UKC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-33223823

Another death. Very sad.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Shocking that nothing appears to be being done (at any rate of knots) to resolve this, when there are clear patterns involved.

7/8 London Fatalities this year involve left turning tipper trucks. I believe it's about 90% in the last 3 years

I'm not aware of H&S executive getting involved, but clearly this is a risk associated with building in the capital, and it seems that some of these contractors don't even check their drivers hold a license to drive these trucks.

Most of the injuries/deaths are occurring to Women cyclists (I believe this to be because they are more submissive in traffic and easier to bully/don't stand their ground - my observations/musings so not substantiated)

In reply to balmybaldwin:

there are lots of potential causes and this, like most accidents, is unlikely to be down to a single one.

I think that the design of HGVs is fundamentally flawed - how can it be justified to permit vehicles with such restricted viewing on to the roads? Council refuse collection trucks now have their cabs much closer to the ground and have large areas of glass to reduce the number of blind spots so it can be done, it just needs political will to push something like that design through. Obviously it will take many years before the majority of trucks have that or a similar design but you have to start somewhere.

In reply to balmybaldwin:


A recent edition of the BeSpoke podcast from BBC Five Live was just about women, and it noted how -was even all?- deaths in London this year have been women cyclists. Really awful, and really suggests that something is wrong and something could be done. Of course, I'm not sure what that is, but something...

I've been riding a lot through central Sheffield in recent months and I'm VERY wary of going down the left side of trucks, buses and to some extent cars as well. Even when there is no left turning they can still push you into the gutter without noticing you. People reading their bloody phones while stuck in traffic are terrible for doing this. At least with a car a bang on the window or a shout normally wakes them back up. Won't work with a big truck or bus though.

In reply to Bob:

I'm all for making trucks with better visibility etc, but surely the real answer is to sort the cycling infrastructure to keep bikes separate? My husband and I joined his cousin last weekend for the end of her ride from Aix-en-Provence to London. She is Swedish, and has cycled a lot in Sweden and then all through France, and commented on how awful our cycle provision is. Even the 'Cycle superhighway' that we followed into town was useless, full of bus stops, parked cars and other obstructions. We were constantly having to move out into flow of traffic, hardly a cycle superhighway!

In reply to Bob:
I think with tipper trucks the nature of what they do means they have to have large amounts of ground clearance.

Although I see them running in convoys down the A13, sometimes 10 in a line. I counted 26 of them on the opposite carriageway coming out of London in a fifteen minute journey. None of them were hanging around.

It may just be that there are huge numbers of them.

In reply to girlymonkey:

I doubt our historical urban and city environment could be rebuilt for cyclists.We just do not have the space for it.

No doubt if we were staring from scratch it would be different.

In reply to neilh:

The Dutch seem to have managed it, and Amsterdam and Groningen are hardly new-build.

A more accurate version of your statement is probably "I doubt our historical urban and city environment could be rebuilt for cyclists without inconveniencing car-users a bit. We just do not care enough to do it."

In reply to neilh:



Why not? The streets of London were re-purposed from pedestrian/ horse & cart to cars/ buses/ lorries. There is no reason why they could not be re-purposed again for pedestrians/ cyclists/ google pods etc.

It's just down to what people want.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

Give me a better city which is comparable with London... New York,Bombay etc.. then I will buy into what you say. Amsterdam is not really comparable.And as for the other place, come on, let us get real.

In reply to neilh:

Amsterdam is not that different. It used to be very car focussed.
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicycle-capital-wor...

In reply to girlymonkey:


no, No and NO! Sorry if this is causing offence but separate cycling facilities are rarely if ever the answer.

First of all it leaves it open town planners and road engineers with little or no experience or for that matter real concern to design and implement them. There are countless examples of poor separated cycling facilities which are not up to the job.

Further to this cycling facilities need to correctly maintained and policed (parked cars, skips, etc) which is frankly unrealistic considering the way situation is at present. Also you can be sure in any future scenario where council and government funds are tight the first thing to suffer, as its an easy score, is funding to the upkeep of said facilities.

Finally attitudes to bikes, cyclists and how motorists deal with them will never significantly change with cyclists being kept separate. In facts odds are they will only deteriorate further as the standard response will be "get on the bike track" or "why aren't you using the bike track", etc. even if the cycle lanes are not suitable, practical to cycle on or for that matter even in existence.

It's got to be a case of at a minimum changing the way trucks and their drivers are licensed, how those license are monitored and retrofitting mirrors that increase visibility with regulations changed for future roadstock to be constructed in a manner that massively increases visibility. Also the more the cyclists on the roads the safer it is for all of them as in general motorised will be forced to be more attentive to cyclists if there are more of us about.

It should also be said that public education of cyclists needs to be improved. Specifically the issue of approaching on the inside at junctions should be made a serious point as despite whether or not it feels like it to the timid cyclist (mostly women but not exclusively) being on the outside of the traffic lane or just waiting is almost always safer especially when larger vehicles are involved.

In reply to Frank4short:

+1 to that.

To some extent just because "I can" filter up the inside doesn't necessarily mean "I should": lights turn to red with only cars between me and the stop line then I'll probably filter; Lights already red (for an indeterminate length of time) with a lorry ahead then I'll just hang back. Lots of other permutations obviously.

I'm mindful of the fact that if anyone (including myself) makes a mistake then the chances are: I'm going to come off worst.

In reply to Frank4short:

I agree.

Huge numbers of 40tonne tipper trucks moving around during peak hours is simply wrong.

In reply to girlymonkey:

London has 11/12 million. Amsterdam does not even feature as a major European city in terms of population .You have to combine it with Rotterdam and all those other citys to get anywhere near and even then its still small.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Why, when else do they move round.

When out cycling I see plenty of tipper trucks with warnings for cyclists on them saying do not go down the left hand side.

In reply to neilh:
It's a smaller city, hence it was possible to move all the buildings slightly further apart to fit cycle lanes into their "historic urban and city environment" without taking space away from motor vehicles? Nope, not following your logic.

Meanwhile, smaller UK cities are hardly leading the way either. And even in places where we have new build going up with the freedom to design the street plan as we want, the cycling facilities are often woeful.

The reason we have crap cycling facilities is because we lack the political will, not because we lack the space.

In reply to TobyA:


Pretty obvious why. Women tend to wait submissively behind queuing vehicles, with their feet on the pavement. Not very visible etc. You should never be on the inside of a truck that might turn left - end of.


I never ride up the left side. overtake on the right or up the middle of two lanes of stationary traffic to get ahead at the lights and be away first. takes experience and aggression though and it shouldn't have to come to that for most riders. That's why fewer and fewer people are on bikes.

I don't know what the solution is either. I was riding with the kids in Holland last week and it's pretty obviously a different world. Protected lanes obviously won't work everywhere in the UK (where they do work then great...) but the major difference with the pro-cycling nations is the attitude and incompetence of drivers; plus over-large cars becoming endemic. People also drive more slowly and overtake less aggressively elsewhere.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2015/jun/11/why-cycling-in...

In reply to Ramblin dave:
See previous comments on road engineers/town planners from other poster.

Also why oh why do cyclists continue to wear dark colours. All my sisters ride horses and its drilled into them - -wear hi viz yellow on roads.. I got a " boll...g" from one of my sisters about my cycling tops, listened to what she says and now where yellow all the time.

In reply to neilh:



Unfortunately those magic stickers don't prevent trucks passing cyclists and then turning left.

In reply to Frank4short:

The town planning being poor, is because there is no desire to make it work. There is no reason why it should be badly planned, or why it should be neglected in the case of budget squeezes. If we had better infrastructure, more people would cycle, this would raise the importance of maintaining them. It's all back to a lack of will to make it happen.

As for attitudes to bikes, if bikes were kept separate, then it would not matter what the attitudes were to bikes - they wouldn't be there!!! I'm talking about proper cycle infrastructure, where there would be genuinely no need to use a road. Also, if better facilities existed, more drivers would also be cyclists.

Improve the infrastructure, more people cycle, it becomes safer for everyone and a higher priority for planners and govt.

In reply to Frank4short:


I really don't understand this attitude. Separate cycling facilities work very well in e.g. Denmark and Holland. There is no reason they couldn't work here too (as indeed they do in places, such as canal towpaths quite often). You are simply wrong with the idea that more cyclists will result in better safety - the fundamental problem is that if there is no separation of bicycles and heavy traffic, cyclists will get killed. Mixing these two types of traffic is insane looked at rationally and if it wasn't already commonplace would never be allowed to be introduced.

Do you favour removing pavements and forcing all pedestrians to mix with heavy traffic? And if not, why not separate cyclists too and motorised traffic too?

In reply to neilh:



But the problem I most often see when I'm driving is hgv's overtaking before left turning - the cyclist hasn't cut down the side, the hgv has caused the problem. The underlying issue is that cities are not designed for HGVs of this size - roads are too narrow, turns too tight. And construction projects are not designed with HGV movements in mind, and maybe that is the real problem to solve

In reply to MG:


Unfortunately, cyclists and canal towpaths don't always work very well - you should have a look at the boating forums - lots of problems

In reply to Frank4short:


That's incorrect. There's a team of engineers in TfL tasked with designing cycle infrastructure, most of whom are very much into cycling.

And some highways engineers cycle quite a lot.

In reply to MG:


Apart from when you look at Holland properly you will see its a tad more complicated than that.
It does have a lot of separate facilities in the cities but they also have a very strong policy that even in the shared areas the car comes a distant third behind pedestrians and cyclists. There are lots of speed restrictions and in the countryside roads are routed in such a way to limit the options for cars.

Unless you are going to go all the way then the separate facilities are likely to be disadvantageous. I find your example of canal towpaths curious. They tend to be truly crap for anything other than a summer afternoon casual ride.

In reply to toad:

Well if there are problems they are of a much lesser nature. How many cyclists or boaters are killed as a result? It was only one example anyway.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:

Agreed. It is why personally I am very wary of trucks when they pass me and left turns are coming up.

In reply to girlymonkey:

Perhaps the main problem with providing infrastructure is: where's the money going to come from?

Segregated facilities (let's not mince words here) are fine in some circumstances but not all. There's a bike lane on my commute that I use - it avoids three nasty roundabouts on the edge of Keighley - but for the rest of the road part of my commute there's little need: the only places where cars cannot safely overtake me are those points where it is illegal for them to do so anyway.

In reply to dissonance:
. They tend to be truly crap for anything other than a summer afternoon casual ride.

Well I've used them for part of a cycle commute quite happily for two years, and know of others who do so daily elsewhere and have done for five years. They work well quite often, as I said.

However, the other side of this is that cyclists won't always be able bat along at 20mph+ without ever stopping, of course...

In reply to MG:

London is a much better and safer place to cycle in than it was 20 years ago. This is purely down to the number of cyclists creating a much greater awareness from motorists.

In reply to dissonance:


My direct experience is six months in Denmark and yes it is a little more complex but the basic thinking is that pedestrians, cyclists and cars shouldn't mix. It works well, but does of course require all parties to be sympathetic to the others.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


Nothing to do with cycle infrastructure that does exist in your opinion?

In reply to MG:

I've been commuting in and around London by bike since the eighties and have seen massive increases in cylists and most London drivers are more aware of cyclists than almost anywhere else I've ridden.

Nearly all the recent cyclist deaths in London have involved Tipper trucks. That's the problem that needs addressing.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


I am sure that's the case. It was the "purely" bit I was struggling with. The point, to me, is that mixing motorised traffic and bikes in congested areas is always going to result in accidents. We don't know the details of the one in the OP for example but we can be pretty sure the cyclist didn't want to die and the driver didn't want to kill anyone. However, a combination of human nature and the opportunity for a truck and bike to mix resulted in a death. With separate infrastructure this would happen much, much less. Increasing awareness, training, mirrors etc will only have a much smaller effect.

In reply to MG:

Yet I know plenty of people they dont work for. Both cyclists and pedestrians.

If they are lightly used they might work but for any serious transport link unless they are abnormally wide then they are useless.
Some of the ones in London have run into problems with a large number of users and narrow paths. They aint designed for the job.


Excellent. Thats my bingo sorted. Was waiting for the a "not stopping" variant. Nothing like leading language there along with the "bat"

In reply to dissonance:


Well it's a little difficult to avoid when the cyclist voices are so predicable. It is rather amazing that the response to someone getting killed in traffic while cycling is posts decrying separate infrastructure and quibbling about the width of canal tow-paths when used as an alternative!

In reply to DancingOnRock:

I think that i've noticed tipper trucks being on the whole more cautious of late, but that must just be wishful thinking and not in slightest any comfort for this morning's very sad event.

My current bete noir, though, is scaffolding lorries which seem to have picked up the mantle laid down by tippers. Smaller, quicker, still lethal and seemingly driven (I use the word loosely) by [insert perjorative term of your choice here]

In reply to RyanOsborne:



That is a tiny subset of an entire professional class. Ultimately they're not going to the people signing off on their work. Plus as i said even if the facilities are/were put in place they still need to be regularly maintained and policed.

Back to my original points people can point to facilities in places like the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries but in reality what it comes down to is peoples attitudes to bikes. That is why those facilities work more so than the fact they even exist. Take cycling in France or Italy it's significantly safer than riding in the UK not because there are better facilities (there aren't) but because the populations there are better educated and friendly towards bikes. Based on current attitudes to bikes by a significant problematic minority this will not change or improve where bikes are further removed from the roads.

Also i'd like to point out one of the main reasons people ride bikes in the urban environment is because it's a faster way to get around. Now if you were to take the average UK roundabout and turn it into a Dutch style bicycles super roundabout you're either going to end up in a scenario where you either have a ridiculously expensive capital expenditure ( https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/spectacular-new-floating-cycl... ) that's not necessarily easy to use and is probably a lot slower than staying on the road and will piss off a lot of people for wasteful expenditure of public funds. Failing that in a more realistic separated traffic situation either you're going to end up in a scenario where either cyclists have to give way to traffic to cross each lane (both not necessarily safer and significantly slower) or there's going to be a system of traffic lights on entry and exist of the roundabout for cars which is again going to be a lot slower but would also massively impede the flow of regular vehicular traffic which will just piss off everyone else trying to use the roundabout.

As to the scenario of heavy goods vehicles and cyclists cohabiting on roads well in Dublin for instance HGVs have been banned from the city centre between the hours of 7 and 7 (i think could be slightly different) number of road fatalities associated from HGVs (cyclists & pedestrians) fell by a massive amount (something huge like 80%) over the course of the first year and then stayed at more or less the same reduced level. It's not impossible to think with the system as is (congestion charge) that London could implement something similar and in instances where certain classes of vehicle require this access during normal working hours, like construction vehicles, that they are heavily regulated e.g. mirrors for blind spots, driver certification, etc to manage this.

Again ultimately its been proven that the more cyclists there are on the roads the safer it is for everyone in numerous places around the world. Any scenario where cyclists are en masse further removed from traffic is likely to make it more dangerous not less as in all likelihood it will only account for a minority of cyclists yet give certain types of drivers carte blanche to feel they don't have to pay attention to cyclists. Plus in the long run public education and change of attitudes is a lot cheaper than capital expenditure.

In reply to MG:

Far Far Far more people are killed in cars by trucks crashing into them. Should we segregate cars and lorries?

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


Yup. Perhaps they should allow H&S to look at the risk the trucks pose off site as well as on site.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


Seriously ? I cycled 150 miles from Sheffield to Hitchin on Friday and Saturday and almost every car that passed me did so with good width. On the 5 miles from Barnet to Mill Hill just about the only one to do so was a learner. Bigger cars and being driven aggressively.


Could the boom in cellar expansions have something to do with this ? Or Crossrail ? Certainly seems higher standards are required.

There was recently a case where a driver without a licence and a catalogue of driving offenses went through a red light and killed a cyclist (merely careless, not dangerous, according to the CPS). He got a short jail term, but I don't think his employers faced any action for their negligence and culpability.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:

I doubt that's true in built up areas but reducing such deaths is obviously desirable too, although segregation probably isn't a solution.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Good ride. Yes seriously , the awareness in general from most drivers in London is good.

In reply to MG:


What is predictable is people start yapping about separate infrastructure which is just thinly disguised shit about getting cyclists off the roads.
Stating a towpath generally are too narrow for any heavy usage isnt quibbling. Its a statement of fact. They were designed for a specific job. Throwing a whole bunch of commuters onto it would piss off the previous users and increase risk all round.

That people come out with this sort of stuff is why many people treat separation with suspicion.
How about we deal with the actual problem?
That most deaths are caused by construction traffic and look at why they do that. A starting point would be to ban them during rush hour.

By the way, take it you are in favour of strict liability?

In reply to dissonance:


Have you ever.lived anywhere with largely separate cycle infrastructure? It does work well. And they have many more cyclists - its nothing to do with getting rid of them. Drop the paranoia.

Re. Strict liability. Stupid as generally understood and advocated here. Reasonable in eg Holland.

In reply to dissonance:


That's the job of the police.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

http://road.cc/content/news/154913-nearly-3-4-lorries-stopped-police-london...

In reply to MG:


How about you still claiming that canal towpaths would count as useful separate infrastructure then?
Whilst I aint lived anywhere with separate infrastructure have been to them often enough and it doesnt take more than a few minutes to notice that the separate infrastructure is only part of the setup.


Ermm, every suggestion I have seen matches the general European model.

In reply to dissonance:


Because I have firsthand experience to the contrary, as I explained!


Err, yep




Well I generally hear people arguing for criminal liability. Even the civil.version in Holland is not quite as suggested here I understand.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Yes. In my opinion this should be down to (and may well be in law) the main contractor.

I worked in construction many years ago so suspect it may have changed, but the ground works people were chosen on how cheaply they could do the job. Digging and shifting earth isn't very skilled. Then the last 100-200mm of groundworks were contracted out to a more expensive groundworks company.

In reply to dissonance:

Disagree. It's not the whole answer, but segregated infrastructure has a very valuable place - if it's high quality and gets you efficiently from A to B avoiding unpleasantly busy roads and junctions then it's a joy to use and makes cycling much more attractive, which in turn encourages much more cycling, which in turn normalizes cycling, makes drivers more aware, reduces the perceived need for hi-vis jackets and helmets and so on.

There are also plenty of places where cyclists mixing with motor vehicles makes sense, but those places are going to be a lot nicer to ride through if they're more full of cyclists who haven't been scared off by the grim death-trap they'd have had to ride through to get there.

Segregated infrastructure only becomes problematic when, as is very often the case in the UK, it's a shitty potholed shared-use pavement that was scribbled into the road plans at the last minute to tick a planning box. We end up with a lot of this because the good sort often requires space (so that cyclists can overtake each other, for instance) and construction effort beyond splashing a bit of paint around, and hence that safe cycling is considered worth spending money or even (gasp) sacrificing total motor-vehicle throughput for.

In reply to MG:


On a heavily used bit of path?
If its not too much of a give away for location etc lets see the path in question and a rough usage rates.
For countering I give you the problems on regents canal. Or the path from Ware to Hertford. Ok on a quiet day but if you started having several hundred people commuting on it during rush hour it would be tears before bedtime.


So why keep talking about separation rather than the other measures?
To give another reason why people are wary about separation you can look at that video a few weeks back of the cafe owner. Seemed close on a nervous breakdown since a cyclist was daring to use the road rather than a completely unsuitable cycle path. No one I know has any faith in any infrastructure being done well.


All the serious suggestion I have heard matches it. Some people might suggest more extreme but seems to be a minority.

In reply to dissonance:



I don't think anyone's suggestion that towpaths are the be-all and end-all of segregated cycling facilities. If nothing else, we wouldn't be able to get anywhere that doesn't have a river or a canal going there. In practice, some towpaths are going to be wide enough and/or quiet enough to be useful, and others aren't. Similarly, I'm normally dead against shared use paths being passed off as cycle facilities, but even they can have their place if you're somewhere in the middle of nowhere where you really aren't expecting more than the occasional pedestrian. Elsewhere, you need something better.

The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway cycle path is a good example of a successful segregated facility that does get heavy use:
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/08/best-cycle-path-in-britain.htm...
As the blog says, if offers "a combination of a direct route to somewhere that you might actually want to go with a good degree of safety away from cars, with a width such that it's possible to pass other cyclists, and with a surface quality that allows cyclists to ride at any speed they find comfortable." As a result it's popular with everyone from commuters to roadies and makes it a lot more attractive to cycle into Cambridge from a reasonable number of places.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:

Since moving back to the UK I've ridden a couple of thousand kms in Sheffield, the Peak and rural Worcestershire/Shropshire. I've been pretty impressed with the respect from drivers to cyclists everywhere, except perhaps on my commutes through Sheffield centre. In the morning there, most folk are OK but there are some looking at their phones and paying me just as little attention as they are all other road and pavement users!

I don't see any great need for massive changes in infrastructure. On the whole the roads work quite well. Pedestrians still manage to get themselves run over despite having their own pavement.

The main issue is as always how the shared areas are shared. If one particular group of users are not sharing it properly then more education is required.

In general with drivers, they've had their education, read a book and been tested on it. So the current attitude is they 'know the rules'.

There's a real identified problem with these trucks.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

And now this:
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40013&t=13031243

In reply to felt:

Lets get this right.
Cyclists welcome the fact that motor vehicles will be barred from Regents Park at peak times, but don't want speed bumps and a 20mph speed limit introduced because they want to go fast?

In reply to FactorXXX:

They don't do themselves any favours do they?

In reply to FactorXXX:

Yes, it would be a win–lose solution, with a greater emphasis on the lose IMO.

In reply to felt:

Keen sports-people in "not wanting to lose training facility" shock. Transport planning community in turmoil.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Last week an HGV decided to stop next to me leaving me in his blind spot. I was stopping behind a line of cars at a red, did not wish to go up the inside/outside as it was a narrow road ahead and I would have held them up or risked being pushed into the grass verge. The HGV obviously was not happy that I would have been ahead of him and hold him up so tried to nose ahead when waiting for the green light. He left me stopped just behind his cab with what I though little option but to get ahead into his visible zone when the light went to green - he may have forgotten I was there and squashed me when it narrowed, or with the rear of his vehicle if he just moved left right away. To remain stopped would also have meant following vehicles including other HGVs would have had to negotiate around me and probably upset them for stopping in such a stupid place near lights and a road narrowing.

Certainly he was not happy as he keep revving his engine just inches from my rear wheel, and I saw numerous vehicle oncoming deliberately "swerving" further over the road to try and make room for him as he straddled the white line. Turned out he was only going less than one mile further up the road! Not sure just education would help with drivers like that.

In reply to Climbing Pieman:

Education comes in many forms.

In reply to DancingOnRock:


'They' ?

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


The people signing the petition.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Petition? I just saw a facebook group.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Here's and idea, two ideas in fact.

1. Never go up the inside of a tipper truck on your bike.

2. If a tipper truck overtakes you, slow down to a speed where you know you can stop in time if it takes a sudden turn across your path.

FFS it's simple. Think - what are you riding to? What is at your destination that is so important that you need to get close to a tipper truck to get there?

Boggy

In reply to DancingOnRock:
Lots of pro Holland cycling comments on here. Worth pointing out that Hollands road death rate is higher than UK's and that Uk roads are some of the safest in the world. Doesn't make a scrap of difference though to the poor soul who was the subject of your original post. A dreadful tragedy nonetheless.

In reply to neilh: and Holland has higher death rate on their roads than UK.

In reply to Climbing Pieman:
Round where I cycle there is a Stobart depot .they always leave you plenty of room, must be their training.

In reply to dissonance:


Nottingham and Edinburgh.


There can be problems with congestion and conflicts over use, certainly, it's not perfect. However, I am not aware of deaths occurring on a regular basis so better than roads, which also aren't designed for bikes, largely.


Because I was replying initially to post arguing they were a bad thing.



Perhaps a bit of a fool. Equally cyclists, as above, don't do themselves much good by arguing they need race tracks in parks in central London. As I have said repeatedly, it needs accommodation and compromise, not the immediate them and us attitude that is typical.

In reply to neilh:
Having watched a documentary on Stobart, then I would think it is part of their training. Their fleet always seem to be driven well when I see one.

I must say overall drivers around me appear to be much better now with cyclists than they used to be. Still get the occasional one that could be better.

In reply to neilh:



http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/notenoughspace

Clearly not the case, as per the link above. Plenty of historic urban areas/cities in the Netherlands rebuilt the road infrastructure to separate and protect cyclists. It can be done and there are plenty of examples how, even in confined spaces.

Political will and public attitude to change is the real issue, there are some signs that is changing in London, but UK wide and in our other big cities we have a long way to go. We'll never have mass adoption of cycling as an alternative means of urban transport unless we sort the infrastructure. The nation with the highest model share in the world did it by sorting the infrastructure.

The UK has spent the last 30-40 years and millions of pounds trying to educate drivers and cyclist to 'play nicely', while essentially ignoring the infrastructure issue. Until we address that we'll never increase cycling model share.

In reply to MG:


I like the way that you lump "cyclists" together as a single group who "don't do themselves much good", and then decry the "us" and "them" attitude!

Roadies are recreational park users like dog walkers, five-a-side football players, picnickers and everyone else. As such it's reasonable for them to suggest sensible alternatives to something that's going to bugger up their use of the park. This is precisely accommodation and compromise.

In reply to Phil79:

On the news last night they mentioned that Bank was one of the 26 locations earmarked for £4bn spend on layout improvement.

In reply to Phil79:


comparing road safety UK and the Netherlands is pointless, or literally fighting over percentage points, 3.5 or 3.9 deaths per 100,000.... it's a margin of error that could be accounted for by many other things, impacts with wildlife, speed limits, drink drive thresholds, use of mobile phone laws. etc. Even cultural where the lifestyle or pace of life is much slower, so car drivers don't feel the need to race from place to place, or truckers aren't constantly feeling the boss is hounding them to do one more run per day. The state of a nation's cycle paths could be irrelevant in many cases.

In reply to Frank4short:


The only country in the world to achieve a significant cycling model share and true mass cycling culture did it by sorting out the infrastructure, and by properly redesigning streets and urban environments to accommodate cyclist and protect them from motor vehicles. The UK has trying the other approach (i.e. educate drivers and build half arsed disjoined cycle paths etc) for the last 40 years, the results speak for themselves.


Yes there are countless examples of shit infrastructure. There would need to be a comprehensive re-think of available design guidance, training etc to allow engineers to design and built things properly. Large and long term investment needed, which seems unlikely to happen in the current political environment.


Again, suitable legislation and funding need to ensure new cycle facilities are built and maintained correctly. If you do it properly, it will save the economy money in the long run. If you do it badly (as we do at the moment) it will waste money for little effect.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/tooexpensive


Its been demonstrated Dutch behaviour of cyclist and drivers isn't much different to the UK. Its just the infrastructure doesn't allow them to kill one another when they make mistakes, and doesn't bring them into conflict with one another all the time.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/sustainable%20safety


All good points.


Yes education needs to be improved, but humans aren't perfect, and both cyclist and drivers both make mistakes, and get angry/tired/distracted etc. Until we design the infrastructure to eliminate conflict and protect people, then unfortunately cyclist deaths like the one discussed here will continue to be common.

In reply to DancingOnRock:


There's a lot wrong with driver behaviour. I cycled 20 miles into London this morning, most of it on quiet backstreets, but met most traffic in Richmond Park, where the 20 mph speed limit seems to translate to 'only give a cyclist a foot of space'. So much for a nice ride though the park in the early morning.

Other than that, fine today, with the inevitable exception of the sodding scaffolders.

In reply to blackmountainbiker:


No its not.

The UK death rate for cyclist per km cycled is over twice as high as in the Netherlands. 2010 figure for the UK were 22 deaths per billion kilometres in the UK, compared with 9 deaths per billion km in the Netherlands in 2009.

The overall numbers are no doubt higher in the Netherlands', due to how many more cyclist there are and significantly greater total km covered.

http://drawingrings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/no-cycling-is-not-safer-in-brita...

In reply to summo:


Why is it pointless? There is a significant and demonstrable difference between death rates in the UK and Netherlands per km cycled (see my post above). Death rate in the UK is over twice that in the Netherlands, which clearly isn't a margin of error.

I'd say its an important point to argue (that infrastructure leads to safer outcomes for cyclist, while allowing massive increase in model share).

In reply to Phil79:

The other point here is about perceived versus actual safety. There's an oft-quoted statistic that, even with the UK's dangerous roads, occasionally erratic cycling, and lack of driver awareness, the health benefits of riding a bike outweigh the risk of death or serious injury from being in an accident. Good - as in, genuinely good - cycling infrastructure doesn't just make cycling statistically safer, it also massively improves the perception of how safe it is, which is a key step towards increasing modal share and hence improving public health, reducing congestion, reducing road fatalities, making cities nice places to live etc.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

Well, I've said it before and been knocked down on it but I think the simplest change is to reduce speeds to 20mph.

At least if in Richmond park you get hit by a car travelling too close it shouldn't kill you.

Drivers will pass closer at lower speeds, it's all about perception.

In reply to MG:


Just to clarify, the "race track" (aka the Outer Circle) isn't actually in the park. It's a fairly lighly used road (usually completely empty at 6am, for example) that runs around it. Quite a unique resource in the centre of an alpha city and probably worth keeping sans speed bumps and a 20mph limit.

In reply to Climbing Pieman:



I've had varying experiences of HGVs in Leeds. One I was cycling towards started to pull out (I was on the main road, had right of way), spotted me and slammed his brakes on. I was about to raise my hand to thank him as I cycled past but he'd already lowered his window and was shouting abuse at me to "Hurry up", with lots and lots of colourful language thrown in. I was doing about 20mph at the time in a 30mph zone, so not horrendously slow.

Then I had another experience, I was pulling up to the lights nearby to my work where I have to get in to the right hand of three lanes. This is usually the most problematic part of the journey as it tends to be fairly busy. I indicated to pull out and a truck was behind me, he flashed for me to go ahead and I managed to get in to the lane. The lights turned red so we all had to stop. At the lights I heard the window of the truck next to me (now in the second lane) roll down, usually when this happens I get some abuse for slowing people down so they couldn't get through the lights in time.

Turns out the HGV driver just fancied a chat. He was asking me how cycling was in the city, if I'd come far, how long it took compared to driving. Thoroughly pleasant guy.

Buses tend to be the same, some come flying by giving next to no room, I've had other bus drivers who have waved me passed/let me out.

Is there a solid technical reason why trucks, especially trucks in congested urban spaces can't be fitted with closed rear wheels and low smooth sides to prevent pedestrians and cyclists being so easily snagged and drawn under them? There must be a way of incentivising an improvement even if it's not mandated. It also seems to me that fairly cheap electronic technology akin to parking sensors could easily be retroffitted to warn drivers there's a pedestrian, cyclist or even just street furniture at risk. If it worked and actually cut down on damage, injuries and deaths it'd surely be something insurance companies could incentivise.

Many of the more modern aerodynamically enhanced trailers are a lot better with closed sides almost down to the tarmac and some even with closed wheels. I seem to remember low side and rear bumper bars being mandated back in the 80's to reduce the then high number of car-under-trailer fatalities, IIRC those had to be retrofitted as well as being mandatory on new trailers?

Modern cars are designed with pedestrian safety in mind from the initial concept onward with the front end and even the underbonnet design being quite tightly regulated yet we're still building curtain liner trucks with high cabs, blind spots and rows of (often flailing) cyclist hooks down each side and open wheels. Madness.

jk

In reply to jkarran:

Yes. The tipper truck have to go off road.

Although some kind of removable cover shouldn't be too hard to come up with.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

I can see closed wheels on off road vehicles would be a pain for cleaning but with sprung mounts or soft lower edges I can't see why they couldn't be made to work except for the cost. Even just a low side-bumper ahead of the rear wheels that could be swung up for ground clearance when required would make it a lot harder to get sucked under.

jk

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Tipper trucks carrying quarry loads are driven frighteningly fast in the Yorkshire Dales, I guess it's a combination of good handling afforded by the multiple wheels and stiff springs, short repetitive trips and familiarity with the road, high driving position with good forward vision, payment by load and possibly a different calibre of driver to the one you might find on a trans-continental articulated truck doing multi-day trips. Tipper trucks are required to go off road so they need good ground clearance.

London is almost unique in that it is receiving massive investment in private and public projects and huge amounts of materials are needing to be moved around. In addtion London uses a medieval street network with no possibility of any roads being widened or straightened. Consequently HGVs are utilising the full width of the carriageway and anything that finds itself on the same carriageway will get squashed.

Add in a few inexperienced cyclists who creep timidly up the side of a truck unseen by the driver, not moving assertively in front of the truck and you have today's problem.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

It's not always inexperienced cyclists 'creeping timidly' up the inside of trucks.

Akis Kollaros who was killed in an incident with a tipper truck this year was a hugely experienced club cyclist and racer.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

There was talk of forcing new lorries sold after 2020 to be of a new design

The change was proposed by the EU, but I never heard if Westminster decided to adopt the new regulations or not; does anyone know either way?

The new design would make all lorries more like bin lorries - with a low cab with lots of glass. It would mean that construction companies would have to put their prices up I guess - it would mean that excavated material would have to multiple handled, rather than just loaded onto a tipper with off-raod capability.

In reply to blurty:

Yes. I think someone posted this further upthread.

http://road.cc/content/news/142312-london-ban-hgvs-without-cyclist-safety-e...

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


Maybe lower the speed limit of the one that can cause more damage.

In reply to blurty:



It got passed by the EU. Now the truck manufacturers are fighting to delay and delay and delay (2019, then 2020, then 2022)....

In reply to petellis:

The manufacturers can delay all they like. TFL will be enforcing it from September.

In reply to MG:


Which canals specifically and do you have any idea of the usage rates?
That way can see if they are suitable as a proper connection as opposed to a casual one. Remember the suggested minimum for a shared use path is 3m and thats not counting the buffer zone (assuming you want one for the canal). if its likely to have any serious two way usage then that goes up.


Neither are canal towpaths. So how about we just make roads suitable instead. Remember originally the usage for roads was far closer to a modern cycle usage. That they have been pushed towards cars doesnt mean that should be the way it is. Or, to take the majority of London fatalities recently that they are being used for vehicles way beyond the size the streets were meant for.


and it is in isolation and in the British model. Since the only suggestions seem to be in isolation and bodged in however, eg towpaths, people will remain skeptical.


no,no, no. Some cyclists want an area for fairly fast usage. Not a race track and apparently not in the actual park. That is not all cyclists and not a race track.
For example personally i aint exactly fussed although I can see the logic in retaining a suitable area and penning the roadies in there, possibly with some tigers to help them train.


Yet you demonstrate it perfectly with your bogey man of "cyclists" rather than a "rather small subset of cyclists".
Its also rather difficult to spot where you see this compromise coming from since it seems rather one sided. I must have been missing your suggested compromises from the drivers viewpoint as opposed to get the cyclists out of the way. There are some rather obvious ones if you want to reduce London fatalities without even bothering the average car user.

In reply to DancingOnRock:


They are only enforcing a limited variant though. As opposed to what was being suggested at an EU level which would have ended up with the lorries being a lot closer to a modern bin lorry in design.

In reply to dissonance:


Not to mention it would extend to the whole of the uk

In reply to DancingOnRock: this is worth a read.

https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/us-not-them/

Cheers

Toby

In reply to dissonance:
It's like talking to a brick wall! I have no bogyman of cyclists. I want to cycle, I want more cyclists in general, I want cycling to be safe. The way to do this in my.view is to separate cyclists and motor vehicles. Drivers need to accept less road space in built up areas, cyclists that they have to slow down a bit sometimes and do things like stop at red lights and not use roads for racing. Arguing as some did above that this is the wrong approach is madness in my view. It's saying you would rather people die than have than have dedicated cycle infrastructure for some wierd ideological purity about the right of cyclists to use roads.

Canals were just an example where I know from first hand experience this is possible. Obviously above a certain level of use more width will be needed, as anywhere. I have no idea if the hsage on the routes I used.

In reply to MG:

The reason you feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall is that most of your posts, whilst containing some good points, generally also include some rubbish such as 'stop at red lights and don't race' which is typical anti cycling rhetoric and applies to a very small percentage of people who ride bikes.

In reply to MG:

Apart from being something that you've got a random bee in your bonnet about, what has open-road racing got to do with any of this?

In reply to Ramblin dave:

See above about Regent's park.

In reply to MG:


One tiny case in one city.

In reply to MG:

really? You come across badly then.


Ok, soooo. What happens in those spots where you cant separate them?
I dont think anyone, however hopeful, can dream of a case where contact isnt needed. I have a pretty much ideal commute now (well its to short but apart from that) with five miles mostly offroad. However still have a 500m or so onroad with some shitty junctions.


Sorry not sure what you mean here. Are you meaning entirely separate areas? How do you see that working?


and this is where you go into anticycle mode.
Slow down a bit? What does this mean. When I use a bike to commute its because its more efficient,quicker and more fun than sitting in a traffic jam (on my old commute about 50% of the time). if i need to stick to shared paths and the subsequent speeds then I will just join the people sitting in single occupancy cars jamming up the road network.
As for stop at red lights. This is standard anti cyclist shite. Yes some cyclists jump red lights but so do some drivers, even when limited by the nature of the traffic. I dont froth about all car drivers just because some morons have "stanced" cars so why talk about all cyclists?
As for racing what do you mean by this? People out doing a time trial or those out for a fast ride in a group? Cant say either appeal to me but they have as much right as single or double occupant cars jamming up the roads stopping me driving about on my important business (which is far more so than anyone else).


Lucky no one is f*cking saying that then.
What people are saying, in increasingly pissed off terms, is that you are answering the wrong question. Lets take people being killed in London. The overwhelming number are by lorries, particularly tipper trucks, turning left. Now if you bother to read any of the UK documentation about cycle ways or bother looking at them you will see they dont deal with this very well. A proper setup would but then the dedicated paths are only part of it.
Personally I would keep it cheap for the taxpayer though and keep those vehicles out of the way during peak usage, plus look at increasing safety on them. Has the bonus of being better for car drivers etc as well.
As an easy comparison look at bin lorries. They have had massive changes since they posed a serious H&S threat to their own staff.


and they are ones which have given serious problems in London which is the subject of the conversation.
They dont scale well.

In reply to Phil79:


Really? It's passed me by if they have, so it's obviously not been effective.

Infrastructure and room? Well, when downgrading an a-road into a b-road ten years ago, my local council completely missed the opportunity to use the redundant space to make a decent cycle facility, and simply narrowed the road. They put in 'traffic calming' islands with gaps less than 2.4m wide, without cycle bypasses, contrary to contemporary DETR guidelines. They ignored my feedback, so I wrote to the contractor, who said they agreed with everything I said, and that they had independenty advised the council to do what I had suggested, but they too had been ignored. It seems the traffic planning department thought they knew better. But then they were the ones who wanted to make the ring road one-way. Fortunately, they finally got slapped down on that utter folly.

The narrowed road is probably the most dangerous bit of my daily journey... Not only that, but the 'punitive' traffic controls they installed to try to force people onto the new bypass just mean that people use my road as a rat run, since it runs in parallel, and has no traffic controls. So now we have a-road traffic on a narrow, residential street with a number of schools on its length, and, as it was not built for the traffic volume, it is constantly breaking up, whereas the former a-road, designed and built to handle the volume of traffic, cannot be used.

In short, traffic planners are, IME, clueless morons.

In reply to captain paranoia:


Please excuse this minor hijack...but can anyone explain this to me.
My road in Manc, at bottom end near the main road is a Primary school.
Now, 'they' have introduced 20mph speed limit on virtually all the local side roads, except the stretch outside the school, which is still 30................WTF!!!

In reply to MG:


A case that you seem to be wilfully misrepresenting.

In reply to Lusk:

Good money saving by the council there's no need for 20 signs as the road will be constantly clogged by mummys in 4x4s

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Ah I see, now you've explained it, thanks!

In reply to Lusk:




It probably has something to do with the type of road and the law. Residential areas can be made into 20mph zones very easily and with only a small amount of consultation with the residents.

Main roads are treated differently.

In reply to captain paranoia:
Which road are you talking about that got downgraded?

Totally agree about the lunacy of making the IDR one way. IMO they've made some ridiculous decisions in a number of places about traffic routing that don't seem make any sense at all - case in point being the decision that you can no longer go straight on from the town centre past the Great Expectation pub and now have to turn left at the casino and get buried in traffic!

A329 Reading Road is currently being resurfaced and marked cycle lanes installed either side. This is great for when I'm cycling, apart from the various stretches where the lane vanishes due to pedestrian islands and a couple of other obstacles remaining. However, IMO, they've made the lanes a bit too wide and the cars are much closer together, meaning it's now a lot harder to filter up the outside if I'm on the motorbike, so it's win some, lose some for me! Still no clue as to whether the shared pavements on both sides are going to be reverted to pedestrian only once all the road work is finished.

Edit: I also find, in the morning traffic, that I can easily get stuck behind other cyclists tootling along in the lane if I don't plan well enough ahead to overtake before the wall of cars stop me. This often means I find myself having to go up the outside of the cars in a couple of places - see note about them now being closer together, so the lanes are well intentioned and work for most people most of the time, but aren't necessarily the answer.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

TfL safer lorries schem is add-ons to current design (mirrors, sensors) and doesn't really solve the underlying visibility problem.

Euro truck re-design intends to more fully re-design with lower glass level and different driver position to try to eliminate the front/side blind spot problems. It hopes to make the trucks safer and more aerodynamic/efficient.

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-328_en.htm

I'm not sure why the manufacturers are fighting it so hard since I'm sure you can just pop a re-designed suspended cab on the top of existing chassis to achieve it and if the predicted fuel savings are real then they should be fighting to be first in.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

So the discussion is going round in circles whithin our existing parameters.
So, if we were to start from scratch, the UK is going to be flattened and rebuilt with the perfect transport infrastructure that would keep all road users, pedestrians, bikes etc safe, what would it look like? You are going to design the ideal road design and the town will be built around that.

In reply to petellis:


I hate it when our marketing people say stuff like this. Its usually shorthand for totally underestimating the effort needed to do a job properly and then go through all the regulatory testing etc etc etc.

In reply to girlymonkey:


Milton Keynes probably. On that basis I am quite happy with the status quo!

In reply to GrahamD:


It's the real world analogue of this piece of sound climbing advice:
http://betamonkeys.co.uk/the-laws-of-bouldering-1/

In reply to ByEek:

Wasn't mk designed primarily to take account of increasing car usage? Mind you it's pretty good for bikes too from what I've seen.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

A low truck cab might be great in the city, but it will be huge disadvantage on rural roads, where truck drivers enjoy a much longer view ahead of hazards.

In reply to summo:

Equip them all with Larry's periscope.

In reply to summo:


Easy - put it on telescopic legs

In reply to LastBoyScout:


Basingstoke Road, formerly A33, until the bypass was built on the old goods branch line.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Bus, lorry and cycle lane one and the same thing in exeter, good idea?

In reply to summo:


I see what you mean with this, but generally the rural roads aren't where the accidents are happening. Also, refuse collection vehicles and buses seem to manage ok with rural roads, despite the lower view point.

I think a more radical solution to getting goods into cities (probably more suitable to deal with air quality issues than just road safety issues) would be to have consolidation centres on the outskirts, with electric delivery vehicles running goods into the city centre. Would also avoid the need for half empty HGVs to go into Central London. Trickier to do with construction goods obviously, but not impossible.

In reply to RyanOsborne:

Deliveries are already restricted to certain times and the construction traffic is supposed to stick to designated routes.

In reply to captain paranoia:


That's what I thought, as no other bypass around, but I wasn't aware the old A33 had been narrowed, although it's not a road I use a lot and rarely cycle down. The traffic light system is, indeed, a pain in the proverbial along it, but the most irritating part is the forced left turn into Rose Kiln Lane, meaning anyone wanting to head North just does a U-turn in Hyperion Way or the roundabout, which is a waste of time and fuel.

And don't get me started on the new cycle/pedestrian lane along Lower Earley Way...

In reply to balmybaldwin:


Yes it was. But also at its heart were broad avenues with separated walkways which could also double as cycleways. Either way, it is a bit of a grim place. Nowhere has much of sense of belonging. I remember the first time I went, I followed signs for the centre and drove right past the centre without even knowing.