UKC

The cyclist who nearly killed himself whines: "Everybody does it... it's London...."

So that makes it okay then. No surprise so many die under truck wheels with this level of idiocy.

youtube.com/watch?v=GHvIhC4rcXA&

In reply to Rigid Raider:

A good case for an advance stop line

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Bloody lucky to get away with that.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

As my mum used to say to me when I was defending my actions saying "everyone does it", if everyone else put their hands in a fire would you?

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Cyclists' fault, the only way to get away with that safely (if not legally) is to get to the front and be able to sprint to out accelerate the lorry when the lights change. The lorry driver was in an impossible position. He may well have seen the cyclists at the front (those who did accelerate away) but those who lagged behind, including the one who got hit would have been in the blind spot. The Lorry had nowhere to go; busy traffic and narrow lanes so not possible to move right due to traffic in next lane, or stop quickly.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

So much aggression, so little common sense. It seems that "everybody in London" rides on the pavement too......

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Having watched that i wanted to punch the whiney little cyclist.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:

Looking at the video, the lorry driver seems to be in the right: the cyclists are in the left hand lane.
You wouldn't do it in a car, so why do it on a bike...
IANAL.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Like the Audi drivers of the cycling world.

As a Dutch person who cycles to pretty much everywhere; I make sure I'm never near the blind spot of a lorry. If you can't see him in the mirror, he can't see you. I'm always amazed why people need to try to crawl a few meter in front into that deadly space there.

Fortunately, we got lots of cycling lanes here.

In reply to Rigid Raider:
This junction is on the Chelsea embankment and I know it well.

As an ex cop I think it is a badly designed junction. Once that is accepted it is obvious it will result in what happened in the video. It would be interesting to see the statistics on this location. I hope no serious or fatal accident has occurred.

I will do what I can to bring to the attention of Police/Highways Department.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Jesus that was close, that guy needs to be thanking his lucky stars, not bloody whining.
All the cyclists are in a left turn lane. None of them should be going straight on from that position! The artic was obviously going to go exactly where it did, because there was nowhere else it could possibly go. They all take the chance that they can outrun it, and he didn't make it.
I've been cycling in London a bit recently, and I have to say the attitude of some of the cyclists I come across has made me realise why we're so unpopular.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I'm hoping that Lloyds Transport get a full payout from the whining little gobshite for any damage he inflicted on their truck.

In reply to Hooo:


By "we" do you mean Londoners?

In reply to spartacus:

Not a one of those cyclists (including the camera-man!) was in the right the only difference is that one nearly died. They all went straight from the left-turning lane!

However, the failure, here, is not the cyclist and not the HGV driver, it's the junction design which is obviously appaling.

An ASL would have allowed the cyclists to form a group ahead of the lorry, giving them a priority position. Without it, cyclists going straight either have to wait behind the queue or do what basically the whole group in the video - including the camera-man - did. I, personally, would either avoid such a junction like the plague or wait behind but experience in London says that the whiner, here, is not wrong: nobody waits correctly.

Come on, though. Even the way the lane narrows like that seems purpose-built to murder cyclists!

In reply to Rigid Raider:

As a regular London cyclist I'd say that the cyclists put the driver in an impossible position, but that he relied on a white arrow on the road rather than experience and the evidence in front of him. He could see the bikes to his left. He could see the ones that went ahead quickly, but lost sight of the one that rode into his blind spot, but assumed there was nothing there. Thereafter it was inevitable. Lack of due care and attention by the driver, with a Darwinesque contribution from the cyclist. Most fault lies with the road lay-out though.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Go f**k yourself you Northern f**ker.

Joke! Just in case someone doesn't get the irony...

We're (Londoners) not that bad really, I promise.

In reply to Xharlie:

That's true, but the first thing I learned as a cyclist and then motorcyclist is that your life is your own responsibility. There are badly designed junctions and other hazards out there, and if you want to stay alive you need to learn to spot them and deal with them. No one else is going to look out for you.
I get the impression that this cyclist was a regular commuter, in which case he would know the junction and should understand the hazard and keep clear. I bet he takes that kind of risk every day, hopefully this was a wake up call.

In reply to Xharlie:

The lorry driver could clearly see that there were bikes but wasn't prepared to wait or drive carefully - it is unlikely that he could see all the bikes but it was a clear hazard and he did not respond with care. Given the asymmetry of the risk (risk of rider bike dying vs risk or lorry driver dying) this was an appalling decision by the lorry driver.

The junction was very badly designed, there is no getting away from that, and there is no safe way for bikes to navigate a junction like this. The left feeder lane is problematic because it forces riders to be between conflicting lanes of traffic. As any rider knows neither under or over taking and taking a mid-lane road position in the queue (occupying a car space) at a junction like this is extremely dangerous and likely to end up in being rear-ended by an impatient driver or knocked into the gutter by a driver trying to get past.

The only safe position is out in front and the only way to get there is over or undertaking. One problem here was junction design (left hand feeder, lack of cycle lane, lack of advance box). The other was an aggressive lorry driver who nearly killed someone. It is telling the behavior of the lorry driver - if you hit someone with a lorry your first concern should be for the victim's welfare, are they injured? are they ok? not some fatuous argument.

If you drive a vehicle you should be more concerned about not killing people than being right. You have a duty of care to other more vulnerable road users not to run them over and you should not be playing a game of chicken with bikes or pedestrians. Goes double if you are a professional driver in a big, dangerous lorry.

In reply to nniff:


What would you expect him to do differently? Stay parked there indefinitely?

As regards the idea that he could see them.. youtube.com/watch?v=lV-rhiGRFTE&

In reply to nniff:

I wold say pretty well all the fault lies with the cyclist; the road layout may be poor, but its hardly unclear from the road markings, and i'll bet the cyclist involved, and all the others, knew that they were pulling an illegal move by ignoring road markings. Once you do that, you really have no right to complain when another road user complies exactly with expectations / road markings. If it happens to be a massive truck, then the outcome, as you say, is fairly easily predictable.
Not sure how you can say the truck driver was not exercising due care and attention; I would suggest he was as careful as could be expected (bearing in mind my general opinion of truck drivers road behaviour is not great), and that if anyone wasnt exercising due care and attention, its the cyclist. If you are going to pull a manouevre like that, you better be 100% certain you can pull it off.

In reply to kevin stephens:

An advanced stop line would not completely solve the problem though as you can just as easily get caught out trying to get in to it as the lights change.

Its a bit of an odd width road as is just about two lanes wide but no lane markings, and clearly not wide enough for two lanes and a cycle lane.

I have to say in that case the cyclists were in the wrong. Although the driver should probably have expected more cyclists to be on his inside. Its a tricky position as a cyclist as its not usual to queue up with lots of traffic but sometimes there is no where to go at the front of the queue or the queue moves before you can get to the front.

In reply to mullermn:

I think that is the point - the driver knew there were bikes, he knew there was a visibility problem, he knew the risks and he still drove without care. He should have proceeded with extremely care and caution which he evidently did not do. And yes, if it mean not running someone over, he should have remained parked indefinitely. Just because you are impatient does not mean you can run someone over.

Cars and lorries should not play chicken with bikes and pedestrians. While the reverse is also true the circumstances are not symmetric - consider who makes the decisions and who loses in all cases.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

The cyclist is 100% in the wrong.
His mates who backed him up are equally as guilty.
The lorry driver can't see the cyclists, that's not his fault.
He drives off and the cyclist is in the wrong lane, changes lanes without signalling and you want a driver to sit and wait.
Wait till what?
Till all the cyclists have gone?
He can't see them!
Repeat, until you understand, he can't see them!
The cyclist should take the video to the police and see what they suggest.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

You are willing to make all kinds of assumptions about how much the driver might have seen and the actions he should have taken based on this presumed knowledge while you ignore that the cyclist was fully aware of the truck, tried to change lanes without a lifesaver and got caught out. Where's the due care there?

In reply to duchessofmalfi:


The cyclists could clearly see there was a large vehicle at a dodgy junction and weren't prepared to wait or ride carefully. Given the asymmetry of the risk (risk of rider bike dying vs risk or lorry driver dying) this was an appalling decision by thecyclist. There, fixed that for you.


There is a safe way; its called "wait in turn" . Not ideal, but the other cyclists proved you can keep up with the flow, if the flow is an articulated lorry......plenty of chance to pass at a subsequent junction thst is better for doing so.


Not so. The other safe place is behind. The lorry driver didnt nearly kill someone, he was nearly caught up in a fatal accident caused predominantly by a cyclists lack of (self) awareness. Yes he should have asked about the riders welfare, but it was clear the rider was ok physically.


If you ride a bike in a city, you should be more concerned with your own safety than gaining that vital 10 seconds. You have a duty of care to avoid other road users that can pose a risk to you in a situation that is of your making, not theirs.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:



Jut because you are impatient and pulled an illegal road manouevre doesnt mean you should expect all around you to wait until you have sorted yourself out.......

In reply to Rigid Raider:

In the recent past I used to regularly drive south over Vauxhall Bridge, from Westminster. There are three lanes at that junction - the left-hand one becomes a left-only lane from a bus lane, and the other two lanes are straight ahead. I can guarantee that, in rush hour, without fail, there will be cyclists queueing to the left of traffic turning left, almost all heading straight ahead. I've never understood how so many people can be so moronic, and also why they can't position themselves in the correct lane (which is no more difficult than positioning themselves where they do), and not be in conflict with other traffic at all.

My solution now is to position my car as close to the kerb as humanly possible to discourage people from queueing alongside me. Surprisingly, it doesn't make me very popular.

In reply to Hooo:


The curse of being from the Midlands: half the country's Northern monkey and the other half's Southern pansy. Sigh...

In reply to Xharlie:



The failure is ALL the cyclists. All they had to do was follow the highway code and it wouldn't have happened. Not only that but they KNEW want they were doing was wrong. How can you excuse that as BAD design. It's people being f*cking idiots, bad evolution might be a better term.

In reply to baron:


But he can see some of them, several were in front of him, and the lorry wasn't at an angle, so the utube video not entirely representative. I think the way the driver was immediately “on it” with his aggressive reasoning suggests he knew there were likely to be cyclists there, but didn’t care.

In reply to Ian W:

i've always wondered, is ignoring the markings/arrows illegal?
i've looked but can't find anything that says it is. I came across one thing that said there was case law for arrows with specified destinations (from an accident where someone didn't follow the arrows on a roundabout), but nothing for lone arrows.

not that ignoring the arrows is clever, especially in this case, he was very close to losing his life i think. but if the terms"legal/illegal" are being used then i'm interested in finding those laws.

In reply to Ian W:

I wouldn't blame the driver - although I believe that improved cab design means that hopefully the "enormous blind spot exactly where vulnerable road users often end up" thing will be less of a problem in future.

In the short term, I'd say that yes, the cyclist is in the wrong. I'd be bloody cautious about making legal manoeuvres in the vicinity of a large lorry, let alone illegal ones.

On the other hand, it does seem to be a bloody awful death-trap of a junction design. A lot of people seem to be doing roughly the same thing in the same place, and I'm not really happy with "kill them all and then they won't do it again" as a solution. It's easy to watch a youtube video and point out in retrospect what "basic rule" someone shouldn't have broken, but people are only human, and if a junction is regularly tempting people into breaking that rule then maybe it should be redesigned so it doesn't.

In reply to Jim Hamilton:
You can be in front of an hgv and still not be seen.
If you can't be sure that you've been seen then why would you, especially as a cyclist, ride up the inside of an hgv?
The video shows, in the run up to the incident several other examples of potentially dangerous situations.
All ignored by the cyclists.
Probably in order to save time/energy.
The cyclists are either unaware, stupid or think it won't happen to them.

In reply to illepo:

Fair point. The legality / illegality depends on the wording used in the highway code; if it says you "should" or "should not" o something, then its not an offence as such, but you'd lose any insurance argument. If it says "must / must not", then it is an offence.

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

As said above, what exactly is the driver supposed to do? Always assume that there is always a cyclist in his blind spot? He could never move forward or turn in either direction.

If a car had waited in the wrong lane, in the lorry's blind spot, tried to go for the gap and got hit there wouldn't be anyone trying to apportion any blame to the lorry driver. Cyclists (I am one) are vulnerable road users, but that doesn't extend to being allowed to effectively hold a gun to your own head and dare anyone to come near you.

In reply to Ian W:

i can't see a mention of direction arrows in the highway code (though my search has only consisted of ctrl+F and "arrows").
so no mention of arrows, no use of "must", so not illegal. which is a bit worrying...

In reply to Jim Hamilton:


I think it's more likely that he was agitated from a massive rush of adrenaline having realised how close he'd come to killing someone. Even if it's not his fault no one wants to be in that position and I'd naturally be angry with whoever caused it.

In reply to illepo:

Such things are usually covered by more general points like 144

You MUST NOT
drive dangerously
drive without due care and attention
drive without reasonable consideration for other road users.

In reply to illepo:

Ive just checked; it is an offence, as it says you must follow road signs / markings. You can be done for it if there is a camera the same way as speeding.

There is a specific section in the highway code for cyclists and how they should behave. Having read that, the cyclist in this case is 100% wrong. Summarised, it advises self preservation above all else. He and the others in the video should read it.

In reply to ManuelS:

completely agree,
however, my point was specific for saying ignoring the arrows was illegal.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Not surprising that most dislike my view that the driver wasn't exercising due care and attention but that the cycclist was Darwinesque in his behaviour.

As far as not being able to see the cyclist, the driver would have been aware of the cyclists to his left - the top mirror of the three on his door would have shown him that. The cyclist that he wouldn't have been able to see before he moved off was the one of the extreme left in the dayglo helmet, and possibly the next one in.

THe cyclist who was hit was a muppet - he cycled into the blind spot to the front of the lorry as it was picking up speed. Had the driver checked the mirror that looks down in front he might have seen him, but that's a check before moving off rather than when mobile - ergo never squeeze in front of a high lorry just as it moves off - the driver will have already checked that mirror (left through to right) and you'll be squashed - as the cyclist found out.

The driver finally noticed when he checked his kerb-side mirrors and realised he was busy devouring a cyclist.

As far as due care is concerned - the driver assumed that all of the cyclists he couldn't see had turned left - and that was a guess - four, maybe five clearly went straight ahead in his sight but still and he forged on leaving no room for error whatsoever and forgetting all of those whom he should have seen originally in his third left hand mirror.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

It's a design problem, it's an education problem. Poor junction, poor truck visibility, poor sense of self preservation, herd instinct. I think the problem is improving slowly as mirrors, cameras, visibility and awareness get better but crikey, let's all be careful.

These are the truckers from my local haulage company: http://www.helsby-longden.co.uk/2017/02/27/helsby-longden-complete-safe-urb...
More of this for one thing.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

The obvious option is the cyclists could not use the left turn lane to undertake the lorry

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:


He could have left a bit of space by filtering slightly into the right hand lane, rather than accelerating to the pinch point?

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

He has traffic on his right, which merges. . He can't filter anywhere and if he did he's opening the door to numerous f*cktards on bikes trying to nip through.

In reply to Jim Hamilton:


So you'd have him straddling two lanes in case there's a cyclist with no sense of self-preservation in his blind spot at all times?

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

He couldnt. There isnt a right lane for him to filter into. it was full of oncoming traffic.......

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I've cycled that exact section of road numerous times. Pretty f***ing stupid decision by the cyclist. He made the choice to try and bomb ahead towards the pinch point (which is obvious to see...), when he could've just slowed down to let the truck overtake him or hung back for a few seconds at the junction to let the truck get a head start. It's the truck driver I feel sorry for in this case as the cyclist made the choice to take a risk, whereas the truck driver doesn't have a whole lot of choice other than to drive and hope that nobody is stupid enough to be in his blind spot at a pinch point.

In reply to Ian W:

Correct, and if it is where i think it is, there is a traffic island on the right as he crosses the junction, so moving right would trap traffic against it.

i have only cycled it a few times but driven it lots, and it's a tight merge in after the box junction.

In reply to mlt:

Where exactly is it? I'd be interested to look at it on streetview...

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I've cycled that bit of road quite a few times, it's like the Tour de France, both in the morning and evening. I opted to change my route to a safer but longer one. Most of the junctions are really bad and the lanes are very narrow.

I reckon it's 90% the cyclists fault, but the lorry driver was very impatient and by the way he sped off from that junction and gave no room I'd imagine he has these kind of incidents frequently.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

Chelsea Embankment, just by Battersea Bridge https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.482064,-0.1735888,3a,75y,15.36h,74.73t/da...

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:


I thought the lorry driver was amazingly restrained given the circumstances. If someone tried to force me to kill them I'd feel like completing the deed for them.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

In this particular case where the lanes are going immediately 2 to 1, rather than continuing as 2 lanes, the single lane is wider, and there is usually a bit of give and take with filtering, a least when driving a car/van. It's possible a red car in the outside lane at the lights is actually hanging back to give way to the lorry. So knowing there are cyclists undertaking I think he could have given them a bit of space. The alternative is to forge straight ahead and run them over!

In reply to Ramblin dave:

At the north side of battersea bridge. That little section of the road is a major holdup point when you're on the main route north to south through the Kensington area. The road splits into two queuing lanes for going over the junction which have to immediately merge again... the vehicle drivers legitimately crossing the junction will already be fighting each other to try to get there first, so trying to squeeze in from the left turn lane on a bike would be a fairly dangerous maneouver even if you're keeping your wits about you. To do it without paying any attention to what the traffic around you is doing like this chap is suicidal. If you're going to be an idiot on a bike, you should at least be ready to bail out when it goes pear shaped.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I would never in a million years do what this cyclist did - how can he have been so crazy.
Yes the driver could have noticed them, allowed them out first, whatever, but a cyclist can't assume that the driver is going to do all that. The cyclist was insane. Don't cycle up the inside of a lorry. Go in front, go behind, cross as a pedestrian, loads of options to avoid it.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I cycle a lot and I watched that with horror. What was the guy on the bike thinking, as the lorry driver said it's not like it's not well documented and there aren't deaths each year from people doing that.
I got knocked off my bike the other day, didn't lose my temper, 100% the ladies fault but I was quite cross with myself for not spotting her and avoiding. Only the second time this has happened, both times caught out by unexpected driving coupled with careless driving but you can't afford to be hit on a bike.

Just stunned.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to routrax:

Or he doesnt drive in london often, and isnt used to this type of behaviour.......it must be a bloody nightmare driving something that size around london without other road users if you arent fully au fait with road conditions without the added bonus of suicidal cyclists to watch out for........

In reply to Ian W:

I don't understand why the cyclist didn't back off. Get in front of the lorry or stay behind it - but not alongside it. He never stood a chance of getting in front with all the other cyclists in front of him.

Bad junction design - advanced stop box needed.

Lorry driver knew there were loads of cyclists there - even though he was in the right technically, he should have done the sensible thing and slowed/left more room. Just because you're in the right from a motoring point of view doesn't allow you to run people over.

I cycle every day (and have done for 30+years). I wouldn't fancy my chances if I rode like him though.

In reply to Ian W:


I would agree with that

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Re: 'Mass suicide attempt'

You're missing the point here. Despite the badly designed junction most of the cyclists ride wisely. The first four clear the truck in plenty of time as you'd expect. The guy in the black is silly, and obviously the guy in the Orange deserves a Darwin award. The female cyclists in white knows she won't get through so doesn't try.

An informal arrangement seems to be in place which would work ok most of the time. Orange guy is just too stupid and stubborn to accepts he's at the back of a queue of cyclists and will have to wait.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

HGVs shouldn't be allowed in cities during rush hour.

In reply to hang_about:





Riding like that you' have been lucky to make 30 days never mind 30 years.....

In general...
I get what people are saying about the lorry could have left more room (come on, how many of you making that comment have actually driven one of those things???), and I'm sure the driver didn't and doesn't want to ever be in an accident resulting in someones death or serious injury, no matter who is at fault, but going back to the actual incident.....technically (wonderful word) the driver did everything correctly. The cyclists at the lights (all of them ) broke the law. They were all in a lane that instructs them to turn left, and they knowingly didn't. They went straight on, knowing that even with a camera in place, they cant be caught / fined. The obvious consequence of putting yourself so significantly our of position, is that you cant always easily get yourself back into the correct position. If out of position means to the left of a lorry in the wrong lane at a junction that narrows on its exit, I think expecting the lorry driver to predict you are going to do the most idiotic thing possible, and then criticise him for not moving out of he way (of something he probably didnt know was there........) is a bit ridiculous.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Definitely the cyclist's fault. A difficult junction for sure, but all the cyclists were in the left turn lane with the intention of going straight on and several of them should definitely have been aware that they were in the driver's blind spot. Safest thing to do in this scenario is wait in line with the traffic, but it seems that for some people completing their journey more quickly is more important to them than avoiding an accident.

What is also disappointing is that the lorry driver pulls over to exchange details and then the cyclist buggers off.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


So you'd inflict lorries throughout the night for us city dwellers?

I think they first tried this jape in ancient Rome...

In reply to Mike Stretford:




There's nothing wise about the way any of them are riding. The leading cyclists could just have easily found themselves in the path of a driver from the right hand lane overtaking the lorry and merging back into the single lane at the other side of the junction, not expecting anyone to appear in his blind spot because they performed an illegal undertaking maneouver. Not one of them even did a life saver check as they cut across... they're all placing their lives on the trust that anyone merging is going to leave enough space for them to squeeze through.

If you're going to filter through stationary traffic, you need to be sensible about it. Always filter on the right hand side of the lane you intend to occupy after the junction, and don't sit to the side of other traffic in that lane. If you can't get in front of a vehicle, come back in behind it and wait for the lights to change, then dominate that lane as you cross the junction, and continue to dominate it until such point as you reach a cycle lane, or the traffic slows and you decide to filter again.

Never trust your life to an "informal arrangement" when you've no idea whether the other users of the road are going to be part of it.

In reply to hang_about:


We don't know that from the film, the lorry could have arrived before the cyclists.

In reply to mullermn:


Do you see the mirror on the top of his door? That's a proximity mirror specifically designed for looking down at where the cyclists are, all vehicles over 3.5 Tonne are required to have them fitted to drive through London, as well as one for looking down at the front where a cyclist might have filtered in. Even if he didn't deliberately look in his mirrors (which he should be doing), his peripheral vision would have picked up the cyclists moving about, so he would be aware they were there.

The cyclists were idiots but that doesn't mean the driver is blameless.

In reply to mullermn:

If the lorry arrived after the cyclists, that means the cyclists chose the "wrong" lane in preference what was the empty correct lane (the lorry is at the front of the queue........). So its safe to assume the lorry was there first.

In reply to seankenny:



HGVs in Ancient Rome! You learn something new every day.

In reply to Ciro:

Humans can track around 12-20 moving objects at a time. I think he could see the cyclist but as I don't drive a truck, wonder what he was supposed to do. Slam on his brakes as the cyclist appeared to be making good progress and was ahead of him? Suddenly the cyclist slows, swerves and hits the lorry, the lorry stops immediately.

The cyclist got it wrong and the lorry driver had to take a course of action that unfolded in about 3 seconds of the video.

It's easy for us, we can pause, rewind and replay. Hindsight bias.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


No, carts full of goods as opposed to people.

Which was obvious, no?

In reply to Ramblin dave:

Hey, here are the coordinates for the location (placed exactly on the corner) -https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/51%C2%B028'56.2%22N+0%C2%B010'...

In reply to Ian W:

Good point.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

The fact that someone does something exceptionally stupid and broke some sort of rule/law (don't want to get involving in the semantics of the status of an arrow on the road), does not give anyone else carte blanche to mow them down. Cp. "You were crossing the road when the red man was showing and I may therefore kill you with impunity" does not wash. All parties owe each other a duty of care and a lapse by one party does not then entitle the other to ignore their obligations. I see cyclists like him every day and drivers too - both need a good shake. The cyclists I categorise as 'wobble and hope' and I stay well out of their way.

The lorry driver was in far too much of a hurry given the surroundings, had scant regard for anyone else and nearly killed someone as a result. He knew that there was a whole group of cyclists to his left and in front of him, but still to proceed like that was at best careless.

The cyclist will hopefully have worked out what went wrong and how he managed to put himself in that position and will never do anything as stupid again.

In reply to DancingOnRock:




The cyclists absolutely got it wrong, there's no disputing that, and the driver probably did lose track of the individual cyclist and not realise he was there at the point of the collision. My point was that the driver would most definitely have been aware that there was a group of cyclists there (contrary to an opinion expressed above), and that they were cutting across the junction. Even if this was his first experience of driving in the city, the first few cyclists coming across in clear view would have told him that.

The safest course of action, if he can't track them all, would indeed be to slow down until he could be sure the group had all passed. The cyclists should not be putting him in that position, but once they do he still has a legal obligation to do what he can to avoid the accident.

I cycle commuted in London for over a decade, and both rode and drove the road in the clip often. The roads are chaos and bring out road aggression in a way I've never seen anywhere else, especially around bottleneck points like that junction. Even if you're trying to stick to the rules of the road, there's a constant stream of people trying to force you to cede your right of way (as the cyclists do here), and it would take the patience of the Dalai Lama not to get sucked into the battle so almost everyone is at it (and I include myself in that).

There's no doubt in my mind that the above is a classic example - the cyclists are determined to get ahead of the queue and feel no need to follow the rules of the road to do so, the driver is pissed off at constantly being cut up by cyclists when he's trying to get on with his job and tries to get across the junction before the slower ones block his path, he loses track of one of them and that cyclist's oblivious manner means the accident is inevitable.

In reply to Ciro:

The lead cyclists are ahead of the traffic, in this case the lorry and the white van in the right hand lane. The white vine can see them as they are in front.

The female in white is also well placed to hang back and continue when it's safe.


Watch the video before the junction, if all eight cyclists that end up at the junction had followed your advice, there'd be chaos.


Good advice but not relevant here.

In reply to nniff:


No chance, he'll be convinced it was all the driver's fault.

In reply to Ciro:

Yes.

I think at the point that he hits the cyclist, the cyclist would have been in front of his mirrors and I don't think the lorry driver could have seen him.

Lorry driver could probably see 2 cyclists in mirrors moving out to side and waiting for lorry to clear and 4/5 cyclists out front ahead of him. He did well to stop that quickly.

In reply to Mike Stretford:


The lead cyclists have in fact jumped the red light.


The female in white shows a great deal more sense of self-preservation than the rest, but she is still in the left turn filter lane whilst intending to go straight ahead.


Not at all. It would just mean the middle lane got more stretched out, with bikes interspersed through the queue. For sure it would upset some of the motorists, but if someone's angry with you it means they've seen you and they know where you are... coming to blows is rare, and a fatality from that is even rarer. I've always felt it's better to run the risk of being shouted at than the risk of going under the wheels of a lorry.

In reply to Ian W:

I agree. which is why I generally choose safer routes now around London.

There was a bike id marking thing going on one day on my way to work, they had a truck there and encouraged cyclists to sit in the driver seat to see it from the drivers point of view, quite scary how little they can see on the front nearside.

I think it's a case of needing to assume everyone else on the road is unpredictable, whether you are on a cycle, motorcycle, car, truck, whatever.
The cyclist seemed to assume the truck was going to give way, the truck driver assumed the the cyclist was going to. Both pretty lucky IMO.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

As a cyclist who works in the cycle industry, I am continually amazed at how stupid some of my fellow cyclists are. I would imagine that most of those people commute that way every day, they should of learned to recognise that when faced with coming up the inside of a lorry in left hand turn lane, it would be better to wait a few seconds for the lorry to get going and then follow it. It is also not unreasonable to wait behind the lorry. As the old saying goes, 'Better late in this world, than early in the next!'

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Terrible road layout which lures cyclists into a deadly crush. The lorry driver assumes he has the right to take up the entire left hand lane and regards the fact that he can't see cyclists as their problem, not his.

If we are to allow such dangerous vehicles to hurtle along city streets at that speed then vulnerable road users and indeed pedestrians, need protection. Rather than 2 narrow lanes for motor traffic, it would be safer and more efficient to have one wider lane and one narrower but protected cycle lane

In reply to Ciro:



Whilst I agree in theory. The issue is, that how can you be sure off the cyclists have passed? You could stop at the junction for 5 minutes and still not know when a cyclist is going to filter past on the left.

As you are slowed down/stopped you still have a line of cyclists filtering past traffic on the left, it's not like you have a number to wait to let past, more are coming all the time.

In reply to Chris the Tall:


Yeah, I'd agree with this. Particularly if the other proposed solution is cyclists "taking the lane", which is going to slow traffic down anyway.

In reply to Chris the Tall:
I'm not sure which video you watched but there was no hurtling going on that I could see.

You're suggesting turning the Chelsea embankment into a massive one way system. Maybe North bank going east and South bank going west?

Good luck with that.

In reply to Ciro:


I've cycle commuted for many years although for the last two I have predominantly car commuted, but reading the above - if I ever have to move to London, I think I'll try using the bus!

In reply to FreshSlate:


That's the issue the mandated proximity mirrors are supposed to resolve.

In reply to TobyA:

Good luck with the busses, they're trying to negotiate the same chaos. The tube is pretty efficient but sometimes just as stressful and unpleasant. Probably best to avoid moving to London

In reply to Ramblin dave:


Not in central London it isn't. It's far quicker by bike.

In reply to Ciro:

On the bus you just bury your head in a magazine and let someone else negotiate the chaos for you!

I think that urban cycling when there isn't good provision for separated cycle paths is very stressful and builds aggression easily if you let it. I used to get angry with drivers who were inconsiderate but it's easy for that to lapse into self righteousness, even when its you who made the mistake (like the guy in this video), or it was a honest mistake made by the driver. My cycle commute now sometimes means I need to turn right on a two lane roundabout on a fastish bit of the dual carriage way that goes around the south side of Sheffield. In my younger years I found the cycling skills necessary to do things like that invigorating, now I mainly find the whole process mildly terrifying!

In reply to TobyA:

Cycling in London has changed a lot in the last ten years or so.
If I can plan a route around the Cycle Superhighways I find that run-ins with vehicles are actually pretty unusual. By far the most common hazard is pedestrians with headphones on looking at their phones and strolling into the road. I'm sorry to say that the biggest annoyance of cycling in London nowadays is dealing with dickheads on bicycles doing the sort of thing in this video - cutting in front and abusing anyone who gets in their way. They are a small minority, but their behaviour upsets a lot of people.

In reply to TobyA:


Yes, mine has a scary right turn in both directions. One is a right turn at a roundabout on a 40mph stretch of dual carriage way. At least once a week I can't get into the right hand lane, and have to hop off on the left and cross the road on foot. The other is a right hand turn at traffic lights on a road where there is a bus/cycle lane on the left and cars passing on the right. I have to cross both of those to get into a right hand right turn only lane. I manage to make the lane change more frequently there, but I regularly get abuse from drivers as I try to move out of the bus/cycle lane to make the turn. That junction doesn't have an advance stop and has a short light cycle so even when the lights are red I often just take the lane rather than trying to filter as when filtering you inevitably find yourself stuck somewhere awkward when the traffic starts moving again. I seem to find the process marginally more terrifying every day!

That video of the view from the cab is quite scary!

In reply to TobyA:

I just meant time wise... the main stress on the busses is never knowing how long it will take the someone else to negotiate you to your destination.

Haha, yeah there comes a point in your life where proving to yourself that you're capable of surviving against the odds starts to lose its appeal

In reply to Hooo:


Good to hear. As to prats on bikes, yes - annoying because then drivers look at all cyclists as potential problems. Interestingly, I still think what I was taught doing my cycling proficiency test in the mid-80s (I was in middle school so equivalent of Y5 or 6 now I guess) remains the mainstay of how I ride on roads! It sounds silly being so long ago, but I think it is actually a really sound basis for keeping yourself out of trouble. It would be great if more (most? all?) kids got chance to get whatever training is the modern equivalent.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Looked to me like the lorry driver was aware that cyclists were (illegally) cutting in front of him before the lane restarted, but wasn't at all happy about having to slam on the brakes to allow one of them to do so when he wasn't quick enough to do so responsibly. He called the cyclist's bluff. The cyclist, very stupidly, didn't back down when he was clearly at fault, with the result that two vehicles were trying to share the space and clearly didn't fit. It was never going to end well for the cyclist, who never should have performed such a manoeuvre knowing that it would rely on the lorry driver braking, when it quite legitimately had right of way. Effectively, the cyclist was trying to bully the lorry driver (!) into letting him in when he had no right to do so. I suppose the vast majority of such incidents would end up with the lorry braking and the cyclist getting away with their ridiculous behaviour, but it's hardly surprising that once in a while a lorry driver will insist on his legitimate right to continue in the lane he's in.

In reply to john arran:

Spot on. We see this behaviour every time we drive to Preston on an evening; yoofs dressed in black hoodies on mountain bikes with no lights will shoot or swerve across the road in front of the car daring you to hit them, in the almost certain knowledge that you won't.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Another reason those gigantic Lorraine's need to be banned from cities and towns.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I've got nothing to add to the discussion of the cyclists trying to get themselves killed.

Watching the video I was already feeling uncomfortable before the lorry incident; I often do when watching such helmet camera footage.

The videoing rider in this shows almost no attempt at maintaining situational awareness behind themselves, never once properly looking over a shoulder. Between that and the rampant undertaking of cars I imagine myself cycling like that and it makes me feel physically uncomfortable - I just couldn't cycle like that. The implicit assumption is that everyone else on the road - car, motorbike and cyclist alike is at all times fully aware of their position and velocity.

In reply to kevin stephens:

I think you've called it right - I don't think I'd do what he did, but if I did it would involve at least 1000 watts.

In reply to Lion Bakes:

Another reason those gigantic Lorraine's need to be banned from cities and towns.

Two alternatives to that way of thinking: -

1. Ban bikes.
2. Put the bikes in the lorry.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Some considered analysis here: https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2017/07/06/who-is-to-blame/amp/

In reply to Shani:

Good article and with a lot of common sense spoken.
However, it still doesn't really excuse the cyclists using the Left Filter Lane as a means of getting to the front of the queuing traffic.
Another point but entirely conjecture, how many of those cyclists were at that junction for the first time and thus didn't know that there was an ASL there or not? Bet most were on their daily commute...
Saying that and to avoid any such confusion, how about putting a sign up saying 'NO ASL JUNCTION AHEAD' on that and similar junctions?

In reply to FactorXXX:

I don't think the problem is them using the left turn lane to filter. It's fine, as long as you can safely get back into the traffic flow - and that's the point. It blatantly wasn't safe for him to move back into traffic, but he still tried.
In the same situation I would have followed the rest of the cyclists to the front of the lane too, assuming I'd find an ASL. But, once the HGV started moving, I would have abandoned any attempt to get in front and dropped back behind it. It's one of the most important rules of survival on a bike, never be near a large vehicle when it's moving.

In reply to Hooo:
Absolutely. Stay behind big vehicles.

Works on country lanes whem driving a car as well. Don't overtake unless you know you're going to be well away from them.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:
That's the sort of blame shifting toss that really bugs me. The lorry moved forward in its lane perfectly legally and reasonably. It was not his fault a load of idiots decided to use a clearly marked left turn lane to go straight ahead or that one particular prat persisted in trying to move into a lane occupied by a lorry when it was obvious what would happen. Why should cyclists expect everyone else to make up for their crap riding?

In reply to Lion Bakes:

Certainly, big girls have no place in our urban environment.

In reply to Trangia:

The key thing needed is common sense? There's one place in Sheffield where I ride on the pavement where the road network is very hectic and the pavement is extra wide, and I've never even come close to a near miss between me and any pedestrians because I'm careful and go slowly, I stick to one side of the pavement and ride in a predictable way. The local police don't seem to mind FWIW.

I don't mind drivers breaking the odd rule too if it's done with due care, like turning right in a no right turn place or similar. I think there's space in the world for careful rule breaking.

The guy hit by the truck does seem to show a lack of general awareness, re the direction the road is curving towards and thinking about where he was likely to end up.

In reply to mullermn:

I think adrenaline probably explains the agitation and anger for both parties. I can tend to feel cross if nearly squashed, I try and cycle now like my Dad drives, with him being in his early 70's he seems to naturally leave space for things to happen around him as a result of not being in any great hurry.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

If folks here think this is bad cycling, they should watch the Tour de France

In reply to Hooo:

I don't think the problem is them using the left turn lane to filter. It's fine, as long as you can safely get back into the traffic flow - and that's the point. It blatantly wasn't safe for him to move back into traffic, but he still tried.
In the same situation I would have followed the rest of the cyclists to the front of the lane too, assuming I'd find an ASL.

Let's be honest, the cyclists knew exactly what they were doing. They knew there wasn't an ASL and used the Left Filter Lane to get as close to/over the line as they possibly could. Lights change, they give it some juice and they assume that all other road users will yield. Fine in most circumstances, car drivers can see them and alter their driving to suit.
However, with a HGV it's different. They can't see the cyclist - they assume quite rightly that their lane is their lane and drive accordingly.
Some cyclists need to take a step backwards and review what they're doing. They're constantly berating motorists for not having patience and having a 'every second counts' attitude - maybe the same is actually true with cyclists and they're no better than the rest of road users in that respect...

In reply to FactorXXX:

You're right of course. It wasn't just regular filtering with an error of judgement - which I've certainly been guilty of. The guy pretty obviously played chicken with the HGV. I do wonder how people get to the state of mind where they would play that game.
What can be done about attitudes like that? It is a real problem in London, and it makes life harder for all cyclists.

In reply to Timmd:

I agree with this attitude, and don't have a problem with cyclists on pavements or running red lights if it's clear and can be done safely without inconveniencing anyone.
As others have said though, this incident wasn't a lack of awareness - he must have known exactly where the lorry was, and he must understand the consequences of getting it wrong. Despite this, he chose to take a chance against it. It's a fundamental attitude problem.

In reply to Chris the Tall:


Terrible road layout with reasonably clear road markings and directional instructions, which cyclists ignore and one ends up in a potentially fatal situation. Te lorry driver assumes he has the right to take up the entire left hand lane because he does; there is in fact only one lane after the junction. The fact he cant see cyclists is their problem as they are performing an illegal, unsafe manoeuvre,IS their problem.


By dangerous vehicles, do you mean bikes or trucks? In that video, the only dangerous ones appear to be the cyclists......ans as per other post , i dont see much hurtling; everyone is pulling away from a standstill......

In reply to Ian W:


You've made your point clearly above but that's getting silly. Lorries are clearly dangerous just because of their size, weight and blind spot issues regardless of how well or not they are driven.

In reply to TobyA:

Lorries are a potential hazard, they are not dangerous.

In reply to Ciro:


They're not very effective unfortunately. Have you seen the video posted earlier in this thread?

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Essentially everything is wrong in this clip:

Poor road design - pinch point where all traffic is forced together, no cycle lane, no advance stop line, no phasing for cyclists.

Poor vehicle design - HGV with huge blind spots on the road, mixing it up with cyclists.

Poor driving - if you're a regular HGV driver in London, you should expect cyclist in the blind spot, and drive accordingly.

Poor cycling - again if you cycle in traffic, you should know not to ride up the inside of an HGV!

But at the centre of this, it is just poor infrastructure design. All of these issues could be easily designed out, if we had proper funding and strategy for protection of cyclist. Go to the Netherlands and I suspect you would struggle to find anywhere that such a situation could occur.

In reply to Ian W:

In the video you can see a car overtaking the lorry. Not being familiar with the road I assumed it was 2 lane, but it appears that at this point it reduces to one. Nonetheless at the point of the collision the lorry is terrifyingly close to the kerb - can't be arsed to watch the vid again but do the wheels cross the double red lines ? You can say the driver is entitled to use the whole width of the road, just as he is entitled to drive a vehicle with poor visibility, but don't tell me this isn't a dangerous state of affairs.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

It wouldn't have been terrifying if the cyclist had turned left. And no, he (the lorry, the cyclist does) doesn't cross the red lines, not that it's relevant.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

chelsea embankment is technically 2 lanes but without road markings and its quite narrow. i always go central and piss people off but avoid unwanted close passing

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I'm firmly on the lorry driver's side, as I've said above, but the fact that these things continue to happen does make me wonder why lorries don't have either cameras or proximity sensors by now.

I've just checked, and a new HGV trailer is in the £100k bracket (a new 49 seat coach is about £300k, apparently!). Reversing cameras and parking sensors are a couple of hundred quid to add as extras on a new car. Even as a retrofit on an older lorry they'd cost peanuts.

In reply to FreshSlate:


The one that mullermn posted? That shows the view from an HGV turning left without a class V proximity mirror...

In reply to Phil79:


The problem here is that you've got a very busy A-road that hits a choke point between the buildings and the river and so drops from two lanes to one at the previous junction. Improving the cycling infrastructure around those two junctions would take space away from the queueing vehicles and thus exacerbate the already severe traffic flow problem. The traffic is heavily managed into that route and out of the surrounding residential streets, and it's a nightmare to drive through when it's busy. Short of compulsory purchase of some very expensive real estate, I'm not sure what you could do about it.

In reply to Sir Chasm:

And it wouldn't have been terrifying for anyone if all the cyclists and pedestrians just drove Chelsea tractors like normal people....

In reply to Ciro:

Angry drivers are dangerous drivers. A driver shouting and gesticulating to a cyclist is a danger to all other road users they can't see. If your advice was followed you'd have about six of them with 8 cyclists of varying riding styles........chaos. Fortunately sense prevails, most drivers and cyclist are considerate and careful. I'd wager most drivers would prefer to have a cyclist in front of them at a junction than in a blind spot, I sure would.


I've successfully avoided having to make that choice for 25+ years of commuting.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

And it wouldn't have been terrifying for anyone if all the cyclists and pedestrians just drove Chelsea tractors like normal people....

Alternatively, the cyclists could ride in a sensible manner...

In reply to La benya:
You'd struggle to get two HGVs side by side, let alone a bus and a car. It's a wide single lane carriageway.

In reply to Chris the Tall:


Which pedestrian in that video was walking suicidally?

In reply to Ciro:


That's interesting. Is what the video shows out of date with respect to the average lorry on the road or just out of date compared to new lorries?

How much of a difference does this extra mirror make?

In reply to TobyA:


Not really. It was a bit tongue in cheek, but as someone else pointed out, the lorry wasnt dangerous to the female cyclist, as she didnt allow it to become so. It was a potential hazard she dealt with sensibly, and if the rest of the cyclists dealt with hazards similarly, this thread wouldn't exist.

In reply to Ian W:

Deaths of cyclists in London suggest that lorries are dangerous though, don't they? From memory almost all of the cyclists killed over the last couple of years have been from lorries.

In reply to Chris the Tall:


Its only dangerous if you let it become so. The lorry driver drove entirely consistently and predictably with the rules of the road, in a very busy and potentially hazardous situation. The cyclist rode like an utter dickhead from start to finish. I'm sure none of us are angels, and we've all got it wrong from time to time, but to put yourself in that situation with an hgv just defies belief. Whilst the road layout is clearly less than ideal, I think this person could turn an empty straight road into a hazard......

In reply to TobyA:

Again, only if you let them become so. As i said above, i don have a great deal of time for lorry drivers in general. but for different reasons..and its no surprise that cyclists die under lorry wheels if thats how they ride.

As this is on a climbing forum, do you consider climbing dangerous? Or just potentially hazardous. The climbing part is not dangerous at all, its the falling off, and especially the landing part, that tends to cause the deaths........

In reply to Mike Stretford:


If someone is going to get angry at you for using the road fairly and legally, there's not a lot you can do about it. Especially if the alternative is to ride in a way that puts you in a position of increased danger.


In London?

You might avoid that specific choice by backing off around lorries, but if you want to cycle reasonably quickly you still have to make decisions between upsetting someone and safe road positioning all the time - if there's a line of parked cars you'll need to choose between riding close enough for a dooring (or for that matter hitting a small child stepping out from behind a car) or dominating the lane. I've had drivers in London going mad at me for not staying close to parked cars when I was breaking the 30mph speed limit. Likewise for making yourself visible early to traffic turning on from a minor road at a junction, or keeping a safe distance from a busy pavement.

In reply to mullermn:



The class V shows roughly a 2m square box to the left of the cab, the class VI shows the space directly in front of the cab, below the drivers view from the window. There are exceptions to what vehicles require to have them in general, but to drive into London they are mandatory.

The closest I came to going under a lorry (before these were introduced) was using the cycle lane to filter past the left hand side of a construction tipper truck and then stopping in the advanced stop box, out of his line of sight. We pulled away from the lights at roughly the same rate of accelleration, and I can still remember the terror as I began to run out of power and it dawned on me from the sound of his engine that he still had the foot down and didn't know I was there.

From that day forth I ignored left hand filter cycle lanes, but those mirrors would have covered both my filtering and my presence in the stop box, as well as the road positioning as we continued on.

In reply to mullermn:

http://www.bespokestudy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/HGV2.jpg

In reply to Phil79:

Don't even try to compare the Dutch people to Londoners. There's 8m people in London alone. How many in Amsterdam?

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Its not.

I agree its narrow but its definitely 2 lanes as demonstrated by the road signage, if not the road markings.

In reply to Hooo:
A problem with attitude or general awareness during that moment, I guess it's hard to know which and easy to judge.

In reply to Lion Bakes:


I don't know what a Lorraine is?

In reply to Timmd:


Sweet!

In reply to thread

It would be interesting to know from those who are vilifying the cyclist, how they would have cycled that section of road, from the start of the video.

In reply to Jim Hamilton:


Probably very similarly until the junction. Then either accelerated harder to make sure I was well ahead of the lorry when entering the lane he was fully occupying, or let the lorry pass and found a more appropriate place to filter into that lane, either between cars or perhaps alongside a much narrower vehicle that had good visibility and could see that I was there.

Other than never undertaking at all, just staying in the car stream, I'm not sure there are too many other options.

edit: i.e. precisely what every cyclist in the video other than the idiot seemed to do.

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

When i saw the bloody big arrow denoting a left turn lane I'd have tucked in behind the lorry in front of the black people carrier. What would you have done?

In reply to DancingOnRock:


What are you suggesting, well designed infrastructure doesn't work above a given population density?

Sounds like nonsense to me. It becomes more critical the more crowded it gets.

In that particular example there isn't any infrastructure for the cyclist; even a an advance stop lane or phased light for the cyclist would have stopped that happening.

Have a read of this page, to see what we're all missing.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com

Specifically, this one too.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/all-those-myths-and-excuses-in...

In reply to Sir Chasm:

To be honest, I'm actually not sure that I'd notice the left turn arrow, or at least that I'd process what it meant in time. I know that it's a pretty big bit of paint, but people are notoriously crap at dealing with things that they aren't expecting to see, particularly when they've got however many other things to keep an eye on at the same time, and obvious bike lanes approaching junctions are almost always "the bike lane", not "the left turn bike lane which is highly dangerous to use if you aren't turning left".

Regardless of the arrows, a junction like that is always going to tempt people into that position. The real f*ck-up is continuing trying to out-accelerate the lorry when it's becoming apparent that he's not going to make it but even there I can kind of see it as an understandable mistake - on some level, he's probably already spotted what's going to happen but he's locked into a mindset of trying to race through the junction to safety that he can't snap out of until it's too late.

In reply to Phil79:


It's also an argument that would hold a lot more water if all of the British urban areas that are smaller than Amsterdam did have Dutch-standard cycle infrastructure. Since pretty much none of them do, it looks suspiciously more like we just don't care.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

For me the definition of stupidity is the inability to think in abstract terms and foresee the consequences of your actions (or inaction),

In reply to Sir Chasm:

As somebody who cycles everywhere (if that matters - for some people it can) that would seem like the least risky thing to do, or filtering in behind the people carrier where the handy gap is.

It strikes me that knowing what the lights are doing further down a line of traffic can be as useful or safer than being right at the front each time the lights change when cycling, and having to deal with the hazards presented by passing traffic each time.

It may depend on the circumstances.

In reply to Phil79:

No the density of people affects the way they behave. And English people have this mentality where you are either right or wrong. It's entrenched in our laws and attitudes.

If you add cycle lanes, you divide people and cause more arguments. Areas of London where there is space and shared spaces work well. But it doesn't work everywhere because a certain section of our society follow rules blindly and another section ignore them completely.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


There is a problem introducing non-standard layouts and laws to certain regions. People get confused. Look at the problems we have on smart motorways.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


Yes, you've hit the nail on the head. Of course we (as in society at large) don't care. We've spent the last 40 years prioritising personal transport by car over everything else. Now we've hit the buffers in terms of road space and pollution, and people try to switch to cycling, we end up with people risking their lives as a result.

In reply to Sir Chasm:


Really? undertake the traffic and then squeeze in that small gap? that would really annoy the driver of the people carrier. I would do much as John arran - undertake all that traffic, with the risk of a car dooring, sit in the LH lane whilst intending to go straight on, and then filtering in.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Another reason to design the infastructure better. A certain proportion of people will always behave like t**ts (drivers and cyclists) no matter how much you educate people not to undertake, or check mirrors. And people make mistakes, its human nature.

Better design means many conflicts simply can't occur, as you design out the problems and potential for conflict.


Again, I'm not talking about exclusive segregated cycle lanes everywhere. There's other solutions that fit.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

You really don't think that it's mostly just that there's never the political will to do it because too many people can't imagine a world where they don't always travel by car and will scream blue murder at anything that looks like it might inconvenience them when they do so?

In reply to Ciro:


^ This seems to be the issue in London, cyclists going hell for leather. I wouldn't do that speed on busy urban roads, just not safe on a bike.

I'd say that's actually the problem in the video up thread too.... orange guy is so desperate not to get dropped by the 'pelaton' he ends up playing chicken with a truck. I just try to get to work safely, I'm on flexitime, don't need to race.

In reply to Jim Hamilton:


And when I "squeeze in" when I'm filtering in from a non-existant lane that's a good place to be is it?
It's fine for the people at the front of the left turn lane, as long as they're quick enough to get in front of the lorry, but everyone else is going to have to push in (I know, you want to call it filtering) and I'd rather push in into stationary traffic.

In reply to Phil79:








Bravo!

In reply to Sir Chasm:


What do you do when turning left at a t-junction? Wait for a traffic jam before you 'push in'?

In reply to Mike Stretford:


Don't be daft, i wait for a big lorry (preferably one with the driver on the phone) and no visible gap and squeeze in really slowly.

In reply to Sir Chasm:


From the safety of LH lane you can move forward into a safe space and pick up speed to filter in. Pushing in just in front of the people carrier seems to me like poor cycling. A bit like drivers who confronted with a lane closure sign immediately stop and try and turn into the open lane, rather than continuing and merging in turn.

In reply to Jim Hamilton:


It isn't a left hand lane, it's a mandated left turn lane - but nevermind, i don't see why pushing in front of the people carrier while it's not moving is worse than pushing in while it is moving but each to their own.
And while were on drivers, how would you view drivers sitting in the left turn lane expecting to go straight on?

In reply to Sir Chasm:



It's not a mandated left turn. There's an arrow but no wording written on the road instructing traffic to "Turn left".

See page 70.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/5...

In reply to Ramblin dave:


It's not financially prudent. Who is going to pay for this infrastructure.

Are there even any real figures on the level of cycling participation vs number of accidents?

50 people killed in urban environments in 2015. How many of them due to bad road layouts?

In reply to Sir Chasm:

The highway code talks about filtering.

In reply to Mike Stretford:

"> ^ This seems to be the issue in London, cyclists going hell for leather. I wouldn't do that speed on busy urban roads, just not safe on a bike.
..."

Staying with the flow of traffic is probably the safest way of not being squashed by a passing vehicle. Even then people will try and pass you before getting side by side with you and realising there's nowhere to go and then squashing you into the pavement anyway.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Fair enough.

In reply to FactorXXX:






Sadly some brainless idiots think those alternatives are a way forward. Ban people not in mega death metal machines from the streets. That's not kind of environment to bring kids up in at all.

In reply to Ciro:
Thanks for the description / picture. It sounds like there are still blind spots, though the mirror for seeing the front sounds a lot safer. It looks like the truck had the correct mirrors to me. The cyclist seemed to hit the truck at an angle difficult to cover.

I'm usually a staunch defender of cyclists but he shifts a good two feet to the right without looking in order to collide with the truck. Not sure how he didn't hear / see the truck to be honest.

In reply to Rigid Raider:
I've watched this again, mainly due to some accusations that the lorry driver was hurtling along. On the face of it it appears he speeds up into the cyclist.... but then I realised that the speed is all exaggerated due to the cyclist with the head cam braking to back off and stay behind the truck.

In real terms the lorry driver would just be just starting to make his way through the gears and in reality is going quite slowly, matching the speed of the cyclist.

Given the times, its quite reasonable that the lorry driver would have seen the front cyclists move ahead, check his LH mirror to probably see the headcam cyclist back off, then check his driver side mirror to see those cars that were on his side racing to cut him up there - hence tucking quickly left.

In real time it all happens quite quick, the cyclist was caught out by not simply being able to judge the speed and get in front of the cab. All the time being tucked well in the lorry's blind spot. In the time it took to get across the junction, the driver was having to do about 4 things at once as well as contend with something he couldn't see was there.

In reply to FreshSlate:


And the trouble with mirrors is that you have to be looking at them to see what they reveal. Most lorries have at least 3, plus the the need to look in front. You can't have them all in your vision at the same time.

In reply to Bellie:

I agree with all of this, but similarly to the speed point, the truck doesn't ever change direction, the cyclists turns right in order to merge at the pinch point. The truck is going straight.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:
Ciro posted a good image before showing a truck with various mirrors, probably around 7 in total and then you have to pay attention to the road ahead. No doubt they are trained and adept at doing so, however.

In reply to Lion Bakes:


Really?

Who are these brainless idiots? Have you met many?

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I'd love to be in that bloke's office.
He goes in claiming he nearly got killed by a HGV, lapping up all the sympathy, then once they've all seen the video and truth ... oh the embarrassment of being revealed as a total dick.
Credit cards? Video clips from fellow cyclists, priceless!

In reply to Hooo:


This. He thought he could cut in front, and he couldn't. If you were in a car and realised you were in a left turn lane you'd indicate and wait until someone lets you in. If you wanted to be dangerous you'd try and burn him off at the lights, like the cyclists did. You'd have caused the accident, not the lorry.

In reply to thomasadixon:

This. He thought he could cut in front, and he couldn't. If you were in a car and realised you were in a left turn lane you'd indicate and wait until someone lets you in..

To be honest, I'd probably be so embarrassed by my idiocy that I'd take the left turn and let the GPS do it's stuff!

In reply to FactorXXX:

The guys attitude was worse than his road sense. "Have you got that on film"? Like that throws a force field around him and/or will resurrect him when he has the HGV on top of him.

Why do cyclists think the rules don't apply to them....the rules that are there to retain a bit of order? some great undertaking of moving cars going on in the run up to the guys attempt to kill himself. I don't understand why they do that either, unless the vehicles are only moving at sub 5mph.

In reply to thomasadixon:

Technically if you are in the left lane (on any road layout) you must let the vehicle on your right overtake you. Regardless of what type of vehicle you're in/on. They're overtaking you, even at the lights. You then filter in turn on the other side of the road narrows.

I'm not sure what part of the Highway Code says you can 'burn off at the lights' but I'm sure it would be frowned upon by the police.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I wish I had seen this before there were 180 posts.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this but it's a shame the cyclist didn't stick around to exchange details nor Mr smug "I got all that on camera mate, we can make a complaint"

Had they gone to the police I would expect them to be prosecuted for dangerous riding.

I suspect the cyclist realised that as he started to calm down and buggered off sharpish.
I'm fairly sure it's also an offence to leave the sean (can't spell that) of an accident unless you think your in danger, then you can leave but are supposed to report it to the police later.

In reply to Wainers44:

I don't think it's fair to ask why cyclists don't think the rules apply to them, when it's not all cyclists who break traffic rules.

I think cyclists go down the inside of traffic because of how the highway code calls it filtering and warns driver's to be aware of it. I used to do that until I appreciated how unexpected it can be for anybody driving, and harder for drivers to see people doing that than when they're passing on the driver's side. Once I learnt that I started to pass on the driver's side instead.

In reply to Wainers44:

You mean why do some cyclists like some* drivers think the rules don't apply to them?

*most rather than some for this specific example from https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=666783

Test 1. Midday.
60% of cars speeding.
50% of lorries speeding.
20% motorcycles speeding.

Test 2. 6.00am

85% of cars speeding
90% of lorries speeding
No bikes recorded.

I'm glad I don't cycle or drive in London, looks terrifying!

In reply to elsewhere:












Agreed, my note was vague, I meant some!

In reply to Dax H:
If you look at the original YouTube posting it seems to have been posted by the guy with the camera, who participates in the lengthy comments section below the video.

youtube.com/watch?v=GHvIhC4rcXA&

(Link only works if you right click and choose open in new tab/window otherwise it just pops up within UKC)

In reply to Timmd:



I don't think some cyclists think. Undertaking a line of moving traffic is just a stupid thing to do. No it's not filtering it's just impatience.

It's a shocking tragedy every time a cyclist is seriously hurt on the roads, but there are as many sh*t cyclists on the roads as there are sh*t drivers proportionally speaking. Sad truth is though that the poor cyclist is the one who is more likely to be hurt due to their own, or the drivers actions.

In reply to Wainers44:

Nope it's filtering , get used to it.

In reply to Lion Bakes:


Yep I am used to it. No it's not filtering. Spent 10 years riding motorbikes watching for crap drivers, now see too many cyclists who think the rules don't apply to them. I wince at some of their antics.

BTW only time I have come close an accident while cycle commuting was when I was pushing the bike across a pedestrian crossing and a cyclist who ignored the red light nearly hit me...kind of ironic really.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:

Nutter

In reply to Lion Bakes:

Nope it's filtering , get used to it.

It's a bit of a grey area as this article explains: -

http://www.cyclelaw.co.uk/overtaking-and-filtering-whilst-cycling


If the incident in the OP ever went to court, what do you think would happen? I'm guessing the cyclist/cyclists would be deemed responsible.
What do you think?

In reply to FactorXXX:


No
E it'd be the knobber in the cab having to explain himself. Bringing a huge vehicle with very poor sight lines into the place is just pure idiocy.

In reply to Lion Bakes:



That would be the huge vehicle that delivers most of the food you (people) eat. The nobber is just a bloke trying to do his job isn't he?

In reply to Lion Bakes:

No
it'd be the knobber in the cab having to explain himself. Bringing a huge vehicle with very poor sight lines into the place is just pure idiocy.

What law has he broken?
You can't find people guilty because you think a law is incorrect!

In reply to Lion Bakes:


2/10. Poor effort.

In reply to Wainers44:

I'm glad you've decided that every cyclist you see undertaking is just being impatient, a nicely neutrally minded point of view.

Have you ever asked a filtering cyclist if they've driven a car or similar, and so understand how invisible they can be to drivers before deciding it's because they don't think?

It's easy to judge people and be wrong if you don't know what they're thinking, or what they're aware of. The only reason I stopped going past the passenger side at speed was after being a passenger in a car and seeing how cyclists seemed to appear from out of nowhere when undertaking. Before that, in the way that traffic generally fills any available space, it just seemed like an efficient use of the available tarmac and like a fairly reasonable thing to do. I genuinely didn't appreciate how much more dangerous it can be to undertake at speed.


When I started commuting I very quickly decided that being right didn't count for much if somebody knocked me off while I was cycling.

In reply to FactorXXX:
I think that the lorry driver would have shown a lack of care and failure to abide by the highway code in taking off as fast as he did when there are cyclists all around.

He accelerated into the cyclist, fast changing gears to do so, lorry driver goes down for attempted manslaughter.

In reply to jonnie3430:

I think that the lorry driver would have shown a lack of care and failure to abide by the highway code in taking off as fast as he did when there are cyclists all around.
He accelerated into the cyclist, fast changing gears to do so, lorry driver goes down for attempted manslaughter.

Have you read the article fully? If not, perhaps you should...
In short, the cyclists knowingly put themselves in danger by putting themselves in a position that was totally of their making. Riding up a 'Left Filter Lane' and then trying to rejoin the normal straight ahead traffic is both taking the piss and idiotic in equal measure. Factor in a HGV and you're approaching Darwinisque proportions.
The driver did nothing wrong - to say he did is wankish and a poor attempt to deflect blame.

In reply to duchessofmalfi:


He could argue that he saw the cyclists sitting in a left only lane, and assumed ( logically) that the cyclists would turn left.
(I'm a regular cyclist , granted not in London, which has , according to the cyclists, unwritten rules !)

In reply to Lion Bakes:

Nope it's filtering , get used to it.

What's your understanding of filtering?
I think it's a legimate technique that can be employed by cyclists/motorcyclists to negotiate stationary or slow moving traffic.
Do you think that should include using a 'Left Filter Lane' to get into a adventegous position. I Don't! What do you think?

In reply to FactorXXX:

I think you, and the lorry driver are being a wee bit melodramatic about this. The cyclists used the safest option to filter to the front of the traffic queue, they then rejoined normal traffic as thousands of cyclists do everyday. The lorry driver was having a bad morning, saw the cyclists using the left hand lane for filtering and decided that it wasn't on for some reason and was lucky not to kill someone.

The driver accelerated into the back of the cyclist, no matter how bad you think someone's cycling is, you cannot and you must never think that you can use your vehicle as a way to punish them. It was appalling driving, and the driver hopefully will find that out.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Just noticed a couple of other things about this after reading some of the youtube comments.

The cyclist who was hit moved right to hit the truck, if he had had any awareness that the truck was there he would have held his line or hopped up onto the kerb to avoid it.

The cyclist in the yellow helmet spotted the danger and held back to fall behind the truck.

It's pretty clear to me that the junction doesn't need redesigning, it just needs a bit of common sense.

In reply to Timmd:



Sorry but you keep calling this filtering and it isn't. Cyclists...vehicles or whoever filtering into a lane of traffic, from another lane or a junction is something totally different in my view. As for rushing to judgement on their motive for undertaking, even if it isn't impatience, it's demonstrably an impatient act isn't it?


See, you thought about the consequences and changed your behaviour, kind of proves my point about others who don't think!

In reply to jonnie3430:

Clearly not that safe as we've witnessed. Especially not on the left hand side of an articulated lorry. That's the situation you just let the truck go and overtake it later. Far too dangerous.


? You're assuming motive here.


The truck was accelerating because he was pulling from a set of lights. He wasn't going hell for leather, he's driving a truck not an aerial atom. Not exactly quick off the mark those articulated lorries are they? The cyclist should have seen the large and slow moving truck and avoided it.

In reply to jonnie3430:


isn't that an oxymoron?

In reply to Glyno:

I think it might be in English law, but it is definitely the accepted English translation of a crime in other legal systems. I used to see it quite often in the Finnish English language news.

In reply to FreshSlate:

We assume the lorry driver hasn't seen the rider he hits, but what about the 2 or 3 ahead ? Both the front and rear near side wheels of his cab are over the lines at the edge of the road, and very soon he will be bearing down on the cyclists. Now you can argue that they shouldn't be there either, and the driver is having to contend with cars on his right trying to get past him, but the position of that lorry scares the bejeezus out of me.

So for all of you who think this is acceptable driving on acceptable road layouts, the question is this:

Does this footage make you more or less likely to commute by bike ?

For me, if I couldn't avoid this sort of junction and had to contend with lorries being driven like that, I'd take the car

In reply to Wainers44:

It's not always going to be impatient act. I'm guessing that if you saw a clear lane of road, you would drive down it. The same (thought process) applied to me when cycling down the passenger side of traffic where there was space (until I appreciated the risks). I've come across people who don't cycle, who don't like that they have to wait in traffic while people cycle past them, and then project things like impatience onto the people cycling past, but this can be a mistake. In my case, it just seemed like the logical thing to do to make progress through the traffic where there was available space, which stopped after I was a passenger on one occasion and appreciated how hard it can be for anybody driving to see people who cycle past like this.


But you can't think about what you don't know to think about. I was only able to realise how hard it is for drivers to see cyclists when they pass on the passenger side.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

I'd say because of the junction and the merging lanes, he would be able to gain usual road positioning once clear.

I'm sorry but looking at the evidence there is nothing to suggest the lorry is being driven anything other than normally. The only contention here is the daft cyclists. So I'd more concerned if I was a lorry driver because no matter how carefully you drive, a cyclist is going to come off worst and so its a no win situation.

In reply to jonnie3430:

Well done on a. being a mind reader, and b. not analysing the evidence. If you did, you would see the lorry driver is not accelerating wildly to play chicken with the cyclist. See my post upthread.

I think the driver will find out there wasn't a problem with his driving.

In reply to Bellie:

Agree completely. The lorry driver is all shouty and sweary because he's nearly killed the knobhead who was in his blind spot and was trying to race him to a pinch point. Mr "I've got it on camera!" doesn't exactly help either, especially as the video completely exonerates the lorry driver.

In reply to Bellie:

And that's my point- if that is 'normal' and 'acceptable' then I don't think it's safe for me to be there on a bike, so I'll go for the easiest alternative- the car I already own.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Would you not agree that if the cyclist had obeyed the law, then it would not even have been a problem here?

I accept that in many places road layouts do not encourage cyclists, and that to do so would require a better policy all-round, but to use the word 'acceptable' - implying that you don't think it is, in terms of the driving, when the issue if there is one is the road layout itself and the cyclist, isn't fair on the lorry driver.

I'd add that I've been knocked off my bike before so I am not unsympathetic to fellow cyclists.

In reply to TobyA:

Yes, it's utter nonsense in English law.

In reply to jonnie3430:



The video seems to have been removed, but I cycle everywhere and i disagree. With the truck going straight ahead, and the curb curving round to the right, the cyclist was always going to get hit if he timed it wrong due to being in the truck driver's blind spot.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

If it had been a car which had deliberately gone into the wrong lane in order to undertake the lorry, had ignored the 'left turn only' signs, and had then tried to cut in front of the lorry I doubt there would be any question that the car driver was at fault. Why should it be different for a cyclist?

In reply to Howard J:

Except that it's not a 'left turn only' sign.

The issue is that the cyclists are undertaking the lorry. They're not filtering. They're physically trying to beat the lorry off the lights. Effectively drag racing a lorry. Madness.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Or just wait behind the lorry? Or don't play chicken with a large vehicle with blind spots?

In reply to DancingOnRock:


Doesn't the bloody great left turn arrow on the road and lack of a lane going forwards kind of indicate it is a left turn only lane?

In reply to DancingOnRock:

If it wan't for the way the road narrowed it mightn't be so bad, but as it is it is pretty mad.

In reply to Wainers44:
That should be. '' I was only able to realise how hard it is for drivers to see cyclists when they pass on the passenger side after sitting in a car and experiencing it.''

In reply to DancingOnRock:



Madness? Bikes will beat a lorry, and most other vehicles for acceleration up to about 20mph at the average crossroads. That's why this is so unusual, the lorry keeping up with the bikes. I have never seen it, obviously the cyclists have never seen it either, otherwise they would not be doing what they are!

And they are filtering in the safest space available. If that was a bike lane, but without a stop box would it be any different?

In reply to Dax H:


No.

Have a read of the thread. It's been pointed out several times already.

In reply to jonnie3430:

Yes. A bike lane would continue on the other side of the junction.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Watching the video again I think the cyclist underestimated the acceleration of the lorry; it looks empty and moves off very briskly.

In reply to jonnie3430:
Does it matter what sort of lane it is?

If you are changing lanes it is your responsibility to do so safely.

In reply to FactorXXX:

Driving with out due care and attention.

In reply to Rigid Raider:
Watching that video gave me sweaty palms even before the incident with the lorry. If that sort of cycling is normal in London (undertaking in briskly moving traffic), I'm surprised the carnage isn't worse.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

No, if you haven't noticed, they cut out randomly wherever the designer decides.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I agree. There were enough cyclists to presume normal behavior, so what was the different factor this time?

In reply to Lion Bakes:


Surely you mean riding without due care and attention?

It is the cyclist that changes lanes when it is not clear to do so

In reply to jonnie3430:


Lorries pack some serious horsepower and an unloaded one can accelerate pretty bloody quickly, so maybe you should take that and the video into account next time you try and beat one at the lights.

In reply to timjones:



No I mean the lorry driver as I made clear.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

The left turn may not be mandatory, and ignoring it may not be an offence in itself, but if you do and go on to be involved in an accident you'll have some explaining to do.

If a car had used the left turn lane to undertake the lorry, then moved across into the lorry's lane and been hit there would be little doubt that the car driver was at fault.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

I couldn't watch the video for some reason, maybe the uploaded removed it. I do however know the junction well and have seen similar situations all over London many times, including one serious accident where a girl got squashed during a manoeuvre undertaking a lorry. I now live away from London, and my life is much better for it and I'm beginning to like humanity again.

The essential problem is pack behaviour and lack of patience. Firstly people see one 'cool dude' do something stupid like undertake an hgv and they feel a wally for hanging back patiently.which brings me to the second point which is the complete lack of patience in London, which sadly gets cyclists killed. Lastly, and probably contaversially (I don't know in this video because I couldn't watch it), south London is literally full of young(20-30) continental (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Brazilian (on Portugal passport)) at the moment (especially Brixton where I lived for 4 years). Few of whom have read the Highway Code and there don't appear to be any public information broadcasts these days. Most of whom, especially the ones I used to hang around with, cycle either to work or one of the central universities. They are simply ignorant and desperate to not look a wally.

How can dangerous cycling be prevented? The laws have to be enforced. A couple of police on random junctions each morning with a simultaneous public information advertising campaign would go a long way. I remember in 2013, there was a summer campaigns around the embankment junction traffic lights aimed at cyclists jumping reds that worked really we'll for3 months! I saw several on the spot fines get issued.

In reply to Lion Bakes:

Why the lorry driver, he did nothing wrong. If he hadn't been on the ball the cyclist would have paid a hefty price for.his foolhardy riding.

In reply to Chris the Tall:


Once the bikes are in front, they are in front, the lorry driver would stay behind them, the same as a car. There's nothing to suggest he was going to mow down half a dozen cyclists in some fit of rage.



I'd always be placing myself behind the lorry unless I was at the front, it's absolute maddness to be stuck behind other cyclists and hope that you all get through.

The lorry drove in a straight line, across a junction, he did nothing remotely dangerous. The only way to avoid that cyclist would be to swerve into oncoming traffic.

There are a lot of videos / threads which make me feel uncomfortable at the standards of driving of some people and their treatment of cyclists, including physical confrontation. This wasn't one of them. Whilst pissed off, the driver was willing to stop and exchange details.

In reply to DancingOnRock:



That's semantics and you know it.
2 lanes heading in to a junction.
1 Lane at the other side of the junction.
Left lane has a left only arrow.
Right lane probably has a forward only arrow.
There is no mechanism for people in the left lane to go forwards due to the road design.
The right lane is a straight line to the continuation of that lane at the other side of the junction.

A car making the move that the cyclists did would end up in court for dangerous driving yet the cyclist is in the right?

I haven't checked but apparently the video has been taken down. Maybe the guy posting it realised how in the wrong they were for being there. There have been cases of the police visiting drivers due to their you tube clips, I wonder if that happend in this case.

In reply to Dax H:

3 lanes at the junction.

I think it more like likely, if this thread anything to go by, video taken down because of the opprobrium the cyclists receiving on social media.

Cycling at the weekend and was in a right hand lane (turning right!) at a T junction. The driver behind right on my tail revving the engine presumably thinking I should have been in the empty LH lane to let him by. You can't win!

In reply to Bellie:


Of course, and if all motorists obeyed the laws they'd be a lot less death on the roads.

But instead of seeing the problem as cyclists behaving likes dickeads and drivers being aggressive, I see humans being humans. Everyone's actions in the video is completely understandable and even predictable given the appalling road layout and the volume of traffic. Conflict is inevitable, collisions will occur.

How do we stop cyclists behaving like dickheads? Provide infrastructure that provides them the security and convenience they desire.

Why should cyclists be allowed convenience if it means inconveniencing drivers? Because cycling is a far more efficient and far less polluting method of moving people round a city than cars. Go to Belgium or Holland at rush hour and you won't see this sort of behaviour from either the cyclists or the motorists. You'll also see a much greater range of people on bikes, not just the young, adrenaline fuelled men.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

In reply to Chris the Tall:

No, you aren't the only dreamer (earworm alert!) For example, I know of the Derbyshire Cycle Plan which aims to address some of these concerns in the county, so I'm sure this kind of thing is being duplicated across the country.

In the video, the first moments sum up much of what you mention. As vehicles approach the junction it becomes a bit of a free for all. Cyclists, cars, all probably thinking... must get ahead of the lorry.

Off the top of my head, apart/as well as the cheaper option of an advanced stop line, if you wished to get more riders of all types out there, would be for a light system which goes green for cyclists first, and gives them a chance to head off, before motorised traffic.

Sadly, for all too long, there hasn't been a good plan for a joined up transport infrastucture.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Or you could train cyclists properly to the same standard as drivers.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

I'm not sure the road layout can be described as "appalling". You have a situaion where a fairly wide road on one side of a junction faces a narrower exit - not uncommon in towns and cities The "left turn only" signage is a strong hint that the left lane is obstructed ahead, and in any event it seems very likely that all these cyclists are regular commuters and know the road. Why couldn't they take their place in the correct lane, especially with a lorry ahead which is a particular hazard for cyclists?

It may well be entirely understandable and predictable that cyclists will behave in this way, but that is because they have become accustomed to ignoring the rules of the road with impunity. Part of the problem is that cycling in this country has become dominated by cycling enthusiasts - as you point out, in other countries where cycling is normalised you see far less of this behaviour.

I entirely agree that better infrastructure is the answer, and properly designed it benefits all road users and not just cyclists.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

As most cyclists are also drivers they've already been trained.

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

The clip is still available to view on Daily Mail Online and I am pleased to see that the said publication gives the cyclist its full support.

In reply to Sir Chasm:

Most?

Neither of my kids are old enough to drive but they've both had cycling training but very basic via Bikability.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

The Daily Mail always take the view that will create the most outrage.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Yes, most cyclists will also be drivers, which makes the "us and them" mentality even more strange.

In reply to jonnie3430:


*A* bike can usually beat a lorry.
When *many* bikes try to beat the lorry, tail end Charlie has put himself in a dangerous position

In reply to Howard J:


A "strong hint" isn't really enough if everything else about the situation is channelling cyclists into the worst possible position. Cyclists have got plenty of stuff competing for their attention, and it's natural that seeing a cycle lane approaching the junction a lot of them will assume - as is almost always the case - that it's where you're meant to cycle if you're approaching the junction, and won't notice the road markings and deduce the existence of the as-yet invisible hazard that they're trying to keep them away from until it's too late.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

If they or anyone for that matter doesn't notice a massive white arrow on the road they shouldn't be on the road.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


The big f*** off lorry was hardly invisible and needing it's existence deducing from subtle cues.

In reply to Chris the Tall:











Absolutely agree, and you're not. In Ghent, where I cycled a couple of times, it struck me how numerous and varied the cyclists and their bikes were, how little lycra there was about, and how the city seemed to invite people to cycle. In the district of terraced streets where we stayed, at least one parking space per street was given over to cycle parking. Mixing HGVs and bikes in the same narrow road space is bound to lead to horrific accidents and so is best avoided by design, where possible.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Yeah right

youtube.com/watch?v=o5Px7gGothk& or take your pick of the hundreds of others

In reply to Ramblin dave:

Where is the cycle lane you're talking about?

In reply to DancingOnRock:


Seriously?
This is one video of a cyclist being a dick. There are plenty of videos of trained car drivers doing worse - endangering other people, not just themselves.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


Damn you. That's my afternoon screwed.

In reply to Hooo:
What's your point? There's probably hundreds of videos of cyclists being dicks as well.

Car drivers have to have hours of training and pass a test and if they're found to drive badly loose their licences.

Cyclists don't.

It takes about 5 hours to learn to drive a car and hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours of road sense to become truly proficient at it.

I cycled in traffic from the age of 11, which gave me 6 years of experience before I got behind the wheel of a car. The only training I had was a couple of hours of cycling Profficency.

Personally I think the Highway Code should be taught and tested in schools.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Pedestrians have to cross roads too, and what's to stop them walking along them? They should have to pass highway code tests too, if they fail they're not allowed to walk outside of their house unless they are accompanied by someone who has passed.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

- The chances of a 3rd party being seriously hurt by the actions of a cyclist will be several magnitudes smaller compared to the actions of a driver.
- Cycling is good for you whereas driving is not.
- Cycling is environmentally friendly whereas driving is not.

We should be encouraging more cycling and less driving. You don't encourage people to cycle by putting onerous and expensive barriers in the way to them getting on the roads.

I've no aversion to the Highway Code being taught in schools. Or the work place, if my daily driving experiences are anything to go by.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

From the West Midlands Police Traffic Blog.

https://trafficwmp.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/junction-malfunction-and-a-new-...

'Now for those who will no doubt be spitting out their finest percolated roasted bean brew at this moment screaming “what about the cyclists !” well…….statistical analysis shows they aren’t to blame, innocent in the majority of KSI collisions it would be a waste of our time, and thus public time and money to concentrate on cyclist behaviour. The figures speak for themselves…….driver’s don’t let your prejudices get in the way of the truth…….

Cyclists don’t cause us, as an organisation, problems, that’s because they aren’t causing our communities problems, they aren’t killing nearly 100 people on our regions roads as mechanically propelled vehicles currently do. Yes we do get complaints of the “nuisance” variety, pavement cycling, some anti-social behaviour (usually yobs on bikes rather than “cyclists”), red light running etc. but you get the idea, most peoples interpretation of “1st world problems” or the “modern day blues”, nothing that’s a priority for a force like our own in a modern day society. Bad cycling is an “irritant” to the wider community rather than a danger, and maybe an improvement in infrastructure and policing may alieve many of the reasons that cause a very small minority of cyclists to be an “irritant”

In reply to jonnie3430:

No, they're only bound by a small section of the Highway Code. For example, I'm pretty sure it's not illegal to cross the road when the lights are against you.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:

So, cyclist who get involved in road rage are not a problem that the police feel warrants their attention.

Fair enough.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Totally agree.

Reading and understanding the Highway Code doesn't seem expensive and onerous.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Pardon the Daily Mail link, but the video can be seen here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4668054/Cyclist-nearly-crushed-lorr...

In reply to DancingOnRock:



Where does it say that?

In reply to DancingOnRock:



You suggested having cyclists trained to the same level drivers are, which is expensive and onerous. Especially these days.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

I'm not going to watch the lot but, from what I've seen, most of those incidents are trivial and anyone who drives in a busy city through the week will predict and avoid incidents like that. My problem is with those who only drive at the weekends and are both nervous, selfish and crap. Bit like those who didn't grow up cycling to school, in fact.

In reply to Mike Highbury:

Yep, about half of them seem to be mistakes by one motorist exacerbated by the dashcam vehicle driving too fast through obvious hazards like junctions, roundabouts and roads with poor visibility for drivers to pull out onto. Half the roundabouts here in Bristol have cars absolutely flying round them, which makes attempting to join them distinctly unpleasant.

In reply to DancingOnRock:
My point is that training to the standard required to pass a driving test doesn't stop people driving like a dick.
It was in response to your suggestion that we should train cyclists to the same standard as car drivers, so pretty relevant to your point.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:


The cost is due to expensive machines and a requirement for one to one training.

The theory test is £23.

In reply to Hooo:


It pretty much does. If it didn't and everyone drove with no regards to the traffic laws it would be chaos and carnage.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Purely out of interest, do you think the cycling helped in any way towards gaining the road sense needed to drive a car?

In reply to Timmd:

Definitely.

I'd go so far as to say that anyone applying for a driving licence should have logged 100hours on a bicycle. With apps like Strava, that shouldn't be too hard to do.

There would be obvious medical exceptions, some could be got round by using tricycles.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

That's encouraging to hear. I failed my first driving test due to anxiety issues at the time, more than ten years ago now, and have been cycling everywhere ever since. I'm hoping my general traffic anticipation and desire to survive will translate into driving well, now I no longer have to deal with past crapness.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

Your point would have some validity if they were strangers to this particular section of road but I get the feeling they're very familiar with it. Hence the "London" comment/ excuse.

In reply to Tom Valentine:
It's hard not to hear it as an excuse a little bit. You've got to be sensible in the end even if others aren't. That video makes me goosebump a little bit, with how close the cyclist came to being hurt.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:
I don't mind a badly behaved cyclist being an "irritant " to me, running red lights, riding two abreast in inadvisable situations or ignoring a left turn only lane and scraping the side of my car (not much, anyway); what I do mind is the possibility of legal action taken against me, financial penalties, loss of driving licence, negative media coverage and so on in a situation where I complied with the law completely and the cyclist, who was a bit of a chancer, failed to have things go his way.
The cretin in the film clip was an "irritant" only because he got away unscathed.
If he had been killed it would have impacted on the driver's life massively, far beyond the point of irritation, and through absolutely no fault of his own.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Are you seriously claiming that car drivers never drive like dickheads?
Maybe on your planet, but round here they have less regard for other road users than the average cyclist.