Protest at Bank 8am tomorrow morning

if we bought a new machine-tool at work, That occasionally spat-out a red hot piece of metal, at head-height, at high speed. We would not expect the supplier to suggest we send our operators on a ‘ducking’ course

No but you would expect your operators to go on a course on the safe operation of the machine, would you not? In any work environment, safety is drilled into us, even office workers.

Construction of the Golden Gate bridge started in 1933, Joseph Strauss as overseer of construction made some, at the time ground breaking, decisions based on his desire to beat the forecast number of Deaths for a project that size, He made workers wear hard hats for the first time, and had catch nets set up under workers as He had noted that most of the Deaths on similar projects were people falling from steelwork, Those who’s lives were saved by the netting formed an exclusive little group calling themselves “Half Way to Hell Club”…

That all sounds a bit obvious now with 20/20 hindsight and standard practise on all construction sites including these and many more methods of improving safety in that particular sphere but it shows the impact that someone just implementing safety measures rather than debating and/or waiting for various committees and groups to support them can have…

I’d say British road safety design is at about the same point that 1930’s Construction safety was at before Strauss and the golden gate, a certain level of deaths amongst Pedestrians and cyclists is all but accepted at present, beating the statistics, “doing better” isn’t really prioritised as a goal.

There’s an obvious correlation for a several of the cyclist deaths in recent years, ultimately what is needed is a clear decisive measure that will address that correlation directly, it’s success will only be measured by a reduction in KSA’s on British Roads… it’s that simple.
Whatever you do will be unpopular with some interested group or another.

Anyone fancy taking up that crusade?

thought this thread might be due a revival after the results of a recent inquest:

http://road.cc/content/news/157528-cyclist-s-death-down-moment-s-lapse-concentration-says-coroner

CCTV shown to the court showed Baldassa cycle towards the delivery lorry before moving up its left-hand side as it began to turn. Coroner Mary Hassell told the court: “It was surprising to me that Federica carried on cycling when the lorry was indicating and started to turn. I’m afraid I think that is the most significant contributory factor.”
Collision investigator, Paul De Neys, said Baldassa would have been visible in two of lorry driver Marek Sewilo’s mirrors for no more than a second and a half, but pointed out that at that moment, Sewilo should have been looking in front of him. Hassell agreed, saying: “I can’t identify anything to do with the driving of the lorry that was a contributory factor in the collision.”

very sad, that some cyclists still make such an obvious and dangerous move

🙁

so sad, once pulled a cyclist back from undertaking a bus when it was just starting to turn left, literally grabbed her and hauled her backwards. So easy to do and you should never do it unless you know 100% you can get in front of the vehicle before it moves.

I think it adds to the case for not having large lorries and cyclists mixing in town centers at bussy peak times. What may seem to be an obviosue mistake to one is not to another, small silly mistakes in a public shared enviroment when travelling to work should not result in death.

I do around 10 hours a week on my commute through London and I have to say that I hardly see any cyclists riding defensively.
I feel very sad for the family of this lady but also feel for the guy driving the truck who undoubtedly is having the worst day of his life. Everyone makes mistakes but a hell of a lot of the cyclists I see don’t seem to realise that their mistakes can end very badly. Rule one in London, drive like everyone can’t see you and even if they do assume that they will still do something stupid..

The truck driver in the OP? I’d hold your sympathy until you’re sure he did nothing wrong.

Awful for the family of the cyclist, the driver and his family as well.

The knee jerk reaction of some on here that drivers are always at fault and x,y and z should be bank d frustrates me. No doubt vehicle design and road layouts must be reviewed, but that won’t save a cyclist who makes the wrong decision at the wrong time.

Better cycle and driver training will reduce such incidents, as long as humans are involved, you will never eradicate them.

Attitudes of drivers will not change until we manage to get “strict liability” implemented in the UK

The chances of achieving this nirvana however…

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/strict-liability-law-for-motorists

“very sad, that some cyclists still make such an obvious and dangerous move”

Don’t blame the cyclist here. Can’t find the piece now but this has a bus stop just before a side road and shortly before a larger junction. Second land is marked as “straight on” so even if truck was indicating cyclist could have reasonably thought truck was turning further on.

This junction has had 77 collisions in the last 10 years. Of those, 29 involved cyclists, three of whom were killed. Council has taken no action to make the road layout safer. Council has been told that the bus stop is dangerously close to the junction but won’t move it.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.518663,-0.1219054,21z/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

The knee jerk reaction of some on here that drivers are always at faul

It is knee jerk reaction but to be fair most accidents it is the drivers fault. In this case it is terrible that due to bad road layouts that this situation can ocur. Yes training but to expect everyone who is poodling about on a bike to be better trained than most car drivers (because that is what would be required, it takes more skill to ride well in traffic than drive) is unreasoble.

I think the opinion of a coroner, who is a cyclist, and who has seen CCTV footage, is probably the one people need to take note of?

Driver training, road layout and strict liability are unlikely to have saved this poor woman, from reading that report.

It may help in other cases, obviously.

You do realise that the inquest is for a different incident than the one in the OP? Save your sympathy for the driver in the OP.

Also do you really think the road layout didn’t contribute at all to the one you are now discussing?

Most fundamentally, whatever the coroner might say, there is something wrong here if such a small mistake results in your death. If we put this in an industrial context, it’s like having no guards on machine tools, so that a small slip results in losing your fingers (but worse). If we designated these roads as workplaces I’m sure HSE would be shutting lots of them down after all these incidents – to be honest I’m not quite sure why it is HSE can’t investigate and prosecute such incidents given the drivers are working and they’re quite happy to investigate and prosecute where members of the public are injured or killed due to negligence of people working in other circumstances. The driver being “not at fault” is only in the context of the acceptance we have of this sort of death toll – fundamentally he is still driving around in a machine which is killing people far too easily.

I’m aware which case the report refers to.

Have to disagree about the guards and fingers. Going up the inside of a signalling/turning vehicle per the coroner’s case is using the machine with the guards removed.

In that coroner’s case, the cyclist made the wrong choice and paid a terrible price. Like misjudging how to pack your parachute. There will always be an element of personal responsibility.

There were never any guards on the machine. The parachute analogy is a poor one, as in that case there are no outside factors involved (well it’s poor for all sorts of other reasons, but that’s the main one). HSE doesn’t in general accept “personal responsibility” as an excuse for not having systems in place to prevent deaths from minor mistakes in the workplace – I’ve certainly seen reports where somebody has been seriously injured due to their own fault where the employer has been prosecuted for not having sufficient safeguards in place.

Problem is that using the roads always has to be using the machine without the guards. It can’t really be any other way. Make a mistake in the wrong place and it can be fatal. Sitting in your car waiting to turn right, get it wrong and you are T-boned by the bloke coming the other way at 60. You don’t deserve to die because of a mistake, but sadly you do.

“I think the opinion of a coroner, who is a cyclist, and who has seen CCTV footage”

I used to think that if someone was a cyclist they were almost certainly fundamentally OK. Having seen the willingness to excuse drivers and apportion blame to cyclists when unaware of any of the fact by people on here I realise it no longer counts for much.

Just because the coroner has ridden a bike doesn’t make her immune from the motor centric attitude that is the norm, and which treats death on the roads as acceptable collateral damage.