Cycling UK Forum

Sadly another death caused by a female cyclist and a tipper truck in London,very sad indeed.

Looks like the same company as this Uninsured and unlicensed driver killed cyclist in 2013.
http://road.cc/content/news/155627-frei ... ed-cyclist
Just using wife's name now.

Why all the hatred for construction traffic? This is just a distraction from the real danger posed by cyclists.

Paulatic wrote:Looks like the same company as this Uninsured and unlicensed driver killed cyclist in 2013.
http://road.cc/content/news/155627-frei ... ed-cyclist
Just using wife's name now.

The two male Drummonds were not only banned from running a haulage company, but also from managing trucks. It seems likely to me that they would have kept on running the company. Will they have broken their ban?

Annoying Twit wrote:

Paulatic wrote:Looks like the same company as this Uninsured and unlicensed driver killed cyclist in 2013.
http://road.cc/content/news/155627-frei ... ed-cyclist
Just using wife's name now.

The two male Drummonds were not only banned from running a haulage company, but also from managing trucks. It seems likely to me that they would have kept on running the company. Will they have broken their ban?

If they have we'll need to make sure we ban them again

You can lock up all the individuals involved, from the driver to the company owner and why not.
However so long as you have Universal Credit/ JSA with their heavy hand and sanctions you will never be short of drivers and others who will accept such risks because they can see no way out of it.
They will just see each day before the disaster as another day survived with a roof over their heads, money for food, beer and fags and the bills paid.
No need to pity them or excuse them, just realise that for every one that you bang up, another will fill the gap. Be that driver or company.

The only answer is enforcement and for that you need specialists: people who have been trained in the detail of legislation covering all types of lorry, drivers' hours (including exemptions) how to read tachographs (if they still have them, and again exemptions) etc., and the ability to drive such vehicles as well. Just about anybody can stop cars and check them, and a simpleton can stop cyclists and advise them to wear a helmet and hi-viz, but you need to know exactly what you are doing with a truck and the self-confidence to do it, which comes with experience of regularly doing it.

For the umpteenth time I'll mention that in the days when we had a proper Traffic Division in these parts, one of the two superintendents had kept his HGV qualifications up-to-date: not so he could go round driving lorries but as a display of commitment to those under his command. "Ok driver, give me the keys and I'll drive it to xxxx. We'll contact your firm to let them know what's happened" is the ultimate way to do it, and when people know you can do it, you rarely have to resort to anything like that.

These issues have come up in threads such as the Bath tipper fatal crash and the Police thugs thread. It's been decided that it's too expensive to have this type of policing and it's largely been handed over to industry self-regulation and some acronym organisation that's been subject to austerity cuts. Hexhome used to have the details of that side of things.

TC
Spot on,and the same goes for the rest of policing,but we the people choose less taxes rather than more regulation enforcement.
This incident is possibly yet another symptom of that approach to policing by stupid voters and an even more stupid and incompetent governance,but hey look at the money we're saving

I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 a few months back.
I'm a bit hazy on the details but a haulage operator losing their UK haulage licence can apparently set up a haulage company in the the eu (I think Bulgaria) where the usual punishment for a serious offence is a fine rather than a loss of operators licence. The Bulgarian company can then operate in the UK.
Perhaps someone knows something more about this.

ANTONISH wrote:I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 a few months back.
I'm a bit hazy on the details but a haulage operator losing their UK haulage licence can apparently set up a haulage company in the the eu (I think Bulgaria) where the usual punishment for a serious offence is a fine rather than a loss of operators licence. The Bulgarian company can then operate in the UK.
Perhaps someone knows something more about this.

I listened to the same progam. It was Rumania. Basically, companies who had lost their operators licence in the UK, could get a Rumanian one. The Rumanian rules regarding vehicle condition are somewhat laxer than ours.

They even interviewed a Rumanian solicitor living in the UK, who provided the service of setting up the company and obtaining the licence. Even he agreed it was wrong, but since not illegal under European rules, he had no intention of stopping.

reohn2 wrote:TC
Spot on,and the same goes for the rest of policing,but we the people choose less taxes rather than more regulation enforcement.
This incident is possibly yet another symptom of that approach to policing by stupid voters and an even more stupid and incompetent governance,but hey look at the money we're saving

Thats a massive oversimplification. Even if we 'chose' to pay more tax, what makes you think it would be spent on law enforcement, rather than e.g, increased foreign aid, another round of pay rises for M.P.'s, bolstering public sector pensions etc. etc.?

Airsporter1st wrote:

reohn2 wrote:TC
Spot on,and the same goes for the rest of policing,but we the people choose less taxes rather than more regulation enforcement.
This incident is possibly yet another symptom of that approach to policing by stupid voters and an even more stupid and incompetent governance,but hey look at the money we're saving

Thats a massive oversimplification. Even if we 'chose' to pay more tax, what makes you think it would be spent on law enforcement, rather than e.g, increased foreign aid, another round of pay rises for M.P.'s, bolstering public sector pensions etc. etc.?

Because that's how it's 'sold' to the public. 'There isn't enough money to go round, so we need to make some cuts.... The budget reduction for police is XXX...'

They have been doing this for years. Every time, they say it won't affect policing, but of course, policing is slowly erroded in a way that most people never notice.

Airsporter1st wrote:

reohn2 wrote:TC
Spot on,and the same goes for the rest of policing,but we the people choose less taxes rather than more regulation enforcement.
This incident is possibly yet another symptom of that approach to policing by stupid voters and an even more stupid and incompetent governance,but hey look at the money we're saving

Thats a massive oversimplification. Even if we 'chose' to pay more tax, what makes you think it would be spent on law enforcement, rather than e.g, increased foreign aid, another round of pay rises for M.P.'s, bolstering public sector pensions etc. etc.?

I dont know that it would ,but what I do know is that lower taxes means less services and political parties,up until very recently,have been voted to power on that promise.
If people in the UK could see that less tax is a mugs game and understand that we really are all in this together from the youngest to the oldest,then they'd vote for more responsible politicians who's interest are in all the people not a certain element of our society,on less taxes we see services decline before our eyes.

Edited for typos and clarity

As I've posted before, the reduction in priority given to traffic policing has been a long and gradual process and took it's first big downward steps in the Thatcher years when policing as a whole was not kept short of money. No matter how we got here, the blunt truth is that there are the personnel to stop cyclists and tell them to wear helmets but not the people needed to enforce this specialist are of the law.