Cycling UK Forum

There are not many women about driving 38 ton container lorries. Living at Kettering, where we are now at the hub of the warehousing industry, we have 1500 a day coming off the A14.
The idea of taking a driver to a Civil Court is rubbish. If the lorry driver's insurance company oppose the case and win, it would involve further financial loss to the victim of his incompetance. Solicitors wont take cases unless they know they are going to gain financially. So the victim has to accept the scrap value of their treasured car.
This situation is only going to get worse, and my thinking is that the CTC acting on behalf of 70,000 members should be working with the Police, -who are concerned about the number of fatalities and accidents caused involving heavy goods lorries.
The people who control our road systems only look at statistics. Not the real reasons for accidents involving lorries. That is why I introduced this thread, and I am not satisfied with the responses, which have achieved precisely nothing.
Building more cycle paths (stop/start at junctions) is not the right answer. Stricter control over the behaviour of lorry drivers when they are working is what is needed in this country.
It might be you in a coffin next time.

Diane Bulley wrote:That is why I introduced this thread, and I am not satisfied with the responses, which have achieved precisely nothing.

I'm sorry we fall short of your expectations...

DB

Please do me the courtesy of reading what I write before rubbishing it. Feel free to ignore it, but if you do, please don't reply to it. The purpose of a forum like this is the exchange of ideas, experience and knowledge. In the meantime, on the subject of stereotypes, I am finding it hard not to form one of you. For a person with a lifetime of experience, you seem to have learned very little.

If what Third Crank writes is not correct, then he must expect to be told it is rubbish. To expect to take part in a forum and not accept this just shows the level of his experience. To start back biting me is also ill mannered. Dont worry, I was a CTC Cllr and am used to it.

To add to my last post, after my car was written off, and I was told its scrap value was £400 less than I had paid for it 6 months previously, I did attempt to pursue a Claim via my membership of the AA against the lorry driver, for that money, and the shock and distress caused to me.

This was passed onto a professional Solicitor, Connexion Partnerships, another con inflicted on traffic accident victims. He was sympathetic to start with, but months later, after many letters to me, he required me to be examined by a psychiatrist (also collecting his fee) to see whether I was suffering from nightmares about the accident. This involved a drive to Northampton, and if I did not attend he would 'close his file' , and I was promised travelling expenses. I did attend, which involved a lot of questions about how I was born (! honest !) and when I said I never have nightmares, I was shown out. The travelling expenses were not paid. Then the Wilson man from Connexion Partnerships, wrote to say that as I was not suffering from nightmares, he was closing his file. His fee for doing all this ? £3,000.

So, dont tell me I am inexperienced my lad.

There is only one job in this country where you can go to work and wreck other people's property and nearly kill them - but not quite - and that is lorry driving.

God help cyclists.

So, dont tell me I am inexperienced my lad.

There is only one job in this country where you can go to work and wreck other people's property and nearly kill them - but not quite - and that is lorry driving.

God help cyclists.

You are not doing whatever point you had in a good light here by posting such an eronious statement. It does you no favours whatsover and rightly or wrongly it makes you come across as someone who is very bitter and twisted.
I do not know you but that is how you are coming across to me and if I am wrong then I apologise.

thirdcrank wrote:DB

Please do me the courtesy of reading what I write before rubbishing it. Feel free to ignore it, but if you do, please don't reply to it. The purpose of a forum like this is the exchange of ideas, experience and knowledge. In the meantime, on the subject of stereotypes, I am finding it hard not to form one of you. For a person with a lifetime of experience, you seem to have learned very little.

"With brass knobs on"

£ 400.00 pounds isn't that bad really. Insurance values of cars are vastly different from purchase values unless it was a new car when in my own experience I got a replacement as my car was less than 12months old when it was written off.Did not your insurance recover the money from the other drivers insurance. Why did you have to have a solicitor pursue a civil claim?

Why did I have to have a solicitor to pursue a Civil Claim ? I was up against the Haulage Company insurers, who had the resources to engage a Q.C. I did not have legal qualifications. The solicitor was appointed by the AA, who paid him. The lorry driver was talking on a hand-held pocket phone, but this breach of Traffic Regulations was ignored. The Police attitude was that I was still alive (just) so it did not matter. I was in the correct position, at the correct speed, traversing a roundabout, and he pushed my car over the offside carriageway into the kerb. If I had been on my bike I wouldnt be here today.

It illustrates the points I have made in this thread, that lorry drivers can make mistakes, destroy valuable property in their working lives, yet do not have basic numeracy or literary qualifications before being accepted for the HGV test.

CTC have done a good job on the new Highway Code, but how does the cyclist fight back when rammed by a lorry driver talking on his hand held pocket phone, when there are no witnesses, and the cyclist is dead ?

Diane Bulley wrote:That is why I introduced this thread, and I am not satisfied with the responses, which have achieved precisely nothing.

Diane - I am sure you have already written several polite letters to the correct people expressing your views - and you have already shown that you have a very low opinion of our intellect, experience or knowledge -
what exactly did you expect to acheive by discussing it here with us ?

What did I hope to achieve ?

Maybe someone with authority would read it !

One can always hope.

Its always the little person who suffers, but this one speaks up !

But you have categorised every LGV driver by the acions of one. You also incorrectly state that said drivers do not have a great intellect which I find very ignorant on your part and also toally untrue. I know many LGV drivers who are very lever people and I myself hold a LGV c+e and PCV de licence. I also hold a motorcycle licence have a fork reach truck permit and a tracked vehicle licence whilst at the same time am a BSc.
Yes I am sorry about what has happened to you but that in itself does not warrant your rants and raves against what you perceive to be the culprits in general.

Well, Ianr - typical male reply ! I suppose the squabbling will start again now !

Just contact the national police records, and ask them the number of fatal accidents that have occurred in this country over the last 5 years, involving collisions with lorries. I know Cambridgeshire Police are very concerned about these figures.

You may not believe it, but it nearly happened to me again today ! Coming from Thrapston towards Twywell, driving at 40 mph I saw a white lorry at the Alledge Turn stop line. The driver looked towards me, and believe it or not, started to emerge onto the main road. I stamped on the brake pedal, no time to do anything else, and almost stopped. He then grinned sheepishly and waved his hand towards me, as if to say he was sorry. What is the matter with them ?

This is not ranting and raving Ianr. If you do not live where these incidents happen, you have no right to comment. Those of us who do have the right to question WHY they happen. The dead cannot ask questions.

Incidentally I was coming home with my bike in the back of my car, from the quiet roads around Thurning.

Is this board moderated? Do we have to read this woman's sexist diatribe any longer. Any reasonable points have long since been lost in xenophobic rhetoric. If a man had written the equivalent he'd quite rightly be dismissed as a misogynystic dinasour. Put a sock in it.

I warned DIane several months ago that if she persisted in posting in her . .. unique style, that others may get upset.

Alas, she has continued.

Most of us a capable of considering & responding to the warnings and critical comments of others within the constraints of an online forum.

Diane. Please give this some thought.

Best WIshes
Graham

Obviously, from the stupid comments posted, including the moderator, it is plain that this Forum is the wrong venue to achieve any support for an improvement in the standard of lorry driving in this country, particularly by drivers coming in from the EU. who have killed many car drivers.

Any police statistical figures would include all accidents involving lorries, so should not include the word 'fatal' when applied for.

In 1990 when I served as a Parish Cllr. the newly appointed County Road Safety Officer gave information to the Press, that there had been 2000 road accidents involving cyclists in Northamptonshire in 1989. I queried this, as I did not know of any cyclists involved in accidents. Then I found out that he had got this figure from hospital A.& E.Depts, and it was children who had been taken in after falling off kiddy bikes on footways, or hitting lamp posts etc. So any Police statistics concerning lorries should include all accidents. And there are hundreds of them.

I wont bother you people any more, but pursue this matter with those who have a better sense of responsibility regarding road safety.

Over and out. from Diane Bulley ( former CTC Cllr)