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A sad thing to happen to the riders and their families.
Personally I would never ride on a dual carriage way and I don't understand riders who do. The risk is too great.
I rode the A30 from Bodmin North to Somerset in the mid 90s as it was the quickest way home .I think the trouble with LEJOG is the number of direct roads is fairly limited so peole stay on the main road as its quicker and some LEJOGGERS have limited time if its a holiday
Yes, on my lejog I did quite a long detour to the south to avoid the A30. If I'd been more pushed for time I would've used it.
Please don't let an already tragic thread descend into a petty point scoring match. 🙄
Two cyclists died. I have a friend who's doing LEJOG and was in the area yesterday, when I read this my heard stopped. Fortunately its not his group.
Thoughts go out to the family and friends of the riders.
Its the human condition to look after number one, these incidents will happen until theres proper consequences for careless or negligent behaviour.
Poor guys
My understanding is that it's a man and a woman.
It is so sad to hear of these tragedies. 2 guys out on there bikes, mowed down by some pr!ck not paying attention whilst driving.
It is about time the law in this country was changed so that killing a cyclist amounts to manslaughter.
My sympathies go out to the poor families involved 🙁
I think it is about time us cyclists stood up for ourselves and brought London to a standstill. maybe if the powers at be knew how many of us there are and how strongly we all feel about the poor regard given to us 2 wheel road users, they might listen and do something about it.
Awful, awful tragedy. Not one, but two people.
What I don't understand is - the lorry driver has killed two people, and yet is [i]released on bail[/i]?
That doesn't seem logical to me.
Its the human condition to look after number one, these incidents will happen until theres proper consequences for careless or negligent behaviour.
Well not really - I don't believe its rational to say (e.g.) a minimum ten year prison sentence would be a better deterrent; he almost certainly didn't set out that day to crash never mind to kill someone. Putting human beings in charge of fast moving vehicles is an inherently flawed design, especially if you mix in different vehicles of different speeds and visibilities.
what don't you understand. Depriving someone of their liberty without trial (which is what remand is) requires a very strong justification. If there is no expectation that he is going to disappear before trial, interfere with witnesses or commit further crimes I'm not sure how you could justify sending someone to jail until they have been tried and convicted.What I don't understand is - the lorry driver has killed two people, and yet is released on bail?
Poly, he didn't set out to kill someone, but there is no deterrent to ensure that drivers actually bother to follow the law. Speeding is fine, parking on yellow lines fine, phones fine, careless driving minor slap on the wrist, kill someone, a stern telling off. There are drivers with over 30 points on the road!!!!!!! Legally!!!!!!
No one has a right to drive!!! If you can't obey the rules you have no right to a licence end of. Hardship!! You knew the rules before you got the licence, tough!
my heart goes out to the families involved, absolute tragedy 🙁
isn't it about time that all vehicles were fitted with on board cameras recording both the road ahead & the driver at the same time, then at least the authorities could prosecute with full evidence available. Been the witness to a couple of near fatal road accidents myself, in one we still have no idea why a lorry driver crossed into the path of an oncoming motorcyclist - at least with on board cameras we would have known if his defense in court stood up or if he was doing anything willfully negligent at the time.
What mrmo said only with less exclamation marks!
Poly- You shouldnt blame the victim, they were doing what they had every right to do.
Usually(difficult to be specific to this case) the hazard starts and ends with the car,van truck, bus etc, the person driving it and the way we encourage risk taking without consequences.
isn't it about time that all vehicles were fitted with on board cameras recording both the road ahead & the driver at the same time,
Some haulage insurance companies supply them to their customers, they are cheaply available (same tech/price as helmet cams). No-one seems to want to pay for one tho despite loads of posts on here about 'bad drivers'. I'll certainly be buying one when i eventually get a car, tiny % of cost of running a car and useful if you are in or witness to an accident.
I do wonder how long it will be before black boxes become compulsary in cars.
Cars are getting more efficient thus use less fuel, drivers are a source of revenue to the exchequer. Think about what would happen if everyone suddenly started to use electric vehicles? The tax has to come from somewhere? As for people not driving is that very likely?
Road pricing is the logical way forward, so how do you go about it?
Then car insurance, you can already see a few companies selling black boxes to reduce premiums.
At what point do you add those two things together and get a compulsary blackbox fitted to all cars? HGV and PSV are already on tachos... extend it to all "professional" drivers, reps. mini cabs, then finally to everyone?
If you want to enforce the law on drivers then someone is actually going to have to do something about it!
When you think it was a wagon which will have a tacho I assume so in reality he has enforced rest breaks so should be able to concentrate on his driving. Cars do not use tachos so sales people, engineers etc can drive far in excess of what is reasonable. I know this happens due to pressures of work etc and I do not want to see someone thrown into jail for 10 years sumarily.
Accidents by their very nature happen. Many of us have had them by getting something wrong, OK it hasn't cost someone their life and I hope the driver is filled with remorse. The fact is we all push the limits its the consequences of pushing those limits. The driver should have been concentrating, people should not work exceptionally long days and drive but they are pushed to do so. The whole motoring things needs a shakeup.
Proper access for cyclists, proper punishment, enforced for bad irresponsible driving.
Non of this will bring these two souls back to their families but what are the two UK cycling agencies doing about this. How many deaths before there is some action.
I would welcome once a year even a ride to remember those lost. Done properly it may get noticed.
First my sincerest sympathies to the families a loss of life is always tragic. I also have sympathy for the driver - I am sure he set out with no intention of killing during his working day and now has to live with the consequences.
What seems clear to me having done LEJoG and spent a lot of time riding and driving the roads of Britain. That whilst we have a right to ride safely on any road, however a right to be safe and zero risk are two completely different things. When riding bikes, crossing roads or undertaking any activity we should be aware of the risk - dual carriageways with cars doing 70 mph are always going to be less safe than roads where cars are travelling slower. It may be hard for se to hear but that is the sad fact.
I for one tried hard to avoid the A30 there are plenty of alternative and potentially safer routes that we are free and able to choose.
We make choices in life, we usually use our skills, judgement and experience to live them out. Sometimes life and chance conspire against us an result in a tragedy such as this.
Blame and safety recommendations are something for the courts to apportion and make.
Blame and safety recommendations are something for the courts to apportion and make.
and if the courts cannot be trusted to be impartial in their judgements? What other recourse is there?
We've all heard about the driver killing a cyclist then getting away with it because the jury thought "that could've been me", not to mention the judegs themselves with blatant bias. The whole of society needs to change it's attitude, the judiciary should be the force to make it happen, at the moment it's being at best complacent and at worst encouraging this carelessness resulting in death, suffering and pain...
[quote=shortcut ]dual carriageways with cars doing 70 mph are always going to be less safe than roads where cars are travelling slower.
They shouldn't be. For a start, it's a lot easier to carry out a proper overtaking manoeuvre when there's a whole extra lane available.
dual carriageways with cars doing 70 mph are always going to be less safe than roads where cars are travelling slower.
I have to disagree with this, speed is not the issue,
There are plenty of roads that are far less safe than dual carriageways. There are unsafe DC roads, but usually you have good sightlines and penty of room to work with. Comapre this to the Fosseway between Stow and Cirencester, good sight lines but a narrow road, very fast cars and no where to go!. Or many NSL country roads, crap sightlines and plenty of cars and Motorbikes out for a jolly!
I don't feel sorry for the lorry driver - he caused the accident by hitting two 'vehicles' moving considerably slower than he was.
I hope they put him away for a good stretch and ban him from driving for life.
However - I also feel the cyclists put themselves in harms way by riding that road.
We all make our own judgments on what we are happy about doing - I'd not be confident riding that road, and I wouldn't do it.
But, they were legally allowed to be there, and should have expected other road users to see them.
Very sad waste of life....
just has a look at the links to the road that someone put up, It isn't a nice road granted, but i have ridden similar without thinking. I would try not to ride that road, but i wouldn't try that hard if that makes sense. There is enough of a hard shoulder to ride and keep out of the way of cars and trucks for a start.
so they were 'asking' for it ?why are vulnerable road users deemed to be the guilty party for using a road?--
Whilst I take more issue with your reductio ad absurdum that the other poster was implying they were "asking for it", it's like the sad regularity of TT'ers getting killed, seriously injured or paralysed on the A19 in Teesside, just becasue you can, doesn't mean you should.
No one is perfect, incidents happen, you've got to see the other side's point that the accident wouldn't have occoured if the cyclits had been on some parralel back road where cyclits might be expected, rather than an NSL DC which it treated as a pseudo-motorway. Even if the driver was on the phone, making a toastie or watching Corrie on his iPad and 100% at fault, becasue he's a douchbag who treats motorways with that level of contempt, if you're not there, you can't get run over.
[quote=thisisnotaspoon ]so they were 'asking' for it ?
why are vulnerable road users deemed to be the guilty party for using a road?--
Whilst I take more issue with your reductio ad absurdum that the other poster was implying they were "asking for it", it's like the sad regularity of TT'ers getting killed, seriously injured or paralysed on the A19 in Teesside, just becasue you can, doesn't mean you should.
No one is perfect, incidents happen, you've got to see the other side's point that the accident wouldn't have occoured if the cyclits had been on some parralel back road where cyclits might be expected, rather than an NSL DC which it treated as a pseudo-motorway. Even if the driver was on the phone, making a toastie or watching Corrie on his iPad and 100% at fault, becasue he's a douchbag who treats motorways with that level of contempt, if you're not there, you can't get run over.
[i]reductio ad absurdum[/i] If you're not riding on the road the chances of getting hit by a motor vehicle are substantially reduced?
incidents happen, you've got to see the other side's point that the accident wouldn't have occoured if the cyclits had been on some parralel back road where cyclits might be expected
alternatively they could have been on the back road and a farmer towing a load of sheep to market might have misjudged how wide his trailer was and killed them.
Don't blame the victims in this.
I have never heard of a road kill someone, i have heard of very few cases where a car has killed someone with out help.
It is drivers that kill people, they might not intend to do so. But it only takes a moment, or 9 seconds on the A19, of not looking at the job in hand to kill someone.
TINAS, so what happens when these vehicles leave the dual carriageways and hit the A and B roads? The drivers standard of driving and alertness magically improves?
Of course not.
TINAS, so what happens when these vehicles leave the dual carriageways and hit the A and B roads? The drivers standard of driving and alertness magically improves?
Having sat in cabs hitchiking accross Europe, actualy, yes!
It is drivers that kill people, they might not intend to do so. But it only takes a moment, or 9 seconds on the A19, of not looking at the job in hand to kill someone.
Not paying attention for 9 seconds on just about any other road in the area and he'd have been in a hedge/wall/field, which probbaly explains my above comment. 90 times out of 100 it would have been an unsafe act, but nothing more, 9 more it might have been a near miss, and once in a blue moon actualy cause an accident. Which is why he probably did it, he didn't feel unsafe.
I have never heard of a road kill someone
Really, you have never heard of particular roads decribed as dangerous, or 'accident blackspots'? do you thnik that's just statistical anomalies, or are certain accidents more likley in some places than others.
I'm not absolving the driver of blame, I'm saying if you're not on DC's there you cant get hit by drivers doing stupid things on DC's!
What I don't understand is - the lorry driver has killed two people, and yet is released on bail?
[b]That doesn't seem logical to me.[/b]
It's perfectly logical.
Which bit don't you understand ?
Really, you have never heard of particular roads decribed as dangerous, or 'accident blackspots'? do you thnik that's just statistical anomalies, or are certain accidents more likley in some places than others.
but it not the road that kills someone, i don't see lumps of tarmac jumping up and assualting people. It is how the driver chooses to behave on a piece of road that is at issue. Having spoken to a fireman who was cutting a driver out of a car and had to jump out of the way because another driver couldn't be bother to heed the warning signs.
How many drivers regard themselves as above average ability? There is one of your problems.
How many drivers regard themselves as above average ability
Is it half of them?
I'm not absolving the driver of blame, I'm saying if you're not on DC's there you cant get hit by drivers doing stupid things on DC's!
but you can still get hit by drivers doing stupid things on other roads, overtaking on blind bends/bridges, either being overtaken or having a car appear on your side of the road! have a look at the stupid girl in Norwich.
The number of times i have almost been hit by drivers forgetting they have a trailer on back roads!
[url= http://www.advertiser.ie/kilkenny/article/42138/irish-drivers-hold-themselves-in-high-regard ]Irish example of average drivers, but seen plenty of other cases in other countries. [/url]
The two riders have been named both midle aged and experienced b y the sound of it, they havent named the driver, wonder why.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-23157100
How many drivers regard themselves as above average ability?
How many people have more than the average number of legs?
Sorry for going completely OT, but that's what I always think of when your point is made 🙂
[quote=aracer ]
How many people have more than the average number of legs?
The vast majority?
How many people have more than the average number of legs?
Everyone that has two legs. So quite a few.
but it not the road that kills someone, i don't see lumps of tarmac jumping up and assualting people. It is how the driver chooses to behave on a piece of road that is at issue
Precicely, and DC's encourage some people to wrongly become complaceant and not look for slow moving objects.
Saying certain roads aren't dangerous sounds like the NRA saying guns don't kill people, people kill people, whilst both are strictly true, I'd not stand in front of a gun whether the person behind it was an idiot or not!
Is it half of them?
It's quite possible for most drivers to be above average if there are a few really, really bad drivers.
Above median, on the other hand...
and DC's encourage some people to wrongly become complaceant and not look for slow moving objects.
but it is not just DCs, it is all roads! Drivers get complacent on roads they know.
WOW, where did I *blame* the victim. I have found myself on not disimilar roads when riding in places I didn't know well and where I needed to get from A-B on a particular timescale. I certainly don't blame the victim. Now I don't know the A30 but if I were the authority responsible for the road and was encouraging cyclists to do LEJOG (which is presumably good for local tourism) then I'd be investing in infrastructure and signage which helps cyclists find safe efficient routes. I blame the system. Relying solely on a human being to prevent accidents is never going to work, so you either accept the residual level of risk or you change the system so that the human being's behaviour is no longer so critical.IanW - Member
Poly- You shouldnt blame the victim, they were doing what they had every right to do.
He's allowed to drive for 4.5 hrs without any break... ...not sure I could genuinely concentrate 100% on any task for 4.5 hrs solid.pingu66 - I assume so in reality he has enforced rest breaks so should be able to concentrate on his driving.
what sentence for DBDD would cause you to change YOUR driving behaviour? The reality is nobody expects it to happen to them therefore the sentence is irrelevant as a deterrent. If you want to focus on judicial intervention you need to catch (and prosecute) people for relatively minor incidents that don't result in death.peyote - the judiciary should be the force to make it happen, at the moment it's being at best complacent and at worst encouraging this carelessness resulting in death
what sentence for DBDD would cause you to change YOUR driving behaviour? The reality is nobody expects it to happen to them therefore the sentence is irrelevant as a deterrent. If you want to focus on judicial intervention you need to catch (and prosecute) people for relatively minor incidents that don't result in death.
A custodial sentence for killing on the roads as default might help. We're not in general talking DBDD here, as that does normally get custodial, but plenty of cases of DBCD which don't. I find it hard to believe the the current widespread leniency doesn't encourage people to be less bothered about their driving standards. You are right that a crack down on more minor offences would help - that is after all part of the "could have been me" attitude, as general driving standards are appalling poor, and most people are just lucky that they haven't killed somebody.
I've cycled on the A30 doing LEJOG and it's genuinely terrifying being passed by HGVs at 60mph. I'd be very surprised if anybody ever cycles on it twice
Once you're on it though the trouble is even if you realise you've made a terrible mistake you've probably booked 10 B&Bs for the rest of your trip to John o'Groats and arranged to meet people on specific days along the way so because there's no alternative route that will get you to wherever you have to be that night you just have to suck it up and stick with it
Once you're on it though the trouble is even if you realise you've made a terrible mistake you've probably booked 10 B&Bs for the rest of your trip to John o'Groats and arranged to meet people on specific days along the way so because there's no alternative route that will get you to wherever you have to be that night you just have to suck it up and stick with it
there is an alternative route, really near buy as well... thats the sad thing 🙁
I don't know the road in question, but in my experience of long-distance touring, the most dangerous and frightening roads are 2-lane dual carriageways with central barriers and [i]no hard shoulder[/i]. Imagine a lorry in the nearside lane, being passed in lane 2 by another lorry. Now imagine this combination bearing down on you, cycling along in lane 1. Where is lorry 1 going to go? Lorry 2 can't move out any further because of the central barrier.
On the other hand, if the road has a hard shoulder it can be used as a cycle lane and life is much safer if not significantly more pleasant.
I just opened this thread as I saw it on the news last night and was shocked and felt awful for the victims and families.
Then I read the comments on the dangerous road and whilst I can't comment on that, Ive just returned from driving down the A24 between Leatherhead and Dorking, (where there are wide cycle paths on each side) and saw a road biker in all the gear, head down on the main dual carriage way. He was totally oblivious to a lorry approaching him at 50mph, who was being overtaken at about 60mph by a van. The lorry was forced to break hard to get down to the 15-20mph the cyclist was doing and await the van to overtake him.
Now, you can say its legal, but its also bloody stupid and puts drivers backs up who may be less generous to other cyclists in future.
When was that last swept? My experience of cycle paths is not good. Loose surface, litter, broken glass etc.Rockape - (where there are wide cycle paths on each side)