Another cyclist dies in London

[peerjay56]

Sweeping statement alert.

In a previous life, I was fortunate enough to attend only one cyclist fatality, and that involved a tipper truck. Of course, 'one swallow does not a summer make'.

 

[Clockwise]

Having watched the TV at the incident, maniacal driving wasn't the issue here though, It was a very tight right angle corner where high speed was out of the question, and the truck had stopped instantly on the corner apex so could not have been travelling fast.

There's moves now to ban all HGVs during the day as they have in Paris for similar reasons. However, Paris is a small city compared to London and I understand the Paris ban is widely flouted anyway. In addition, some of the "heavies" have been buses, and they can't be banned of course.

Maybe a rush hour HGV ban would be an effective compromise since most deaths have been of commuters.

Meanwhile though, I wish cyclists would stop cycling alongside the left of trucks on junction entries, it just isn't necessary. I get around London ok without doing it, but often have idiots squeezing past me at the rear of trucks to do it.

Saving two seconds in exchange for possibly losing one's life doesn't seem a sensible deal to me.

So many cycle alongside anything and everything. Today on my way home was cycling along, almost blinded by another cyclists top of the range catseye lights(asked what they are as they are awesome) then not long after we come up along traffic behind a big tesco truck and he takes the gap at which point I stop and turn to my side and myself and a driver share a disappointed and understanding look and they hit the horn before the truck pulls away. A couple of sets of lights ahead when I mentioned it "what truck?"

The more people I talk too about cycling safe, the more I feel some just have no idea.

 

[Mike63]

Where I live there is very little in the way of cycle lanes, I think that at the very least we are entitled to broken white line cycle paths.
The council have plenty of paint for yellow lies, why not use some of it for cycle paths ?

The main superhighway out of Wakefield, to Huddersfield carrying huge 16 wheel juggernauts, in places six foot wide pavements another six foot of grass verge and the same at the other side, pretty much the same on the Wakefield to Doncaster, a road linking two major cities...a nightmare for cyclists.
Like I say , when did we forfeit the right to be safe ?

...c'mon Wakefield council what's a few litres of paint compared to cyclist's lives ?

 

[SRS]

Makes me appreciate the much criticised cycle paths in and around Brighton.
I cycle to work, 10 miles each way and barely touch a road.

Lucky or what. Thanks very much to our local councils.

 

[John F]

Thanks, this is very informative. I'm wondering when York's cycling commentators will pick up on this. The Council are getting hyped up on cycling because of "Le Tour" coming to the city next year. Expect lots of fresh green paint appearing on the roads between now and then - but will it make it safer?.....

 

[MikeyBikey]

Don't want to appear flippant under these sad circumstances, but drivers appear to have the attitude shown in the 'Chopper Read Driving School' video on various sites.. "get a ....... V8 or get off the ....... road!".
Won't post a link coz such comedy would be inappropriate.

 

[flecc]

The council have plenty of paint for yellow lies, why not use some of it for cycle paths ?

...c'mon Wakefield council what's a few litres of paint compared to cyclist's lives ?

Having so much road paint in London where the deaths are the worst, I doubt it adds any safety. The all-blue painted Cycling Superhypeways are of course the most dangerous of all, going by the outcomes, so if anything paint has increased the risks pro-rata to the amount used.

We somehow have to stop cyclists riding alongside trucks at left-turn sideroads.

The authorities latest answer is to flood 2000 police officers onto London's routes with an announced zero tolerance attitude to all road users. So expect cyclists to be ticked off if riding in potentially dangerous positions or ways, and suspect truckers pulled over too if their driving or truck equipment isn't up to scratch.
.

 

[John F]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that in Holland a car driver, who is involved in an accident with a cyclist, is automatically put in jail on the assumption he is guilty until proved otherwise?

 

[flecc]

Quite agree Flecc - I was just trying to find an example of the original letter, and was unable to
There are an amazing number of blogs regarding cycling and the law, many written by lawyers of one sort or another, once you start to look.

And many of the sites spout nonsense, this one in particular.

The worst is seen by scrolling down to where they say there is no exemption for children who cycle on the pavement. In fact there is a specific exemption. The penalty for pavement cycling is a fixed penalty ticket, but all relevant authorities are ordered that they cannot issue one to anyone under the age of 16, which they later admit at the end!
.

 

[SRS]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that in Holland a car driver, who is involved in an accident with a cyclist, is automatically put in jail on the assumption he is guilty until proved otherwise?

Would be useful, I could get some of my business competitors out of the way for a while.
Assuming I don't need to be killed and a minor accident would do the job, I'll vote in favour.

 

[flecc]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that in Holland a car driver, who is involved in an accident with a cyclist, is automatically put in jail on the assumption he is guilty until proved otherwise?

Not in jail necessarily, but there and in some other countries they are assumed to be guilty until they prove their innocence. It's a way of enforcing extra care on the part of drivers.

I'd agree with it here IF our cyclists rode sensibly as they do in Holland, but unfortunately our commuting cyclist are all to often little short of hooligans in the way they race though the streets and break all traffic laws. Therefore I would strongly oppose that liability here, since it would benefit the worst of the cyclists and encourage drivers who are in a collision to drive off immediately without stopping.

 

[Geebee]

Cut and paste from an article on tree hugger
It's not OK to kill cyclists in the Netherlands : TreeHugger

In the post Is it OK to kill cyclists? You would think so, from the number of drivers who get charged for it. it was noted that drivers who kill cyclists and pedestrians seem to get off pretty lightly. The Economist covered the same New York Times article and looks at why there are 8 times as many deaths per billion kilometres biked in America compared to the Netherlands. It's not just the infrastructure, it's the law; the driver is almost always responsible. Even if the cyclist is going the wrong way on a one way street, even if the cyclist is running a red light. They carry it to an extreme:

Fine. What if a tornado is racing through the streets of some Dutch town, picks the truck up, and hurls it into the bicyclist, who is in the middle of running a red light while going the wrong way up a one-way street, no hands? Answer: the truck driver will probably not have to pay the cyclist's damages, unless the cyclist was 14 or younger, in which case the truck driver will have to make an extra effort to prove that there was nothing he could have done to avoid the accident.

There is reason in this.

As explained in this FAQ from the ANWB, the Dutch tourism and car owners' organisation, "the law treats pedestrians and cyclists as weaker participants in traffic... The driver of the motor vehicle is liable for the accident, unless he can prove he was overpowered by circumstances beyond his control (overmacht). The driver must thus prove that none of the blame falls on him, which is extremely difficult in practice."

The Economist concludes that this is a burden on the drivers, they have to be careful. On the other hand, he concludes: "I guess it depends on how much one values human life, as against the inconvenience of having to look in the rearview mirror more often."

 

[flecc]

The driver must thus prove that none of the blame falls on him, which is extremely difficult in practice.

Difficult in Holland where most cyclists ride very responsibly, but not difficult here in Britain where so many cyclist behave so badly and where juries are predominantly pro-car and often have strongly anti-cyclist members.

But my strong opposition to "strict liability" is both the poor behaviour of many of our cyclists and the way in which that law will strongly encourage drivers to hit-and-run. It's not easy to note a number plate as one performs a graceful arc through the air over the handlebars.

 

[103Alex1]

It's not easy to note a number plate as one performs a graceful arc through the air over the handlebars.

Doesn't Big Brother have our every move in cities on CCTV though ... along with recording all our phone calls / texts and reading all our e-mails ?

 

[flecc]

Unfortunately most CCTV cameras are quite low resolution and cannot reliably read number plates, only some traffic and parking control cameras are high resolution.

And at this time of the year when both rush hours are in darkness, most can't anyway since the number plate illumination from all sources is too poor for good imagery.

Also they are not as widespread as the scare stories make out. I live my life in a London borough where I'm hardly ever glimpsed by any cctv camera since I rarely visit the commercial centre and there aren't any in most of the borough's space.
.

 

[103Alex1]

Good to know !

 

[flecc]

Good to know !

They wouldn't be much good here anyway, too much obscured by trees in this leafy borough. The word forest is part of the name of the large estate I live on, and seeing it you'd well believe it!

Even the closest hotel doesn't have a car park as such, set in woodlands, cars park in a number of small woodland glades around the hotel.

 

[MikeyBikey]

Is this site inactive, or blocked? Can't seem to load it with winfone browser!
http://www.ghostcycle.org.uk/
edit - seems to be blocked coz it's been nobbled by some ..... , err one with another agenda :-(
No other site seems to have archived it's former, legit content. American site ghostbikes is ok.

 

[flecc]

Won't load with other browsers either, server not located.

 

[MikeyBikey]

I wonder if it would be ok (meaning appropriate) for one to make and wear ones own Ghost Bike Badge?