[Closed] Lorry redesign to prevent cycling deaths?

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

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.

binners - Member

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

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

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

no one said it would be easy

but being hard isn't an excuse not to.

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.

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.

it can't be done.

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

no, it would break the 3rd law of thermodynamics

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

In all of that, this popped up on facebook today, it's from London so I guess a lot have already seen it

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

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 [b]that [/b]dangerous
3> I didn't, I was here first and he pulled along side me

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.

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)?

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

Have fun trolling.

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

I think the question you're actually asking is:

[i]Is it worth the cost for the gain[/i]

Because it will achieve [b]something[/b], 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...

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

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

Come on now, sensible, plausable solutions only please.

Well, when I mentioned this first....miles up there ^... I said

and accept the compromises it will inevitably bring to other forms of transport

For me part of the solution would be to make a load more city roads one way only for motorised transport. Yes, I acknowledge that this would make cities slower to navigate through by car/lorry but it would be part of a structure to make cycling so good that it would be the preferred choice of transport for the majority of people and motorised transport something that became more necessity driven rather than preference.

On the flip side once there was a great cycling infrastructure in place I'd be inclined to make far more roads motorised vehicle only to give them the best shot of moving efficiently.

Not really the point I know but the redesign of lorries is to do with the number of accidents. Based on fatalities
Hgvs in London account for 20 of fatalities, given the article mentions "particularly in London" I'm going to assume it's a lower or broadly similar percentage elsewhere - possibly a foolish thing to do.

16% of fatalities involve no vehicle but are a result of losing control of the Bike so for every 5 people killed by a lorry 4 died because they lost control be it a poorly maintained bike or what ever. Don't get me wrong but pinning all this blame on lorries and fixing them seems to rather distract from the fact that riding your bike is dangerous.

80% of fatalities have nothing to do with hgvs yet we're not legislating all the other stuff.

It's all about appearances.

http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adviceandinformation/cycling/facts-figures.aspx

But do you honestly think, given the nature of the deaths in crowded city streets, that these represent a significant percentage of fatalities?

Significant in the statistical sense?

I don't know, I don't have the data to hand (nor do I think it exists) correlating fatalities to going up the inside of vehicles.
I believe that data exists correlating fatalities with left turning vehicles, but not the circumstances that lead up to the cyclist being there.

Significant in the dictionary sense of sufficiently important to be worthy of attention?

Yes, 100%, I honestly believe it happens enough to be worthy of attention, and re-evaluating changes that can be made to the environment (infrastructure, segregation, truck design, exclusions etc) to see if improvements can be made is a worthwhile thing to do. Making trucks safer is a good thing, in the same way that educating cyclists to the dangers is a good thing, and improving infrastructure is a good thing.

pinning all this blame on lorries

Nobody is doing that, this is [b]one aspect[/b] that is being looked into, it is not to the exclusion of other things and is not expected to be a magic bullet. And since when has "but other things are worse!" been a sensible argument for not doing something?

By that logic we should never have bothered with seatbelts or airbags or ABS or any of that nonsense, until we had fixed the fundamental problem of cars colliding with things, otherwise what's the point?

Incremental improvements to a complex problem, there is no magic fix.

I don't think a redesign of trucks will fix ALL the problems, nor do I think it will be cheap, easy, or happen overnight, nor do I think that better and safer behaviour of cyclists, drivers and pedestrians doesn't need attention, but I do think that its a step in the right direction that could save lives, and in conjunction with other things could lead to significant (in both senses ;-)) improvements to the safety of our roads.

It took years for changes in car design to incorporate new safety ideas, side impact bars, ABS, traction control, crumple zones, first for the occupants and then later pedestrian safety measures, it's pretty much dictated the shape of most modern cars these days, but the changes came and have been worthwhile, going for a safer design surely has to be a good idea in the long run?

As far as being in a safe place and then giving traffic has since made your stationary (or otherwise) position unsafe do you honestly think that has anything to do with the visibility of those drivers or is almost completely a result of them not giving a damn?

Having had that done to me on multiple occasions and mostly by cars where the only thing restricting their view is the drivers unwillingness to look, I'd day I'm fairly confident in thinking it's nothing to do with visibility and entirely to do with a complete disregard for other road users

Hgvs in London account for 20 of fatalities

I thought the figure was closer to 40% of cyclist fatalities in London involved an HGV, but with HGV's accounting for only 5% of trips in london.

[url= http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-10-699.pdf ]Link to study[/url]

Those stats say a lot, admittedly those stats were base don a trend over 15 years up to 2006, where as the ROSPA stats appear to be a snapshot from a single year?

As far as being in a safe place and then giving traffic has since made your stationary (or otherwise) position unsafe do you honestly think that has anything to do with the visibility of those drivers or is almost completely a result of them not giving a damn?

Depends, getting into that situation can often be the result of a fairly passive act on the part of the driver as the move along in the same direction in normal traffic flows, the collisions and accidents occur when they then make a manoeuvre/turn, and at that point visibility could/should play more of a part.

entirely to do with a complete disregard for [s]other road users[/s] cyclists

FTFY, they'd look and pay attention if it was another car or something that could damage them, but its because you're a cyclist that they think they have priority, but that leads on to a whole other argument about attitudes on the road and 2nd class citizens, someone mentioned there being a pecking order on the roads earlier, they're right there is, but there shouldn't be, all road users should be equal as we all have the same rights to be there.

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.

Changing trucks strikes me as an awful lot easier than ridding the world of idiots. The fact is that current truck design is the result of current regulations, which drive designers to maximum load capacity within a given length of vehicle, resulting in the standard arrangement of putting the driver above the engine which has the knock on effect of the driving not being able to see bikes and pedestrians that are directly in front of the truck or directly alongside the cab without the use of mirrors or other aids.

Changing those regulations to require lower cabs, prioritising safety over load capacity seems like a no brainer to me. It's not a complete solution, nor will it solve the problem overnight, but I can't see why you wouldn't do it.

I just can't see this saving a single life.

Really? You really believe that making it easier for drivers to see cyclists who would otherwise be in a blind spot won't avoid accidents?

You can argue about who was at fault in any given incident, but that's not the same thing as figuring out how to avoid accidents in the future. People are fallible, so we need to figure out how to reduce the chance of them making fatal mistakes.

Abs etc were actually shown to work before they became required by law though (excuse my ignorance but are any of those measures other than seatbelts mandated), this may work it may not. My personal opinion from my experience of riding on the road is it won't.

Out of interest if they did legislate to require you "mot" your bike, insure it and undergo mandatory training before being allowed to ride it would you be for our against? Mandatory helmets given they may work to save lives in a small number of collisions/falls?

Watch the cycling lobby backlash on those...

Out of interest if they did legislate to require you "mot" your bike, insure it and undergo mandatory training before being allowed to ride it would you be for our against?

MOT - Absofrickinglutely I would be for this in principle. Nobody should be riding a bike that is a danger to themselves or others, but then rarely do bikes endanger others, and if they do then you would still fall foul of the law if the accident was a result of your negligence in not maintaining you bike to pass proper standards (which are laughable in reality). How you would administer such a scheme is beyond me!

Insurance is a tricky one, because you wouldn't insure a bike, you'd be insuring the person, and a lot of people do already have cover through dedicated policies or home policies.

Helmets is a trickier one, as we all know there's a whole heap more to it than you mentioned, (before you even mention that helmets wouldn't be so useful if vehicles stopped hitting cyclists!) so please lets not turn this into a helmet debate!

Lets look at this based this on evidence though, we have evidence that trucks are involved in a large proportion of fatalities.
We have no such evidence that poorly maintained bikes are, and we already have basic design and operation standards for safety for bicycles sold in the UK/EU, could they be improved? probably, but then so could the rules and standards by which we build trucks, and that's what this whole thread is about!

+10 points for neatly diverting the argument, -10 for not providing convincing data. 😉

Changing those regulations to require lower cabs, prioritising safety over load capacity seems like a no brainer to me. It's not a complete solution, nor will it solve the problem overnight, but I can't see why you wouldn't do it.

As the demand for goods doesn't go down then you need to put more vehicles on the road otherwise they need to be longer creating more blind spots creating more potential problems.
Maybe the quickest and cheapest option is to take cycles off the road and onto the pavement as these are normally segregated by kerbs anyway. Then start the process of widening paths to segregate cyclists from pedestrians. Many narrower roads could be linked together to get from one side of a town to the other quickly and designated as cycle lanes to act as the motorways for cyclists.

You can argue about who was at fault in any given incident, but that's not the same thing as figuring out how to avoid accidents in the future. People are fallible, so we need to figure out how to reduce the chance of them making fatal mistakes.

Should we be doing though? Surely you can only do so much. Its at what point do you stop. The argument put further up that pedestrians get run over by trucks so truck design should be changed, to increase the drivers visibility, is patently ridiculous. If you're really bovinely stupid enough to step out into the path of a truck, then the gene pool really is better off for your absence. I wouldn't rate riding up the inside of trucks much higher up the evolutionary scale either. How far do you go to save idiots from themselves? I know their general buffoonery adds greatly to the gaiety of the nation, and gives us all something to point at and laugh, but where's the cut of point?