Cyclist in accident corner BHS and Dover St

ssimps01 wrote:

it is lorries that keep killing cyclists

Excuse me if I misunderstood that phrase. No desire to turn discussion of a serious accident into mass debating semantics.

Just trying to put the point across that it's possible that cyclists could be contributing to their own problems in some cases, and that if we deny that possibility then we're denying an opportunity to reduce accidents.

Personally, I know I've been impatient on the road on occasion, and tried to cut up the inside of other traffic at times when it wasn't really safe to do that. Thankfully, it's not ended in tears, but, if it had done, then I think it would be wrong of me to deny that I'd contributed to my own misfortunes.

Seperate lanes would be great, but I don't think they're possible in lots of London due to space constraints (assuming that banning motor vehicles would be seen as too radical a solution for the majority to accept). Which makes me think that training for all parties must be part of the solution, as I think we'll be sharing our roads for the forseeable future.

@ Phoney - thing is, behind a heavy truck, cyclists cannot read the road, see any obstructions that might cause the truck to brake suddenly etc., see oncoming traffic. Same is true for car drivers behind trucks, but their accel/decel profile is closer to that of the truck so it's a little less annoying.

Would it be unreasonable to suggest that these heavy trucks keep to a much lower speed limit between the construction sites and the A2? Given that they're all scheduled and marshalled anyhow, would a 10mph limit for heavy construction traffic make sense on the minor roads? Fewer accidents, and less severe when they do happen.

Be most annoying for all other vehicle users....amd if the issue is big vehicles the same then could be applied to buses vans coaches etc...and then everything would snarl up.

It is a very difficult issue but road sharing with 2 sets of rules doesn't work well and that's where it seems to me most of the problems occur.

Buses & white vans are somewhat less of a menace to cycles - not quite such heavy construction, and it's the high gap under the sides of those tipper trucks that's been the killer on so many occasions. Getting hit by a tipper truck body at any given speed is a whole lot worse than an aluminium body panel. Not that you want to get hit by either, but speed-for-speed there's a big difference.

Given average A-B journey speed in London is supposedly 12mph, not so sure re snarl ups - I've seen Keltbray trucks doing 25+ down the side streets between Shard and BHS/A2, that's just needlessly dangerous.

phoney - did you give the Evening Standard permission to reproduce your photo?

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23849885-cyclist-hurt-in-collision-with-lorry-owned-by-death-crash-company.do

If not, I suggest you send them an invoice...

Being of sound mind I hereby surrender all rights and royalties for this photo to Mr James Hatts of Bankside Press in appreciation of the londonSE1 website.
Signed,
phoney.

Just out of interest I googled 'cyclist collides with keltbray lorry' and the first photo, which I only posted on this site, has been reproduced on at least 6/7 other sites such as demolitionnews.com, bikeshow, thisislondon and many forums. Only a couple linked it to london-se1.co.uk. Mind you I have often used stuff found online without acknowledging the source. And you never know whether a site copied it from here or copied a copy. Maybe any image posted here should have '©london-se1.co.uk' on it.