http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22000276

Which is an unbelievably low number, and a good sign of the skill and training the drivers have.

lets not forget a bus has limited rear and side visibility only mirrors,has to stop frequently to let passengers on or off and pulls out of laybys frequently,along with its length and width and slower acceleration.

Also if a driver is found guilty of a driving offence he may well loose his job and licence.

It’s an unbelievably high number. Any vehicle which cannot be driven in safe way needs to be modified so that it can.

Are you talking about the bus or the fixie skidder bicycle greybeard?

Any vehicle which cannot be driven in safe way needs to be modified so that it can.

curious as to how you can redisgn a bus, it needs 2 or more axles with wheels boths sides, so it doent fall over glass windows to keep out the weather, oh and a driver who has to have frequent medicals a CPC certificate and a psv driving licence.

I think some city bike riders need redesigning. That said, I’ve been party to some truly awful bus driving too. 50/50 really. If you put thousands of moving objects piloted by people in a packed in space is it not inevitable that every now and again they’ll crash into each other?

GB

That’s only going to be for reported stats.

The actual number is likely far higher.

Buses are about the worst on the roads.
Most of the time when they pull into a stop they’re angled slightly front end in, the wing mirrors are TINY compared to lorries and they don’t stick out anywhere near enough which gives them massive blind spots when they come to pull away from a stop.

But they’re good to slipstream and generally the drivers seem pretty competent (IME anyway or that maybe just because I give buses a very wide berth!)

And as mentioned, some of the riding standards I see day in day out leave a LOT to be desired.

project – Member

Also if a driver is found guilty of a driving offence he may well loose his job and licence.

Lose FFS.
I wouldn’t mention it but it’s pandemic.

One of our local bus drivers hit a cyclist.
Now this happened on a guided busway (if you’re unfamiliar with the concept just google “white elephant”) and the cyclist should not have been on it, but what’s even worse than someone who only has to deal with the controls “go” and “stop” getting it wrong, was the bus company spokesman who stated that they were happy the driver had done everything they should have.
👿
How hard can it be?
Pedal on the left to stop, pedal on the right to run them over.
Whoops! 😳

Which is an unbelievably low number

It is if you’ve been brainwashed into accepting the number of road casualties as being normal.

I find the standard of bus driving in London very good.
You get the odd numpty who feels the need to race you, but other than that they are very respectful to the good, bad and suicidal cyclists on the capital’s roads.
I have never been hit by a bus, but I have crashed my bike into a couple… 😳

After being knocked off by a bus just over a year ago, with both me and person I was riding with being lit up and dressed like something from Tron, my claim is about 2 weeks away from being settled. Wriitten off bike, kit and injuries, which are all healed, driver charged after not stopping. As I am in Scotland I used a company called Cycle Law Scotland , part!of Thompsons Solicitors and they have got it all sorted in 2 months for me, after me trying to sort it all myself, and the bus company’s claims company not doing anything for 6 months.

A bus driver has to do something really appalling to get disciplined, the get out clause are the words ‘I couldn’t brake hard because an old lady was standing up and may have fallen’.

Some London bus drivers are excellent but the training is nowhere near as good now as it was under london Transport.

curious as to how you can redisgn a bus

I think you highlighted the problem in your original post

a bus has limited rear and side visibility only mirrors

Surely technology could improve on this. There’s a lot of money being spent on technology in other industries to reduce risks which are statistically much better than this.

I got almost killed by a Dairy Crest milk delivery driver a year ago. Dairy Crest. Dairy Crest you say? Yes, DAIRY CREST. He attempted to push me into oncoming vehicles whilst laughing. As I slowed, he slowed. As I sped, he sped. I couldn’t get past him and then he pushed me into oncoming cars. I was stuck in the middle of the road and luckily I was ok. As he went past he did a **** sign and shouted at me to **** off. T’was a funny DAIRY CREST driver game. Oh how I laughed a milky ha ha DAIRY CREST laugh. I phoned the company and they did nothing.

Ah. Dairy Crest. Great drivers. Great milk. Great drivers.

Don’t forget we need to know how many were wearing amazing plastic crash helmets that save your life and protect your body and legs. We are also missing information regarding the value of the homes the casualties/victims lived in.

Round here the HGV drivers are courteous and competent.
The cars drivers are OK.
4×4 drivers are scary.
PSV drivers are in with 4x4s.
White vans are spectacularly bad.

I generalise of course. I haven’t been hit and the only hit I’ve seen happen was a small white car that turned left collecting the roadie he was passing. New bike required, but the roadie was walking.

I probably shouldn’t mention this opinion on a cycling forum, but, as a cyclist who commutes through the centre of Brighton everyday, I’m suprised the number is that low. There are some right numpty cyclists doing stupid stuff around buses daily. Yes I’m sure there are also bad bus drivers, but there are a lot more bad cyclists (in Brighton at least)!

van cough cough – Member

Ah. Dairy Crest. Great drivers.

The safest place for a shit driver is in front of you. 🙂

I agree with the OP, that would seem to be a pretty low number considering the frequency of cyclists mingling with buses.

First in Sheffield I have had no problems. The others seem less aware/disciplined as far as cyclists are concerned.
A National Express coach made some dodgy decisions wrt overtaking that I wouldn’t have done in my much shorter car.
I have seen cyclists in London do stuff I wouldn’t do myself. Having lived there though I think London road users are better than average; crowded roads with recognition for more “give and take”.

Which is an unbelievably low number, and a good sign of the skill and training the drivers have.

Seriously?

Buses have hit 3,591 pedestrians and 1,219 cyclists since 2007, Transport for London said.

So assuming about 2/3 of these get reported, that means 3 people get knocked over by a bus every day in London. About 1 in every 1500 people living in London has been hit by a bus in the past 6 years.

I probably shouldn’t mention this opinion on a cycling forum, but, as a cyclist who commutes through the centre of Brighton everyday, I’m suprised the number is that low. There are some right numpty cyclists doing stupid stuff around buses daily. Yes I’m sure there are also bad bus drivers, but there are a lot more bad cyclists (in Brighton at least)!

Tend to agree, I got verbally abused by a cyclist on my inside while slowing/waiting to turn left and letting them through. Not sure if we would have preferred me run him over?

Actually technically should cyclists be undertaking?

Cycle-bus collisions

2007: 274
2008: 272
2009: 233
2010: 198
2011: 135
2012: 107

Good to see the trend going downwards despite in the increase in the number of cyclists on the roads. They must be doing something right.

whatnobeer – Member

Good to see the trend going downwards despite the increase in the number of cyclists on the roads.

It’s possibly because of the increase in cyclists, although there are people that won’t agree with me on that.

Reminds me of……

A couple of years ago I had stopped in Whitehall at the top end near T Sq and my bicycle was on its stand in a bus stop, bus driver swings in and the boon of the bus hits my bike and sends it flying, I board the bus and explain what happened and the driver basically tells me to F off, I tell him if he drives off without giving details then its hit and run and get off bus, I bring it to the attention of a passing PCSO, who brings it to the attention of a Police officer, who brings it to the attention of a passing Police traffic unit. The bus driver then became my best mate and thought that cyclists were great. Funny that.

I had a bus driving going mental on his horn at me. Apparently I was not riding in the gutter as he expected me to. Thing is he wanted to overtake me to pull over at a bus stop 10m ahead of me.

They’re not renowned for their intelligence bus drivers, unlike black cab drivers! 🙄

IME accidents are dropping as the number of cyclists are increasing year-on-year so they have no option to be mindful as we’re everywhere.

Were the other 95% of impacts just joking around then?

They’re not renowned for their intelligence bus drivers, unlike black cab drivers!

Memory and intelligence are not the same thing.

Shocked someone is short signed enough to suggest a bus couldn’t be redesigned.

Sent people to the moon? Check.
Dropped a dude at the fringe of space with nothing but a parachute? Check.
Connected millions of computers around the world to one giant network? Check.
Sent a little robot to Mars to take pictures and analyse rocks? Hell yeah, check.

Redesign a bus? Ah now lets not be irrational here.

buses could easily be redesigned, bigger mirrors and more of them, brushes round the wheel arches to stop spray on wet days, rear cameras for reversing etc.
but all of these advancements cost money, and while we have private companies who are accountable to shareholders running bus services they are unlikely to happen on a widespread level.
im a bus driver, in 10 years ive never seen a cyclist or pedestrian get hurt near any bus ive been driving (had a guy cark it on the bus mind)
i have seen a fair few near misses, roughly 50/50 between drivers and cyclists in terms of blame.

I always found the vision surprisingly good when driving a bus in london, I think that the improved perfomance is problem as you can get yourself in a bad situation quicker than you can get out of it. The old RM’s had awful vision but were a lot slower so you could keep out of trouble.

I have to say, having commuted virtually every day by bike for 8 or 9 years, you would have to put yourself in some seriously questionable situations to get even close to being hit by a bus. I honestly don’t believe I ever have, just because it’s so obvious where the danger zones are around them, and they don’t (in my experience) tend to just drive into you otherwise.

Probably tempting fate there, but never mind!

I have to say, having commuted virtually every day by bike for 8 or 9 years, you would have to put yourself in some seriously questionable situations to get even close to being hit by a bus.

I would have thought that the largeness and bright redness of London’s buses is quite sufficient for most people to be able to actively avoid coming into contact with them. 😀

Buses have hit 3,591 pedestrians and 1,219 cyclists since 2007, Transport for London said.

So assuming about 2/3 of these get reported, that means 3 people get knocked over by a bus every day in London. About 1 in every 1500 people living in London has been hit by a bus in the past 6 years.

Eh? How did you get to that number – you need to consider how many people are in London on any one day, and then go from there.

Lets say 8m live in London and another 8m within the metropolitian area. So 16m people, and buses hit 600 people and 200 cyclists per year.

Which equates to about 1 in 27,000 and 1 in 80,000…

thx1138 – Member

I would have thought that the largeness and bright redness of London’s buses is quite sufficient for most people to be able to actively avoid coming into contact with them.

exactly!