Another fatality in London

[RickH]

More to the point...what has contributed to cause this cluster of London cycling fatalities (14 YTD of which 6 in the past week and a half).

I don't know if anything in particular has contributed to it. If there is anything, I would guess it is just more people riding (good weather in the summer compared to the previous couple of years probably helped get people out) & increased construction (suggested in the Guardian video link Si posted in this post) leading to more traffic servicing it.

Although any deaths are too many, statistically they are a very small number compared to the amount of cycling. Assuming that, in the overall picture, they are more-or-less random (at least in timing) then it is quite likely that you will get some periods of low incidence & others of higher incidence. I would like as much as anyone to see a lower figure (I'd be particularly happy with zero), but the figure for the whole year may well end up similar to last year.

Maybe we should ban left turns by lorries! I remember cycling through Paris on touring bikes in the 70s & figuring it was too dangerous to turn left (in our case turning across the traffic) so we would ride a block further on & then go right round the block, turning right 3 times.

Rick.

[Mark1978]

Which, to me, underlines that need to keep bicycles seperate from lorries at all times.

The simple answer is to get the lorries off the roads. That would separate the two nicely & would inconvenience the smallest percentage of traffic (5% I've seen quoted for HGVs, compared to 60%+ at times for cyclists).

Rick.

Sure. One way or another the two need separating. If that means a lorry ban then good.

[Mark1978]

PS is it not the case that lorries are already banned from London overnight? Presumably for noise reasons.

[TonyR]

In the short term you cannot just ban lorries as some are presumably performing a valuable function. How about a daytime ban?

Why not? Paris and Dublin have. And people still seem to manage to survive there without whatever those valuable functions are. And Paris as a result has a much lower cyclist death rate - like zero for some years.

[bigjim]

Im a HGV driver when I bother to do any these days. The wages, hours and bureaucracy are awful.
However that truck, to my eye, has cut that corner far too close. The rear wheel is on the pavement. There is a possibility the cyclist was first to that corner and the truck just turned.
A probability that he checked his offside mirror, could not pull out to the right to line up for the turn but just swung it in. Too focused on the traffic to his right or satnav, or both.

[Adam S]

On another thread which discusses the lorry issue in a lot of detail, forum member Hexhome made an informative post which suggested a Paris/Dublin style ban is not the easy or complete solution it has been made out to be: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=81302&p=722674&hilit=paris+dublin#p722718

[rabmania]

Jeez, the comments! Made me feel ill- these folk have no decency.

[Mark1978]

In all these debates it's assume that the cyclist and the lorry will first be queuing at a red light. Whereas it's entirely possible that both the lorry and the cyclist had a green light, the lorry overtook the cyclist and then left hooked him. So it's not as easy as just saying "don't go down the left of HGVs"

[meic]

That is also probably common when the cyclist is already at the junction before the HGV arrives but they have kept to the left so as not to inconvenience motorists. Or the one case where they were apparently in front of the HGV and driven over from behind.

[AndyBSG]

That is also probably common when the cyclist is already at the junction before the HGV arrives but they have kept to the left so as not to inconvenience motorists. Or the one case where they were apparently in front of the HGV and driven over from behind.

Whenever i'm at the front of a junction I always make sure I plant myself very firmly and obviously in the middle of the road so no one can overtake or left hook me until I move back to secondary once across the junction... Nice to know that at least one of the deaths this fortnight was caused by a lorry driving over the top of someone doing exactly that.

[meic]

Yes, you can not prepare against every eventuality. I too would have been in front of that HGV and been crushed when the lights went green.

Though of course, some riders are a bit cleverer and more experienced than me and would have saved their life by jumping the red light or cycling on the pavement.

There is an element of luck needed out there.

[bigjim]

In one report I read, it was stated that, the cyclist was not wearing a helmet.
The fact that the truck had completely run over the cyclist and the bike was embedded in the middle of the truck seemed to completely escape them.

[meic]

I do admit that it is one of the facts which I would like to be informed about and that is the journalists' job.

I think that apart from internet trolls most people have grasped the total irrelevance of helmets in the outcomes in these particular crashes. The information is of interest to prevent people raising helmets as a displacement activity instead of addressing the real problem.

In this cluster of deaths, it is quite apparent that helmets (even motorcycle quality helmets) are NOT the answer.

[bigjim]

Yes but....
The lack of a helmet was recently used in mitigation in a Scottish court. Even though it had no relevence to the drivers carelessness.
I personally don't need to know that a person was helmetless when they have been run over by a twenty ton truck. What is the point. The info does not add anything.?

[meic]

If all the cyclists were wearing helmets, then they can no longer be used as an excuse, or to divert blame onto the cyclists. It isnt about road safety but about road politics.

The fact these were HGV accidents makes it blatantly obvious (may be even to Angela Lee) that helmets are irrelevant to the outcomes here. So it can not be used as something "to be seen to be doing something" though the MET safety group have half-heartedly tried to do so. I hope they were told quite forcefully how much good a helmet would have been in these crashes!

There is and was a powerful belief going around that fitting a helmet makes you safe, if all of these cyclists were known to have been wearing helmets, it should get helmets off the agenda for a (short) while.