reminds me of when I picked up a fridge by bike from Comet. The lads took the box out the door, "where's your car?" and I pointed to the 8 Freight. They put it down next to it and went off scratching their heads and I set to work strapping in in place. Just as I was ready to go the manager came out, and the ensuing conversation went a bit like this...
"Errrrr. That looks very dodgy"
"It'll be fine"
"Errrr, I want to say that if you take it home on that we can't be responsible for your safety"
"So you would be responsible for my safety if I was driving?"
"Errrrrrrrr"

Pete.


But how many fridges did you shift by bike that day? A pair of delivery personnel using a van will be expected to deliver to quite a few customers on one day. Some in town, some out in the sticks. Not going back to base to reload after every single drop. It's a job with targets, not a game.

(bleedin quote thing not working)


Sorted. :D
Mick F
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by thirdcrank »

AIUI, the current trend in the grocery trade is away from the big weekly shop; hence the emphasis on convenience shopping. I fancy that in straitened times, people are increasingly buying only what they need, rather than twice that, hopefully with less waste. Archie Norman - still remembered around here for saving "the" Asda from the receivers said that people doing their own shopping add so much value that online grocery shopping cannot be profitable ie it's cross-subsidised.
pwa
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pwa »

Back to the original point, certainly when driving things like long wheel base 17 seater minibuses I have never really felt that there is a significant blind spot that something as large as a cyclist can hide in. Never having driven a lorry I couldn't be sure what lorry drivers can't see if they are looking.
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Mick F
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by Mick F »

pwa wrote:Back to the original point, certainly when driving things like long wheel base 17 seater minibuses I have never really felt that there is a significant blind spot that something as large as a cyclist can hide in. Never having driven a lorry I couldn't be sure what lorry drivers can't see if they are looking.
Me too.
I used to drive the Community Bus - did do for a dozen years - and it was brilliant in the mirror department. Excellent views to the rear and the sides right down to road level, plus excellent views forwards too.
Mick F. Cornwall
pwa
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pwa »

Mick F wrote:
pwa wrote:Back to the original point, certainly when driving things like long wheel base 17 seater minibuses I have never really felt that there is a significant blind spot that something as large as a cyclist can hide in. Never having driven a lorry I couldn't be sure what lorry drivers can't see if they are looking.
Me too.
I used to drive the Community Bus - did do for a dozen years - and it was brilliant in the mirror department. Excellent views to the rear and the sides right down to road level, plus excellent views forwards too.

And the rear view cameras are removing the other main area of doubt. Good new for our bent riding friends.
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LinusR
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by LinusR »



racetech-eurocargo.jpg


I read this article with interest. In it Carlton Reid says that the truck used is "a 24-ton, three-axle MAN rigid truck". But this is incorrect. After I questioned him and the truck driver via Twitter he stated that the truck used in the picture is actually a 7.5 tonne Iveco cargo truck (similar to the one pictured above) and it was this truck that the driver used to demonstrate to Reid the absence of "blind spots".

Reid wrote the article in response to TfL's current consultation on reducing road danger from lorries in London. The consultation document states:

"HGVs (over 3.5 tonne gvw) were involved in 25 per cent of pedestrian and 63 per cent of cyclist fatalities" (p6 cons doc).

Yet the proposals by TfL will only apply to "HGVs over 12 tonnes gvw" (p7 cons doc).

Carlton Reid in the article criticises TfL for exagerating the "blind spots" on HGVs and uses the comments from truck driver Clive Matthews to back up his criticism. There is also a podcast which includes a further discussion here: http://www.the-spokesmen.com/?p=961

While many of Reid's and Matthews' remarks add to the debate - and some very good comment about driver training - his use of a 7.5 tonne truck to question a proposal only affecting HGVs of over 12 tonnes is pretty poor for an award-winning transport writer. On Twitter Reid was unable to tell me the size of the HGV used despite having sat in it and spent a considerable amount of time with the driver. He left it to Matthews to reply. See https://twitter.com/LinusRees/status/1083297091487744001

In this case size, does matter.

TfL's proposals are a huge step in the right direction. But they could be better.

Consultation document states: "HGVs (over 3.5 tonne gvw) were involved in 25 per cent of pedestrian and 63 per cent of cyclist fatalities" (p6 cons doc). Yet the standards will only apply to "HGVs over 12 tonnes gvw" (p7 cons doc). Is that good enough?

TfL is proposing a HGV Safety Permit Scheme that consists of two types of standards: a Direct Vision Standard with various star ratings; and for zero star rated HGVs a "Safe System".

"To meet ‘one star’, at least the head and shoulders of 99 per cent of the European adult population must be seen within an ‘acceptable’ distance at the front and side [of the lorry]"(p8) - so Direct Vision Standard does not include children cycling to school.

"The final proposals do not include driver training as a mandatory requirement. Following feedback from the Phase 2a consultation and engagement with the Safe System Advisory Group, it was agreed that the HGV Safety Permit requirements should apply to the vehicle only." (p11)

So TfL is proposing safer lorries but not safer drivers?

Have your say on making London's lorries safer: Direct Vision Standard (DVS) https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/direct-vision-standard-phase2b/
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pjclinch
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pjclinch »

pwa wrote:But our Tesco vans travel upto 15 miles from their base with one driver carrying shopping for around 20 customers in one go. He/she will drop those deliveries off in their shift. That is never going to happen by cargo bike. Unless Tesco decide they want to employ three or four times as many personnel. It's not Deliveroo, just dropping off a couple of high price pizzas.

An Asda driver friend told me how much he delivers in a shift. I can't remember the exact figure quoted but it was something in the order of 600kg. And the furthest he travels from base is something like 20 miles.


But but but...
But you're not looking to replace like with like. A couple of cargo bikes isn't the same as a Transit van and so isn't a simple straight swap, but there again a Transit van isn't the same as a couple of cargo bikes and they can do things that the Transit can't do so well, as is being shown in bits of the Real World as Vorpal pointed out.
Again as is pointed out back up-thread, "context" is the magic word. You use the right thing in the right place, and for all those places where a Transit isn't the best tool, but we're currently using them anyway because That's What We Do Here, we stop using them.

More personnel? Quite possibly, but a cargo bike costs less to buy, maintain and run than a Transit. Low emission zone coming in where it'll cost you a tenner just to turn the key on the Transit? And so on. Like MikeF said, a different thought process is needed ie how can we.....? rather than we can't do that because... Our motor traffic based life is killing us (and that's NICE saying that, not some InterWeb Random) and we're going to have to change things.

Pete.
Often seen riding a bike around Dundee...
tim-b
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by tim-b »

Hi
As a cyclist who drives a lorry, none of this is news... https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=123803&p=1257125&hilit=lorry#p1257125
I've seen photos used in campaigns where a mirror that would have shown the "hidden" cyclist has been out-of-shot in the final image, and they mostly ignore the fact that while there are mirror blind spots a driver can make a shoulder check out of the windows in a lorry

In this 2012 blog (link)
Sergeant Castle said: "With seven mirrors and the whole front windscreen to look at, by the time you have moved, the view has all changed."


I think the point is to educate cyclists not to get into danger areas because drivers can't check these areas fast enough relative to a cyclist at 20mph, even at slow manoeuvring speeds, hence the signs on vehicles

Regards
tim-b
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Tangled Metal
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by Tangled Metal »

This last point is my view. The lorry driver can only see what he's looking at. You can have all the blind spots covered by mirror based sightlines or cameras but if a cyclist moves into a sightline after the last check before a manoeuvre then the driver might not see the cyclist.

That's not victim blaming just logical. 15mph equates to 6.7m per second. A bulk carrier (AFAIK one of the truck types that is used in city areas and has been the vehicle that's been involved in cyclist deaths) can be about 6.5m to 9.5m depending on the size. I'm guessing most city ones are towards the smaller size range. So a 15mph cyclist can travel the length of the smallest bulk carriers in 1 second. When I'm driving a car (not even a truck) looking over my shoulder before making a manoeuvre that would benefit from that last check isn't a split second but nearer a second. I know I can miss a cyclist with that last check because I have. No accident because the first I saw of the cyclist being in a potential dangerous location in relation to me was when it was close to moving out of the dangerous position.

As a cyclist I move to the front of traffic queues a lot. I also sit back a lot taking primary / claiming my space on the road. It's my decision based on my views of the risks / hazards involved with potential manoeuvres. I believe I have a good sense for the risks but I'm certainly more cautious than some cyclists on my commute.

So my view is visibility isn't an issue it's whether the driver sees you and registers that fact. That seeing is possible because of mirrors and shoulder checks / head movements to see around blindspots. Registering is a a topic I know nothing about but I guess it's a psychological topic too. I also hold the view that ultimately drivers aren't as responsible for your safety on a bike as you are. It's right to question driver behaviour and cyclist and pedestrian behaviour. To do that isn't victim blaming in all cases.

BTW by questioning cyclist behaviour IMHO that doesn't mean checking for hi - viz or helmet use. It means checking positioning, speed, direction of travel and attitude towards hazards / risks. It's a traffic system and we're all part of the system. You have to check all parts to get the system right.
pwa
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pwa »

pjclinch wrote:
pwa wrote:But our Tesco vans travel upto 15 miles from their base with one driver carrying shopping for around 20 customers in one go. He/she will drop those deliveries off in their shift. That is never going to happen by cargo bike. Unless Tesco decide they want to employ three or four times as many personnel. It's not Deliveroo, just dropping off a couple of high price pizzas.

An Asda driver friend told me how much he delivers in a shift. I can't remember the exact figure quoted but it was something in the order of 600kg. And the furthest he travels from base is something like 20 miles.


But but but...
But you're not looking to replace like with like. A couple of cargo bikes isn't the same as a Transit van and so isn't a simple straight swap, but there again a Transit van isn't the same as a couple of cargo bikes and they can do things that the Transit can't do so well, as is being shown in bits of the Real World as Vorpal pointed out.
Again as is pointed out back up-thread, "context" is the magic word. You use the right thing in the right place, and for all those places where a Transit isn't the best tool, but we're currently using them anyway because That's What We Do Here, we stop using them.

More personnel? Quite possibly, but a cargo bike costs less to buy, maintain and run than a Transit. Low emission zone coming in where it'll cost you a tenner just to turn the key on the Transit? And so on. Like MikeF said, a different thought process is needed ie how can we.....? rather than we can't do that because... Our motor traffic based life is killing us (and that's NICE saying that, not some InterWeb Random) and we're going to have to change things.

Pete.


I don't know about where you are but around here Tesco and the other grocery delivery companies use vehicles a good bit larger than a transit van. Also, one person is not going to be able to deliver 600kg of groceries per shift to customers over a wide area using a cargo bike. Maybe you can imagine it where you live but here it would just not work. And labour will be the main cost of deliveries. If it takes more people to deliver using bikes, that will greatly reduce productivity. It's a non-starter.

If you want your groceries delivered by bike you are probably better off just collecting them yourself.
Tangled Metal
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by Tangled Metal »

I think that's the point pjc is making. Use them where they work not universally.

Built up area, perhaps with narrow streets and parking issues too. A cargo bike making deliveries in a small area would be quicker. We're talking about a different system here.

The way I see it working is a larger vehicle does a milkround drop off of stock to micro hubs. Cargo bikes migrate out of those hubs delivering on built up areas. In areas that would not be efficient such as my semi rural town and surrounding rural areas a van is needed. Effectively pick the delivery system that works on an area by area basis.

Ruling out a different delivery system because it does not work in your area is a bit blinkered. I've yet to see a deliveroo cyclist in my area but patently that's a business that's fulfilling a need using bikes to deliver. It is a delivery system that's in place in a different form that works (although the employment status of their delivery personnel is probably distasteful to many here).
pwa
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pwa »

For a cargo bike to be an efficient means of delivery the drops would have to be quite dense on the ground. So that three or four deliveries can be done per hour. Fewer if the customer is willing to pay more.

In my own area, of small towns, that just isn't the case. The Tesco driver who comes down our street to deliver to a neighbour is all over the place. Two or three drops in Bridgend, then because of delivery slots (times people want their deliveries) no more in that area for an hour or so, so off to another small town to do a few there, getting in the odd village drop in between, then back for a few more Bridgend drops later. The drops are not consistently dense enough on the ground to do it by bike.

Funnily enough, i remember a few years ago arguing with someone on this forum who was adamant that Tesco style delivery (by van) was a good way of reducing car traffic and pollution, and I said that van deliveries were, because of time slots, not as efficient as you might imagine. The same company delivering to different doors in the same street twice or more on the same day, with sometimes 10 or 15 miles between drops.
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