• This topic has 106 replies, 32 voices, and was last updated 9 years ago by pdw.
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  • Lorry redesign to prevent cycling deaths?
  • D0NK
    Full Member

    BTW those of you taking the “you can’t legislate for idiots/their own fault” line…. where do you stand on compulsory seatbelt law? Stupid idea that we should repeal? Shall we let a few of the shallow enders of the gene pool shuffle off this mortal coil?

    1. is any Dutchman going any where near the design/consulting phase?

    Last I heard they were trialling all the infra the dutch had tried (and rejected) many years ago rather than just copying the tried tested and approved stuff they use now.

    andytherocketeer
    Full Member

    i can believe that

    tbf, Germany installs the rejected Dutch stuff too, eg right turn lanes (left in UK) that you have to cross over the straight-on cycle stripe to get to.

    binners
    Full Member

    BTW those of you taking the “you can’t legislate for idiots/their own fault” line…. where do you stand on compulsory seatbelt law?

    If you’re daft enough to get into a car and head off down a motorway, without putting on the piece of effective safety equipment on your right shoulder, then I’m afraid your trip through the windscreen is also Darwinism.

    D0NK
    Full Member

    Binners I wasn’t asking whether not using a pretty universally known about piece of safety equipment was stupid, it patently is. I was asking if you thought the seat belt laws were stupid or if it Seems like a lot of effort to go to (or in usual EU fashion; force other people to go to) to achieve very little.

    epicyclo
    Full Member

    If there were ruddy great bollards installed at corners on the edge of the cycling lane, the drivers would get sacked for bad driving if they scraped their truck on the bollard.

    But if it’s a nice soft squishy cyclist, then it’s “Poor chap, we share your anguish at squishing that idiot/child/granny/new cyclist/STWer”.

    A truck with poor visibility to the sides is not fit for purpose and should not be allowed on narrow streets in our towns. A simple bit of legislation would fix that.

    dangeourbrain
    Free Member

    As for seatbelts that’s making “you” take responsibility for”your own” safety, the redesign is about making “them” safer for “you” it’s not the same thing. The closest thing I can immediately think of would be obliging cyclists to wear helmets or high vis etc. There is a whole different can of worms.

    Truck redesign. In of its self is fine but it’s not fixing the problem which is that some people can’t be trusted to walk safely, let alone ride a bike or drive a lorry. The issue is the more we legislate and thinhe like this the more we absolve everyone of responsibility.

    Education won’t save anyone because once they’re done learning out then many people forget it – how many of you drive with 10 to 2 hands?

    Short of a radical change in infrastructure and public attitude towards responsibility for their own well being they’ll solve nothing.

    all this other stuff does little but make it look like dealing with a problem there is no political will to solve. To use another Dutch analogy, it’s pretending a small boy with his finger in a dyke will be fine

    andytherocketeer
    Full Member

    UK is almost unique in having those bollards and railings on the inside. It’s just they have them between bike and pavement, so it’s something for the truck/bus/car to squish them against.

    No legislation will make all the side invisibility of a truck visible. Legislation can change what can be in that invisible spot.

    cynic-al
    Free Member

    binners – Member

    The problem here isn’t lorry design. The problem is idiots.

    You may be right but you can’t legislate for them!

    dangeourbrain
    Free Member

    And if those bollards weren’t there when you pulled up but we’re when you pulled away would that be your fault our that of who ever put the bollard there with out making it obvious to you?

    binners
    Full Member

    Binners I wasn’t asking whether not using a pretty universally known about piece of safety equipment was stupid, it patently is. I was asking if you thought the seat belt laws were stupid or if it Seems like a lot of effort to go to (or in usual EU fashion; force other people to go to) to achieve very little.

    By the time seat belts became law, all vehicles were fitted with them anyway. So I’d stick to my theory that making them compulsory just gets in the way of evolution.

    This is a different matter though. Completely re-designing the cab layout of all heavy goods vehicles on the road is a massive undertaking. And ultimately its unlikely to achieve anything. Because the cause of accidents may be a by-product of the design issue, but that isn’t the main issue. The main issue is the aforementioned idiots not having the brains to not put themselves in life-threatening situations in the first place.

    Education is an issue. But needing to be told not to ride up the inside of a left turning arctic at a red light, is to me, like being told not to put your hand in a blender. You shouldn’t need telling. Its common sense

    D0NK
    Full Member

    but we do legislate for idiots (seatbelt use) we also legislate or tiredness/clumsiness (guards on machinery etc) might it also be an idea to better legislate for dangerous machinery used in public places which the general public may not know the technical details of?

    As someone further up said a truck on site needs a banksman, surely it would be cheaper and easier for foreman to tell construction workers “don’t walk infront of trucks you idiots” Fact is if a hauliers truck runs over someone on site there’s a bloody furore, site management, haulier’s rules and regs, driver training, H&S in the workplace. if it runs over someone on the road it’s “bad luck old chap”
    Stricter rules on a closed site than on open public roads seems pretty messed up to me.

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    binners – Member

    Completely re-designing the cab layout of all heavy goods vehicles on the road is a massive undertaking

    more or less the same scale of undertaking as asking that all cars meet emission standards, or all cars meet crash safety standards, or etc.

    this kind of thing happens all the time.

    amedias
    Free Member

    If you’re daft enough to get into a car and head off down a motorway, without putting on the piece of effective safety equipment on your right shoulder, then I’m afraid your trip through the windscreen is also Darwinism.

    And if you’re daft enough to think that most people that get squished did it to themselves then there is no hope!

    I *never* go up the inside of large vehicles like that if there is the slightest chance they can turn left on me or drift me into the kerb, but I have, on numerous occasions, being in a perfectly safe spot, only to find a thundering great behemoth rumble up behind me, then slowly overtake, before turning left or drifting sideways, I’ve even had to bail out to avoid being hit before, I was stationary for the whole thing, there was no way I could have not been in that situation other than not being on the road at that time.

    I really hope that never happens to you, if it does I assume we’ll be justified in calling you an idiot and rejoicing at the cleaner gene pool we’ll all be able to enjoy?

    Perhaps, just perhaps, if he’d they’d been able to see me more easily before pulling in/turning then it would have avoided it?

    Same goes for Mr New Cyclist, who following the lovely painted cycle lane the nice council man has put down for him, finds himself up the inside of a lorry, he might even have that ‘Oh carp!’ moment when he realises what a silly thing he’s done, but instead of being squished (justifiable in your eyes no?) luckily for him the lorry has one of those new cabs with better visibility, and thank Jeebus! the lorry driver has seen him! hurrah, he can go home to his wife and kids tonight.

    The lorry driver may even tut and complain about the silly man putting himself there, but at least he saw him, that’s got to be better than the alternative hasn’t it?

    People don’t set out to put themselves in harms way, and drivers don’t set out to kill people, small mistakes shouldn’t have fatal consequences if it can be avoided.

    epicyclo
    Full Member

    amedias – Member
    …People don’t set out to put themselves in harms way, and drivers don’t set out to kill people, small mistakes shouldn’t have fatal consequences if it can be avoided.

    Well said. Much better than what I was about to post.

    philfive
    Free Member

    I’m going to put this out there and say this will take a very, very long time to implement. how many wagons are out there? how are you going to force the wagon companies to scrap perfectly good vehicles for the ones with lovely glass doors? What about tramping drivers who sleep in their cabs, do they have to have large glass, insecure panels? if we lower the driving position to allow better visibility then where will the engines go?

    not an easy solution at all.

    amedias
    Free Member

    no one said it would be easy

    but being hard isn’t an excuse not to.

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    philfive – Member

    I’m going to put this out there and say this will take a very, very long time to implement. how many wagons are out there? how are you going to force the wagon companies to scrap perfectly good vehicles for the ones with lovely glass doors?

    amedias – Member

    no one said it would be easy

    but it’s not that hard either.

    here you go: EU directive #3,000,005: tipper wagons need to be sold with bigger, lower windows, driver eyeyline no higher than 2m above ground level / introduction date : jan 2019. (5yrs from now)

    it would take (at most) 20 years for the old wagons to be replaced ‘naturally’ – quicker even if the EU decides to do something about the evil of diesel emissions.

    5 years to design them and start building, 20 years at most till the old ones are history.

    in other words, in 15 years we’ll have halved the threat.

    philfive
    Free Member

    No it isn’t but the point is that its just all words, it can’t be done. what needs to be done is better education and proper separation of cyclists and vehicles. they can also ban HGV from city centers during rush hours, there is no reason why these can’t happen.

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    it can’t be done.

    yes it can, it’s no more complicated than the rules car designers have to stick to.

    philfive
    Free Member

    Ahwiles, you haven’t addressed any of my other issues and have only spoke about tippers, is it actually possible to fit the big V8 engines and have a low field of vision?

    dangeourbrain
    Free Member

    Said New rider might see more benefit from a big red label on the new bike he bought telling him not to ride up the side of lorries etc.

    Having said education won’t help a little wouldn’t hurt either. In theory at least you can’t go buy a car or any other sort of motor vehicle and drive it on a public highway with out some education in its use, yet you can go buy a bike and ride it on a road without the slightest idea what you’re doing. A little understanding may well achieve zero but at least people may be aware what they’re choosing to do is dumb.

    I’d wager most of the people who do cycle up the inside of left turning traffic are habituals and either continue to be blithely ignorant of their own stupidity or firmly believe the responsibility is some one else’s. I’d lay the same bet most of those getting squashed are probably in the he wasn’t indicating or similar accident bunch rather than the think it’s safe group.

    We all make mistakes, and fortunately most of us survive them but fixing lorry design when it’s simply not to blame in most cases will only succeed in making people blame lorries more.

    Truck design isn’t the problem, road users of all kinds are the problem, < edit – I never saw a driver’s truck squash anyone. Regardless of its design>. You can’t (yet) legislate people put off the equation so the only solution is to separate those things which pose a risk to one another, it’s the same reason people don’t like shared use cycle trails. Some Pedestrians don’t know how to behave around cyclists, some cyclists don’t know how to behave around them and so on. The successful solution in most places is segregation not making bikes more suitable for not running over people’s dogs.

    eshershore
    Free Member

    looking at this in a different light

    what about “corporate responsibility” from the local authority that has painted the junction road marking with a cycle feeder lane on the inside left leading up to the ASL box

    when a cyclist is killed following these road markings, surely this could be considered as corporate manslaughter because the local authority has indicated to that cyclist, where the cyclist is expected to position their bike going into that junction?

    If the road marking is promoting these fatal accidents, surely it is not “fit for purpose” and immediate action needs to be taken, as well as a prosecution of the local authority by the H&SE

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    philfive – Member

    Ahwiles, you haven’t addressed any of my other issues

    i don’t have to, i’m not a truck designer / town planner, i’m just pointing out that all these problems are just problems, there are solutions.

    is it actually possible to fit the big V8 engines and have a low field of vision?

    no, it would break the 3rd law of thermodynamics.

    sorry, i’m being flippant. truck cabins are high so that they can keep the vehicle length short (among other reasons) – the cab is over the engine. You could put the cabin in front of the engine and reduce the height – but you’d have to reduce the carrying capacity to keep the same vehicle length. It’s just a compromise – but, not unlike the compromises that car designer face.

    for example: there are a tonne of rules about the design of car bumpers, bonnets, and windscreens. and those are just the rules concerning pedestrian safety.

    dangeourbrain
    Free Member

    The road marking isn’t to blame, ignoring the surrounding traffic is to blame, be that the cyclist ignoring the lorry or the driver ignoring his mirrors. With no other traffic both would be fine. With responsible road use by all traffic they’d be fine.

    < edit> the markings tell you to be on the left, not to proceed down the left, regardless of the consequences of that action, you don’t drive/ride into the vehicle in front of you simply because the lane markings suggest you should be going forward.

    D0NK
    Full Member

    no, it would break the 3rd law of thermodynamics

    .ye cannae change the laws of physics
    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vPWE2Ebz48&feature=player_detailpage#t=144[/video]

    With responsible road use by all traffic they’d be fine.

    could possibly be applied to every RTC, unfortunately there’s still thousands of road deaths every year so presumably responsible road use by all is in short supply.

    philfive
    Free Member

    no, it would break the 3rd law of thermodynamics.

    (sorry, i’m being flippant. truck cabins are high so that they can keep the vehicle length short)

    Which has to be done by law or you can run shorter trailers and have reduced capacity and increased prices.

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    If HGV has a massive blind spot, and the driver places that blindspot over a zebra crossing or a cycle box and then kills someone using that bit of infrastructure, how much extra should he get added to his sentence?

    Are you serious? I would be asking the dead cyclist why they thought it was appropiate to pull along side the the HGV, regardless of whether the HGV was in the wrong place or not.

    As to calls for improving the infrastructure, I really can not see where the UK would have space for miles of segregated cycle roads, we simply do not have the space.

    Also from the above you can tell some people really need some very simple education along the lines of take responsibility for your own actions, and just because some infrastructure tells you you are in the right, it doesnt mean you wont get killed.

    There is a pecking order on the roads, always has been, always will be. I know that on a push bike I am at the bottom, so never take stupid risks going along side lorries etc.

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    philfive – Member

    increased prices.

    so, there’s the compromise.

    should we sack off the safety regs on building sites? – it would save a few quid…

    here’s my position:

    it’s possible to design stuff (trucks, cars, roads, etc.) so that they’re safer.

    doing so might be a good idea.

    just stating that all dead cyclists are idiots is less helpful.

    andytherocketeer
    Full Member

    I really can not see where the UK would have space for miles of segregated cycle roads, we simply do not have the space

    Given that NL is a country with most of the 15million or so inhabitants squished in to a very tiny area of the country, all it needs is a trip there to see how they do it.

    Yes there is space, it’s just used all wrongly most of the time. In a space where UK would try to force 2 lanes traffic both ways, with a feeder bike stripe up each side, and 2 pedestrian pavements… the Dutch would fit 2 pavements, 1 lane traffic each way, a 2way bike path on one side, and possibly even parallel parking with a space between door opening zone and bike path, and even bus stop layby.
    edit: oh and possibly even a sizeable central pedestrian refuge at the lights (think Dutch standard is wide enough to fit a bike with kiddie trailer)
    And dedicated phase for bikes at the lights.

    simons_nicolai-uk
    Free Member

    Without being flippant, to all those saying ‘never go up the inside of a vehicle, even if theres a marked cycle lane in place’, which is the same line of ‘education’ as the ‘cyclists stay back’ sticker on the back of trucks –

    = surely the other side of this, if we’re being fair about it, is ‘never pass a cyclist on the right’. Given that the average speed of a bike > average speed of a motor vehicle in London theres no need for a vehicle to ever overtake me when I’m on a bike. The bike isn’t holding you up. Let it stay in front. That would make things a lot safer

    binners
    Full Member

    I think the argument here is whether the massively increased costs will actually achieve anything. I think the answer is no, as truck design isn’t the fundamental problem. The problem is people/idiots. Whether they be on two wheels, in a town planning department or behind the wheel of a truck. I just can’t see this saving a single life.

    And seeing as the policy has only been announced today, I’d imagine the truck manufacturers, and haulage firms, supermarkets etc will have a thing or two to say about it, that they probably can’t see it saving a single life either, but its going to cost an awful lot of money

    simons_nicolai-uk
    Free Member

    I really can not see where the UK would have space for miles of segregated cycle roads, we simply do not have the space

    First thing you do is remove on street parking. No reason why people should be able to store private property on public land (at, even when there is a charge a vastly subsidised price). Most ‘narrow’ london streets are at least 4 car widths wide including pavements but two of them are taken up by cars that spend the majority of their time static.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    In all of that, this popped up on facebook today, it’s from London so I guess a lot have already seen it
    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP1P82TDx6g[/video]

    The punchline as it could be called is you don’t see what you don’t look for.

    amedias
    Free Member

    I would be asking the dead cyclist why they thought it was appropiate to pull along side the the HGV

    Always with the assumption that the cyclist went up the inside…

    This will be the 3rd (possibly 4th time) I’ve mentioned it in this thread alone, it is perfectly possible to position yourself safely, NOT go up the inside of a truck and still find yourself in that situation due to natural traffic flows.

    BTW – If the dead cyclist could answer they would most likely say one of these things:

    1> I didn’t know it was a blind spot / I thought he could see me
    2> I didn’t realise it was that dangerous
    3> I didn’t, I was here first and he pulled along side me

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    First thing you do is remove on street parking. No reason why people should be able to store private property on public land (at, even when there is a charge a vastly subsidised price). Most ‘narrow’ london streets are at least 4 car widths wide including pavements but two of them are taken up by cars that spend the majority of their time static.

    Come on now, sensible, plausable solutions only please.

    SirHC
    Full Member

    Pratt and Millar have a good system for their racecars, surely a simpler system can be developed to retro-fit onto current vehicles with blind spot issues (and drivers who fail to check their blind spot)?

    IanW
    Free Member

    Do you honestly believe that less idiots are going to be squashed as a result of this?

    Have fun trolling.

    amedias
    Free Member

    I think the argument here is whether the massively increased costs will actually achieve anything. I think the answer is no

    I think the question you’re actually asking is:

    Is it worth the cost for the gain

    Because it will achieve something, but you’ve already decided that the gains are not worth the cost in your eyes.

    I guess it all depends on how you do you cost/beneift analysis…

    binners
    Full Member

    This will be the 3rd (possibly 4th time) I’ve mentioned it in this thread alone, it is perfectly possible to position yourself safely, NOT go up the inside of a truck and still find yourself in that situation due to natural traffic flows.

    Yes, its possible. But do you honestly think, given the nature of the deaths in crowded city streets, that these represent a significant percentage of fatalities? You stand at any junction in a city and you’ll see the 2-wheeled potential statistics, squeezing themselves between a bus, or a tipper truck and the kerb. My point is that changing the design of trucks isn’t going to change their behaviour, and their absence of common sense, or any instinct for self-preservation is the root cause of the problem

    binners
    Full Member

    Do you honestly believe that less idiots are going to be squashed as a result of this?

    Have fun trolling.

    Thanks for your contribution Ian. Most enlightening. Your natural empathy with the nations idiots is touching

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