Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

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reohn2
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by reohn2 »

Tangled Metal wrote:If you think DHL are bad then parcel force won't be too your liking.

A couple of postie friends once told me that the parcelforce drivers in their delivery patch are dodgy as hell. They collect their packages from the same royal mail DO as the royal mail posties and deliver to the same areas. This allows for a few short cuts for them.

The first thing they do is offload as much of v their packages into the normal royal mail delivery piles.

The second is to hide other parcels to be delivered to put off the way places. In their patch there's a few remote farms for example.

Third thing is they have a favourite layby that they take breaks at. However these breaks often operate as hiding out to avoid making deliveries. If they run out of time to make their deliveries they can offload them to other drivers or to royal mail.

Fourth dodge is to throw the parcels they don't want to deliver in the bin at that layby or even over the wall there. The local DO manager got a complaint when a package didn't arrive. He hopled into his car and drove to that layby. He found all the missing packages in and around the bin. He put them in his car and delivered them himself. No action taken against the drivers.

Royal mail posties get vetted for security and offences. They also have standards of behaviour! Postie friends have told me that parcelforce don't have this vetting process so they are often staffed by sacked royal mail workers. As you can tell posties don't like parcelforce workers.

Only ever had one package go missing with a y of the carriersDHL,Parcel Force,UKMail,etc,etc.In fact the regular Parcel Force driver who delivers to me is a really nice chap who'll help if he can.
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Vorpal
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by Vorpal »

pwa wrote:All this talk about keeping HGVs and cyclists apart is only relevant in big towns and cities and on major arterial roads. It isn't relevant to me in my village or in the small towns nearby. The cycle network and the network for HGVs is and will remain the same, except for a few urban roads that have been made into cul-de-sacs for motor traffic.
...

This is not to deny the real dangers that exist on city streets when HGVs and cyclists share spaces, but that isn't the cycling that I do. I'll leave the city street situation for others to talk about.

It's only relevant in big towns and cities, eacept for children, elderly, disabled, or those don't want to share with lorries.

The separation of HGVs and cyclists isn't practical everywhere, but the interactions between them should be minimised.

They may not bother everyone, but they are off putting to many potential cyclists, and their parents.

I'm not sure I'd want Mini V (12 years old) riding her bike to school unaccompanied if she had to share with frequent or fast (more than 40 mph?) lorry traffic.

As it is, she has a route to school that is about half on quiet roads, and half on fully segregated facilities. Delivery vehicles are allowed on one of the quiet roads, and dust bin cart on all of them, but they are 30 kph roads with lots of pedestrians and cyclists. The drivers of motor vehicles are slow and careful.
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pwa
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pwa »

Vorpal wrote:
pwa wrote:All this talk about keeping HGVs and cyclists apart is only relevant in big towns and cities and on major arterial roads. It isn't relevant to me in my village or in the small towns nearby. The cycle network and the network for HGVs is and will remain the same, except for a few urban roads that have been made into cul-de-sacs for motor traffic.
...

This is not to deny the real dangers that exist on city streets when HGVs and cyclists share spaces, but that isn't the cycling that I do. I'll leave the city street situation for others to talk about.

It's only relevant in big towns and cities, eacept for children, elderly, disabled, or those don't want to share with lorries.

The separation of HGVs and cyclists isn't practical everywhere, but the interactions between them should be minimised.

They may not bother everyone, but they are off putting to many potential cyclists, and their parents.

I'm not sure I'd want Mini V (12 years old) riding her bike to school unaccompanied if she had to share with frequent or fast (more than 40 mph?) lorry traffic.

As it is, she has a route to school that is about half on quiet roads, and half on fully segregated facilities. Delivery vehicles are allowed on one of the quiet roads, and dust bin cart on all of them, but they are 30 kph roads with lots of pedestrians and cyclists. The drivers of motor vehicles are slow and careful.

I've got (now grown up) kids myself so I do know what you mean about wanting a safe environment for them to start their independent cycling on.

But when they grow up, and get into their twenties, you want your kids to enjoy a wider network of cycling opportunities and, certainly where I live, that does mean sharing roads with traffic. If we quadrupled the "network" of traffic free routes it would still be a truncated version of the road network that we currently have access to. For city livers yes, of course it is often a very good thing. And alongside busy trunk roads. But a lot of our countryside network will remain on country roads and lanes, and that is where a lot of the best cycling is.

So I want my kids to be as safe as they can be on roads with traffic.
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pjclinch
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pjclinch »

"Only relevant in big towns and cities" translates as "only relevant to where most people live".

For example, the population of Greater London comfortably exceeds the entire population of Scotland, so it does make a lot of sense to concentrate on urban areas for specialised cycling provision. There are more bikes, more journeys where bikes are apposite and more motor traffic. Same goes for alternatives to supermarket delivery vans.

For rural stuff, there's no shortage of places where the trunk road is the road. Often quite busy and bendy enough that overtaking is an issue, these are no fun to ride on. While the national Doom/Distance ratio is a bit over 20 per billion km on average this varies by road type, and you're up to 170 for rural A roads. This is really not good, and putting a dedicated cycle track by these roads is good for just about everyone.

I'll meet the odd HGV on back roads around here, and it's not really an issue because it's the odd one. There's a big difference in terms of both safety and pleasantness between meeting the odd one and having a pretty steady procession.

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

Post by ThePinkOne »

I've done a lot on workplace safety (around big moving vehicles) and no matter how many visibility aids a driver has, they can't look at them all at once, albeit is very important they are present and correctly maintained and set up. So, the basic philosophy is keep people & vehicles seperate as much as possible and to minimise reversing. How they are seperated varies according to the specific context- it can be barriers, seperate spaces but can also be lined out with lanes. The space each vehicle needs to manoevre must be considered as must the potential for the vehicle to hit things and people, plus speed limits are normally in force and lower the more congested an area may be. If a lot of vehicles are in use, then the expectation would be to not allow people in that area- the people will need an alternative route where big vehicles are not allowed. Pedestrian walkways have minimum standards too and should accommodate all foreseeable users- including wheelchairs, pushchairs and cyclists if those people may be using them. There's no "one size fits all" the solution should reflect the activities and risk. It's all about managing people and vehicles so they can all move about safely.

The other thing is that in workplace accidents* involving vehicles and not on a public highway, the HSW Act takes precedence (the Road Traffic Act takes precedence for accidents on the highway even if people involved are "at work"). Under HSW Act, the first focus is on looking at the employer so if a driver is being incentivised to take short cuts on safety (e.g. too many drops to drive safely) the managers are largely responsible- which has a salutary effect on the schedules given to drivers! By contrast, the RTA is focused on blaming the driver (and victim).

I would argue that the HSW Act approach has been successful- the number of deaths on construction sites for example has dropped dramatically. I often wonder if applying those principles (make the space as safe as possible for both people & vehicles, hold the employers of drivers to account, require every party involved to have some responsibility for the safety of themselves and each other) to the roads would lead to improvements. [Disclaimer: I spent some years working as HM Inspector under HSW Act i.e. a regulator for HSW Act including a chunk of that in construction so I know how the law was applied in practice].

In short: IMO the only approach that will really work is one where the road environment is better designed, where any behavioural incentives are geared to keeping people safe and where all parties accept they have a role to play in keeping themself and each other safe AND where there is fair and robust enforcement of the requirements. But- are we mature enough to do that in the public domain, or have we all become too polarised, prefering to identify the "other" and blame them....?

* I am using the term "accidents" in the H&S definition of an unintended event that causes harm and does have causes- immediate and underlying- so can be prevented. Not the colloquial use implying "it's no-one's fault." Having been a regulatory inspector I'm also very much at the practical end of the spectrum and in the past have challenged site managers who decide on a whim daft things like saying cyclists should wear helmets/not ride into site etc in situations where both pedestrians and cars were permitted (cycle helments are NOT PPE!). I really get annoyed about the practice of using "elf n safety" as an excuse!.

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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by rfryer »

reohn2 wrote:
mjr wrote:
Vorpal wrote:Not that many people are home during the day.

They are on day offs, which is better to get shopping delivered. Also, same thing often applies for the fewer evening slots.

Not all people have the same days off and many people work shifts.
What's a simple thing for one household isn't when many are in the mix

I don't understand your point. If the booking system discounted time slots when someone nearby was already getting a delivery, then users that were flexible about timing would be able make helpful choices, saving them money and benefiting the environment. There's no need for neighbors to be coordinating themselves, all it needs is a responsive booking system.
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RickH
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by RickH »

reohn2 wrote:
mjr wrote:
reohn2 wrote:I'll leave it at that,we disagree 'nough said.

I buy groceries online and don't often care when they arrive on a given day, as long as I know when, so we clearly exist! To be frank, it'd be nice to have concern for my local environment as a reason for picking a timeslot, instead of trying to guess when I'm least likely to be working!

People pick a time slot to fit in with their schedule,like you do.
If you're not there the groceries don't get delivered,so you choose your time slot when you are at home,you don't go checking if your time slot fits in with other customers in the neighbourhood,like they don't with yours.
You pick your items and are offered a choice of time slots if non fit in with your schedule you make other arrangements,it's not rocket science.

Our daughter gets deliveries from Ocado. She says that when picking a delivery time they already mark time slots when there is a van already going to be nearby. If one of those is a convenient time she will pick that slot even without a discount.
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reohn2
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by reohn2 »

RickH wrote:Our daughter gets deliveries from Ocado. She says that when picking a delivery time they already mark time slots when there is a van already going to be nearby. If one of those is a convenient time she will pick that slot even without a discount.

That's fine and I'm sure anyone would do the same,but the time slots have to be convenient for all parties.
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pwa
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pwa »

The "discounts" for choosing time slots to coincide by those of others nearby could be vouchers, encouraging more spending in the future.
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by Rob Archer »

thirdcrank wrote:A propos of nothing, a large white van has just driven up my street and back down. On the offside back door there was a prominently displayed sticker showing the NO CYCLING road sign - black bike within a red circle. That's the attitude we are discussing.
Is that not misuse of a road sign? AIUI that sign indicates a cycle ban and will be backed up by a Traffic Regulation Order. If that's allowed maybe cyclists should have a No Motor Vehicles (flying motorbike) sign in their backs?

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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by MikeF »

The utility cyclist wrote:
MikeF wrote:The real issue is that cyclists and lorries (motor vehicles) should not be using or trying to use the same piece of road (highway) space. People will make mistakes, but these mistakes should not lead to injury.


Don't agree, I'm comfortable with HGVs for the most part, I have far fewer issues than with cars/vans, massively so, even taking into account overall their % of vehicles on the road.
I first started commuting in 1987 as a teen, 5 miles into the city centre and passing straight down the middle of a major industrial area on an arterial route. Train people well enough, have people continually thinking and assessing and their 'mistakes' are very infrequent, they should also be at a level that because of the care and attention and leeway they've given that it won't physically harm someone even if the other (vulnerable) person does make an error in judgement. Pretty much what the bike riding HGV driver does.

The sick thing about most HGV incidents with people on bikes, in fact a significant proportion of all KSIs, is that police are bias, discriminatory and unable or unwilling to apply the law and the rules that they apply elsewhere. Put themselves in that same situation and the attitude would be totally the opposite. Frankly these people are no longer fit for purpose in assessing RTCs, not when they display such poor judgement and understanding.
This dereliction of duty quite literally punishes all people riding bikes, indeed pedestrians too.
Legislation will not stop people making mistakes however well they are trained. People (drivers) will look and not see at times - it's a failing we can all have.

Most people will not cycle because danger of motor vehicles is their biggest concern. Until this changes and people feel safe cycling not many will do so.
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pwa »

To what extent does it matter if there are a lot of nervous people out there who feel too scared to cycle? There were lots of cyclists out on the roads around here today, more than there would have been twenty years ago. Why do we need to worry about those who don't join us? Does it matter?
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by mjr »

pwa wrote:To what extent does it matter if there are a lot of nervous people out there who feel too scared to cycle? There were lots of cyclists out on the roads around here today, more than there would have been twenty years ago. Why do we need to worry about those who don't join us? Does it matter?

It matters and we need to worry because too much motoring is killing our compatriots in multiple horrible ways and costing us all money in healthcare. Yes, I think this matters.
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pwa
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by pwa »

mjr wrote:
pwa wrote:To what extent does it matter if there are a lot of nervous people out there who feel too scared to cycle? There were lots of cyclists out on the roads around here today, more than there would have been twenty years ago. Why do we need to worry about those who don't join us? Does it matter?

It matters and we need to worry because too much motoring is killing our compatriots in multiple horrible ways and costing us all money in healthcare. Yes, I think this matters.

You are right, I suppose, though I don't focus on that so much because it will never figure large in my own locality. TBH I think you could take every HGV off the road and those who feel too nervous to cycle now would still be too nervous. It's people like that who need cycle tracks.
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Re: Trucks Do Not Have Cyclist-Obscuring Blind Spots

Post by Cyril Haearn »

One would have to get all the a***s off the roads too :?
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