4th London Cyclist killed in 8 days

[NZgeek]

The stupid car driver swung slightly left before making the right turn. That's a common problem with many drivers. In this instance the cyclist was entirely faultless (might have been filtering on a wing and a prayer, but not his accident).
It's not a driving fault that's as common as it used to be, especially inside heavily-used areas and I'd be willing to bet the driver is from out of town or foreign from a place that's less heavily-trafficked.

as above, the driver wasn't intending to turn, and was within their own lane - the bus was in the next lane - nobody would expect another vehicle to be between their car and the bus beside them. The Cyclist had been passing on the left of the car AND the right of the bus, where he shouldn't have been. He was riding in the drivers blind spot and between 2 lanes. The drivers movements were within the drivers lane.

Entirely the cyclists fault.

 

[Scimitar]

I stick with what I saw.

 

[flecc]

The car driver was not right turning, they did move very slightly left in a reaction to the van right turning but were going straight on in that right hand lane. The right turn matter isn't relevant though.

As the approach showed, the cyclist's front tyre was already crossing over the white line so half their bike width intruding into the car's lane within which the car driver was entitled to shift. A car driver does not have to cater for someone overtaking on the left in their own lane, nor should they.

 

[mike killay]

Worse still, there was a proper bike lane on the left.
Sorry, but the cyclist was a complete idiot, and from his reaction, probably completely unaware of how to ride in traffic.
Basically, just a show off who got a well deserved come-uppance.

 

[OxygenJames]

Worse still, there was a proper bike lane on the left.
Sorry, but the cyclist was a complete idiot, and from his reaction, probably completely unaware of how to ride in traffic.
Basically, just a show off who got a well deserved come-uppance.

OK.

To me its plain as day - the biker was pushing his luck. Sure the car moved very slightly to the left to avoid the car turning right and keep his momentum going - but the biker should have assumed he was likely to do that - I would definitely have been watching for the car driver to do that - the biker in a way was thinking he could force the car to stay where it was and played a game of chicken with the car - and lost.

So for me - in the main - its the bikers fault there.

Seeing as I come from motorcycling to this electric bike business - as far as possible I actually ride on the outside of all the traffic (as a motorbike would) - so long as I am going faster than the traffic (which I usually am here in SW London) - I personally feel much safer there than on the inside.

Of course you have to be super-aware of cars turning right and not looking - but having ridden over I think around 120,000 miles on a motorbike in London I find thats the safest place to be.

 

[OxygenJames]

The stupid car driver swung slightly left before making the right turn. That's a common problem with many drivers. In this instance the cyclist was entirely faultless (might have been filtering on a wing and a prayer, but not his accident).
It's not a driving fault that's as common as it used to be, especially inside heavily-used areas and I'd be willing to bet the driver is from out of town or foreign from a place that's less heavily-trafficked.

Come on Dave. Take a look at it again. The bikers in the car drivers blind spot and making no allowances at all for that. You simply can not say the car driver is completely to blame.

Well that's my view and I get any Traffic cop worth his badge would say something similar.

 

[MikeyBikey]

Why are people so fixated on one vid of one bike and one car? :-/ Take a look at the bigger picture, Tens of Thousands of KSI's, killed or seriously injured, per year in the UK. And many of them Pedestrians, who spend most of their time on the Pavement! Nuff said.

 

[OxygenJames]

Why are people so fixated on one vid of one bike and one car? :-/ Take a look at the bigger picture, Tens of Thousands of KSI's, killed or seriously injured, per year in the UK. And many of them Pedestrians, who spend most of their time on the Pavement! Nuff said.

Send in those tens of thousands of videos and I'll go through them one by one.

But for now - that's the only video I had to work with.

And the reactions here show - for me - the extent to which people generally like to fit the evidence to their beliefs - rather than the other way around.

 

[flecc]

Tens of Thousands of KSI's, killed or seriously injured, per year in the UK.

This is politician speak, also used by the biased such as ROSPA. Deaths and injuries should never be combined as a number, who is to say what is serious? Deaths expressed separately makes sense, year by year comparisons can be made and trends seen. The moment "serious" injuries are mixed in, the figures can be tweaked to suit any agenda.

I can give many examples of this sort of road accident statistical abuse going back over half a century.

 

[OxygenJames]

This is politician speak, also used by the biased such as ROSPA. Deaths and injuries should never be combined as a number, who is to say what is serious? Deaths expressed separately makes sense, year by year comparisons can be made and trends seen. The moment "serious" injuries are mixed in, the figures can be tweaked to suit any agenda.

I can give many examples of this sort of road accident statistical abuse going back over half a century.

Plus my understanding is that there are no more deaths this year than on average for the last few years - they just all happened to come at once. Anybody who knows anything about stats will know it means nothing that they have all come together. Thats like throwing three coins and getting three heads and thinking you have special powers. Its not how it works.

 

[MikeyBikey]

Reported_Road_Casualties_Great_Britain

Reported Road Casualties Great Britain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Annual summary
2012 1,754 Dead 23,039 KSI. 170,930 Slightly injured 193,969 Total injured
Lowest death rate since records began. There were 10% more cyclists on the road than in 2011, and cyclist deaths also increased by 10%. Serious injuries of pedestrians also increased".
People are very right to be wary of official statistics, after all these are just the "reported" incidents.

 

[MikeyBikey]

Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) is a standard metric for safety policy, particularly in transportation and road safety. I think everyone knows what Dead means...
Serious injury: The definition is less clear-cut a may vary more over time and in different places. The UK definition covers injury resulting in a person being detained in hospital as an in-patient, in addition all injuries causing: fractures, concussion, internal injuries, crushings, burns (excluding friction burns), severe cuts, severe general shock which require medical treatment even if this does not result in a stay in hospital as an in-patient.[2]

 

[flecc]

And that last phrase says it all Mike, we've no idea how affected those not detained in hospital are. "Severe" is a very subjective judgement.

To my mind a serious injury is one that might have caused death in many circumstances, but the huge discrepancy between deaths (1754) and Serious injuries (21285) seems to indicate a far lower level of harm for classification as serious.

That's why the combined figure is so useful for the dishonest who wish to misrepresent by pretending the situation is worse than it really is. A cut needing a few stitches is in no way comparable to a death.

 

[Croxden]

See Construction lorries to be made less dangerous for cyclists | Construction News | The Construction Index

At least something is happening.

 

[flecc]

Yes, and for the vehicles that actually need attention rather than the artics that some seem to think are the problem. The trouble is this extract though:

"Front, side and rear blind-spots must be eliminated or minimised as far as is practical and possible"

The word "must" is weakened by the added "minimised" and "as far as".

Of course it will be years before all the changes are made and new vehicles replace those which cannot be adequately converted, so it's essential that cyclists still take responsibility for their own safety.

It's their job to ride their bikes and truckers job to drive their vehicles and neither should be expected to do the other's job as well.

 

[mike killay]

so it's essential that cyclists still take responsibility for their own safety.

It's their job to ride their bikes and truckers job to drive their vehicles and neither should be expected to do the other's job as well.

How well put.