How could he be, when he can’t actually see the cyclist; we’ve established that the cyclist is well within the front n/s blind spot of that big Volvo FH

Yet his own explanation has him needing to stop for the lights which he wouldn’t have had to do if he’d kept up with the traffic in front, which seems to be flowing steadily.

I don’t think the driver has admitted that he knew he was there. I suspect that the first he knew about the cyclist was an uncomfortable meeting in the bosses office…

where he was able to offer a surprising level of detail about an incident he knew nothing about which was a tiny part of his trip a couple of days earlier

That’s mental! If he didn’t know he was there he would’ve driven straight over him!

He didn’t change his course or speed AT ALL. Not many YouTube ‘punishment pass’ videos are so relaxed. The nature of them is that the driver feels ‘wronged’ they usually express this with revving, horns, swerves… None of that in evidence here. It’s the most casual aggression I’ve ever seen, if that’s what’s happened. His colleague says it’s because he was rolling up to the next traffic jam. I appreciate it seems a little unusual, but I’ve seen it happen, certainly more often than I’ve witnessed road rage type behaviour (which as I’ve stated, this is atypical for anyway).
Re blind spot mirrors; yep, they’re well known for being effective. Not.

to offer a surprising level of detail about an incident he knew nothing about which was a tiny part of his trip a couple of days earlier

Are we back to filling up gaps in facts with made up stuff again, aracer? 😉

Yet his own explanation has him needing to stop for the lights which he wouldn’t have had to do if he’d kept up with the traffic in front, which seems to be flowing steadily.

None of the preceding traffic is accelerating markedly; it could be that they are joining the back of another queue too. We just don’t know, which is kind of my over riding point.

I hope you lot are never selected for jury service! 😆

Mainly I’m curious if the driver hasn’t seen the cyclist, how he knows the cyclist undertook him…

To be fair at the end of the video the cyclist is shouting to the driver. That may have been the first time the driver was aware of him and from that he knows that the cyclist undertook because he wasn’t in the traffic ahead.

He didn’t change his course or speed AT ALL. Not many YouTube ‘punishment pass’ videos are so relaxed.

Exactly. He was tracking the cyclist’s speed to scare him. There was no room to “punishment pass”.
Casual aggression – that’s hilarious! Driving a massive truck cm from someone on a bike. Wow, how casual.

We obviously don’t live on the same planet so I’ll avoid your posts from now, you should do the same to mine 😆

What do you think I’m making up?

He was tracking the cyclist’s speed to scare him.

This is classic made up/fill in the gaps stuff.
What we know; the cyclist and trucks speeds were very similar. (But not the same; the truck gains on and overhauls the cyclist, it seems)
What we don’t know; whether this was intentional, or coincidental. Whether the driver of the truck was matching the cyclist, or whether the cyclist was pedalling like crazy to try to get clear of the truck. Either is plausible. Suggesting a motive for an action that is not even proven as deliberate is just emotive guff.

There was no room to “punishment pass”.

But there was. There was also enough room to pass sensibly.
I’m not going to avoid you, I find your posts interesting and challenging and amusing.

But there was. There was also enough room to pass sensibly.

There wasn’t actually – if you look at the road in Street View there are indeed lights not far ahead and those hatchings quickly turn into a right-turn-only lane.

Aracer, I incorrectly attributed bails’ post to you in my mind whilst reading through several new posts. Apologies.

the truck gains on and overhauls the cyclist, it seems

Filling in gaps with made up stuff? 😆

There wasn’t actually

Fair enough. I was just going on the video. haven’t looked at Google maps. It does look like he could have passed giving a lot more room though, even if it wouldn’t have classed as ‘sensible’.

Filling in gaps with made up stuff?

No, that’s just how I interpreted the video and the stills from the video.

<Obi Wan mode>

many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view

</Obi Wan mode>

At this point we are speculating, there are gaps we are filling in with what we think happened, and why we think they happened, but we don’t know for sure.

I have a pretty good idea in my head of what I think happened and why but lets not kid ourselves that we know for sure at this point.

As Graham said, and as I said earlier, the one thing to take away from this, that we here all know I’m sure, but still seems to be sadly lacking in non-enthusiast and inexperienced cyclists is:

Lorrys and buses/coaches are flippin’ dangerous things to be around.

Even with all the mirrors in the world, and the best the most attentive drivers in the world they are big, have blind spots, have to manoeuvre in unusual ways (to a non HGV driver) and can be deadly.

Obviously cyclists and pedestrians shouldn’t put themselves in a position of danger by doing silly things, and the drivers shouldn’t endanger other road users by doing silly or dangerous things either, but until we find a way to introduce new designs, new technology, or new infrastructure to mitigate those risks we should treat them with a massive amount of caution and respect, whether you’re trying to share a road with one, or operating one.

Remember, idiots and malicious bar stewards can be behind the wheel (or bars) of any type of vehicle.

I still find the entire concept of such a vehicle being allowed to mix with humans (and even other traffic in urban areas) bizarre. If they hadn’t ever been invented and you came to the table with the idea today of using them, you’d never even consider the idea of letting them mix in their current for without massive amounts of HSE mitigation.

Ah, which is kind of what we’re all doing.

Amedias; spot on.

Ah, which is kind of what we’re all doing.

Well obviously, but there’s a whole gulf of diffence between looking at two stills and thinking “yep, he looks closer in that one than the other one” and watching a video and thinking “wow that was close, I’m going to guess what’s going on in that drivers brain, and while I’m at it, I’m going to just make up what happened in the moments before to suit my theories” 😆

I still find the entire concept of such a vehicle being allowed to mix with humans (and even other traffic in urban areas) bizarre. If they hadn’t ever been invented and you came to the table with the idea today of using them, you’d never even consider the idea of letting them mix in their current for without massive amounts of HSE mitigation.

This is very true. The very fact that most sites that have HGVs moving on them won’t let them do so without use of a banksman, or ban foot traffic completely. But it’s fine to walk and cycle with them on the open road…

indeed, like I said, bizarre.

It’s one of those ‘crept in historically’ things isn’t it, it’s also how we’ve got to the point where we consider death and injury on our roads as a natural and acceptable (to society anyway) by-product of personalised transport.

There’s no other activity so widely adopted in our society that carries the same level of risk with so little mitigation for that risk.
There’s no other situation where death/injury is treated so routinely.
There’s no other area or industry that doesn’t learn or make changes after an incident.

Sure we’ve got safer cars than we once had, but just look at how a single death or serious injury in industry is treated, it will be investigated in minute detail, procedures will be reviewed, action/changes will be made wherever necessary to prevent it happening again, but somebody dies on our roads? oh well, it happens… bizarre.

There’s no other situation where death/injury is treated so routinely.

I’m sure it has been mentioned already, but Bez’s recent article tackled this brilliantly.

Huge social and traditional media uproar about a cyclist injuring a toddler (and rightly so!), but barely a whisper about the 27 people, including young children, who were killed by motor vehicles in the same week. Because that happens every week and it’s just not newsworthy.

http://singletrackworld.com/columns/2015/06/bez-them-and-us/
Them and Theirs

Cheers Graham, I normally keep up to date on Bez’s blogs but missed that latest one!

Problem solved

[/url]Untitled by chris, on Flickr}

well that is one way to block an overtake…

“Whaddaya mean you can’t do handbrake turns in a HGV? Watch this!”

Living 15 mins drive away from that spot of road here is my take…

Lots of road works at the moment, they are widening the road and just behind the guy filming are traffic lights as well. At any point coming into Bradford (direction of cyclist) if you’re driving you will slow and stop. Its very busy and not that wide.

On the longer video at 0.05 I ‘think’ you can see the truck driver flash his lights. This to me indicates the possibility that the cyclist has undertaken him. From that point on there will be little room for the truck to overtake with a safe distance. So this guy acts like a dick and stays dangerously up his rear arse until the lights where the road widens and he can overtake.

Spink conclusion: Cyclist is a dick for undertaking a massive truck. Truck driver is a bigger dick for using his truck as a life threatening bully tool.

And just to throw something into the pot, over that wall is a dedicated cycle lane.

parkesie – Member picture above was actually today on the M56 near Hapsford/runcorn and caused absolute mayhem for the many thousands of nmotorist trapped on both carrigeways and surrounding roads, i was one of them.

Luckily no cyclists or the driver where hurt.

Was going to say it was m56 today and everyone was ok pic was taken by a friend on his way home caught up in he mayhem.

For me this incident shows that we need a massive rethink on the design of trucks. Personally I think the drivers cabs need to be lowered to a height like busses/head height. This would eliminate a lot of the blind spots.

On the longer video at 0.05 I ‘think’ you can see the truck driver flash his lights. This to me indicates the possibility that the cyclist has undertaken him.

Or he is just flashing to let folk out? Because by the time we see him again there are several more cars in front of him.

For me this incident shows that we need a massive rethink on the design of trucks.

Agreed – there are conceptual designs for an “urban lorry” somewhere. I’ll see if I can find them.

Here we go:

http://lcc.org.uk/articles/lcc-challenges-construction-industry-to-adopt-its-safer-urban-lorry-to-reduce-lorry-cyclist-deaths

These cab types already exist though don’t they? Most dustcarts (err I mean recycling facilitation vehicles) have the super low/corward cab design. It wouldn’t be a massive stretch to require any vehicle making deliveries in an urban environment to have the same configuration. Problem is, there’s no appetite for it from the wider public.

Just need to reward trucks of this configuration with tax breaks, and they’d be everywhere;
http://www.volvotrucks.com/trucks/uk-market/en-gb/trucks/Volvo_FE/Cabs/Cab_variants/Pages/LowEntryCab.aspx

Yep, I think that goes back to the earlier conversation about HSE at work.
The bin lorries have employees moving all around them so the company has a duty of care to them and uses appropriate can designs to lessen the danger.

HGVs on the other hand only have Joe Public moving all around them. Sod them. When they go on a job site with employees then they drive at slow speeds and have banksmen to protect the employees.

I know that is only a mockup picture but it is a short wheelbase for an 8 legger. Longer wheel base will still create blind spots. If you don’t have the length then you need the height to regain the cubic capacity but due to bridges and cross winds you are restricted. What you’ll end up with is more vehicles on the road delivering the same volume of goods with more costs and congestion which could create more dangers for cyclists.
I think better education is the way forward for both drivers and cyclists alike backed up with much tougher punishments.

I think that was intentional craigxxl. The long wheel base is one of the things that makes lorries dangerous in cities because it means they have to go very wide on tight turns and there is a lot of potential for unseen people to get squished at the sides.

So (I think) the suggested alternative is to restrict long wheelbase vehicles in cities. They can handle the long haul transport and then transfer goods onto “urban lorries” for the final city based leg of the delivery.

Obviously that is a ballache for freight companies and would mean increased delivery costs.
But it would also potentially save lives and makes cities nicer places to be.
So it comes down to priorities. One thing is certain though, no company will choose to increase their costs like that.

Graham, the freight companies will pass on the costs to the customer which will increase costs of goods but not significantly. The main problem will be the extra vehicles required to keep up with consumer demand which will make the roads more congested and aggressive which can only be a bad thing for cyclists.

Other cities (e.g. Paris and Dublin) manage with heavy restrictions on HGV traffic. So it is certainly do-able in that respect but there needs to be a public will to do it – and yes part of that would be dealing with the increased delivery costs.

I know what you are saying about the additional traffic, but what we are seeing at the moment that lorries are very over-represented in fatal collisions. Not sure what the latest stat is but I’ve heard something along the lines of lorries are 5% of traffic but involved in over 50% of fatalities. (Not saying those are the fault of the HGV drivers by the way). Certainly I think all the cyclist fatalities in London so far this year have had an HGV involved.