toomsie wrote:I wonder if Boris bike are over represented regarding serious accidents. But in my experiance Boris bikes feel very safe so I assume that heavy ladies bike also do.
London cycle hire bikes were under represented in early road casualty figures, according to http://rdrf.org.uk/2012/08/disaster-wai ... part-four/ - and I'd expect them to have improved if anything, now that some of the early users have become experienced users.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Chatted with my sister on this topic just an hour ago. She drives and rides in cities and towns all over England and Northern Ireland . She was quite forthright on the subject. Women going up the left hand side of lorries and busses' while men wait behind them. She finds it frightening that women don't seem to have got the message. And yes, she was knocked off in Belfast doing the same thing 8 years ago. Minor injuries Is this an education thing ? Our heart goes out to family and friends of this poor lady. This has to stop!
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”
Be more Mike.
The road goes on forever.
I think it is an education thing as women tend to ride more carefully in general (and have a correspondingly better overall safety record compared to men) so are likely to adjust their behaviour if they are made aware of the dangers of ovetaking on the wrong side.
toomsie wrote:I wonder if Boris bike are over represented regarding serious accidents. But in my experiance Boris bikes feel very safe so I assume that heavy ladies bike also do.
London cycle hire bikes were under represented in early road casualty figures, according to http://rdrf.org.uk/2012/08/disaster-wai ... part-four/ - and I'd expect them to have improved if anything, now that some of the early users have become experienced users.
While that certainly refutes the "disaster waiting to happen" argument and shows that riding hire bikes is indeed very safe, I'm not sure you can claim that they are safer than normal bikes. The comparisons are on a per trip basis and with the whole of London. Cycle hire trips tend to be short and are concentrated in the safer central zone so you would expect to see fewer crashes per trip.
Would people stop blaming the drivers. How do you know it was their fault. You don't. Blindly blaming the easiest target will not improve safety for anyone.
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”
Be more Mike.
The road goes on forever.
In the absence of proper evidence Landsurfer is right. The driver may or may not have made a mistake. We don't know.
Yesterday, after reading about this sad case, I met a tipper lorry coming the other way whilst I was cycling along a narrow lane near Cardiff Airport. As it was easier for me to find a spot to tuck in close to the side I was ready to wave the driver through, but he pulled in at a wide bit, stopped and flashed me to come through. It made me think that it is wrong to talk about road user groups ("lorry drivers", "motorists", "cyclists") as if they are uniform blocks with no individuals. Each group has its good and its bad.
Having said that, I do agree that there is a problem with the interaction between cyclists and lorries in London, and the number of deaths must make it worth investing funds in a serious detailed study of what goes wrong and why.
landsurfer wrote:Would people stop blaming the drivers. How do you know it was their fault. You don't. Blindly blaming the easiest target will not improve safety for anyone.
And yet tipper lorries are massively over represented. So either it's a statistical blip or something is going on.
If lorry drivers are anything like the bus drivers in Liverpool (Arriva in particular) then they're probably unaware that most of the vehicle is behind the cab. Twice in a mile yesterday I was forced to the kerb by buses overtaking.
Women being killed is massively over represented. That has to be the focus. Identify the "why" before we start flailing around to blame someone. There must be a common thread, if it's totally random then there is nothing that can be done to improve the situation
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”
Be more Mike.
The road goes on forever.
I think that these vehicles are being driven on piece rate contracts and the pressure is on the driver (directly or indirectly) to cut corners. I also think that rather like the self employed courier trade, there is little direct employment going on with investigation of the drivers' past record or conduct. So drivers' ejected by the other fleets running different types of employment will take their bad habits with them.
Also they may have vehicle issues like lack of mirrors and sidebars.
I think the point I'm making , possibly badly, is that why do tipper trucks appear to be the problem. Tipper truck drivers do not get up in the morning, kiss the wife and kids goodbye and set off to kill female cyclists. How many of the fatalities this year have led to the conviction of a tipper truck driver ? How many of these fatalities where caused by the vehicle turning left ? How many of the cyclists where between the vehicle and kerb when the accident occurred. All questions that need to be addressed before the blame game starts.
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”
Be more Mike.
The road goes on forever.
Tipper truck drivers do not get up in the morning, kiss the wife and kids goodbye and set off to kill female cyclists.
It appears that they dont also get up in the morning and then set off to give cyclists as much respect and room as possible whilst driving a big dangerous machine amongst them. How do I know that is true? I think we all know how.
landsurfer wrote:I think the point I'm making , possibly badly, is that why do tipper trucks appear to be the problem. .
As suggested above, aren't many (all?) of them getting paid a set amount for each loaded trip? Thus encouraging a general haste in their journeys. I think this was discussed a few years ago with regards to a spate of cement mixer incidents.
Last edited by stringerbikebell on 24 Jun 2015, 2:38pm, edited 1 time in total.
With regard to cement mixers, there is the additional problem that they have to get to their destination and deliver their load before the cement sets. If it sets in the lorry, it's a nasty and time-consuming job cleaning it out. Hence there's an added incentive to make extra speed on the road. I've often felt a bit uneasy about this. Anyone in the construction business care to elaborate?
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity. Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments... --- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
Tipper truck drivers are the bottom-feeders of the road haulage industry ... the cowboys of the road ... the ones most likely to take risks ... the most irresponsible.
Females are the most vulnerable group of cyclists.