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Cyclist hit by lorry
Hello chaps, what do we think of this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxEquA2dVoU
My opinion is that the cyclist makes numerous errors.
He is seen at the start of the video positioned between the double red lines. This is far too close to the edge of the road and invites following boy racers to overtake at high speed when the lights change. He should take the position directly in front of the middle of the car behind.
At 0:40, he sees the queue of traffic and cycle lane for filtering past it. The cycle lane however is not wide enough and caution is needed. Suitable for slow speed only. He needs to be aware of potential left-turning traffic ahead.
At 0:45 there are two dangers - getting cut up by left-turning cars from his road, who might not notice him in the cycle lane, and also cars entering from the side road, who likewise might not see him coming.
At around 0:58 he's accelerating and going faster than the cars. This is dangerous, given the speed of the traffic and narrowness of the lane. He would be better off slotting in behind one of them and passing on the right. Two motorcyclists are seen passing on the right in this video.
At 1:21 there's a 'right bend' sign and a lorry. This should cause alarm. He is best advised to slot behind the lorry here.
At 1:26 the cycle lane ends with no warning. This is poor road design, and the cyclist is going too fast to take the escape route onto the pavement, where, absurdly, he's supposed to screech to a halt. He is also right alongside the lorry.
At this point there is extreme danger. Lorries kill cyclists and he should brake and allow it to pass, but instead completes the undertake, now with no road space to call his own, not even the miserable two feet of tarmac that three was before.
The Range Rover in front is seen to accelerate, and it's quite conceiveable that despite passing the lorry he never actually clears it. Since there's no shoulder check he has no idea. This is rather foolish, considering the threat posed by this vehicle.
The fact that this is an error is compounded by the fact that having understandably not stopped on the pavement, with no cycle lane to ride in, the cyclist needs to establish his own road space. In other words he should be moving out into the middle of the lane, roughly at the centre point of the Range Rover in front. Obviously he needs to do a shoulder check before moving out, which would establish the danger that he is in from the lorry, and perhaps give him the chance to escape into the bus stop. He's hit by the truck, which maybe never saw him, and he seeks to blame the lorry driver. Is he blame? Well maybe. But for me the biggest errors here are:
* the cyclist for not 'taking the lane', doubly important given that he evidently moves faster on the whole than London traffic
* the road designers for the stupidly narrow cycle lane that terminates without warning
* the cyclist for not treating the big scary lorry with a bit more caution
Now it might very well be that the lorry driver is just an inconsiderate idiot who has seen the cyclist but gone for it anyway, because he doesn't want to be 'held up', and has misjudged the space. In which case obviously the lorry driver is legally liable, but.... the cyclist needs to position himself slap bang in the middle of the lane and thereby dictate to drivers when they can overtake, rather than just lurking somewhere over on the left and relying on their good judgement.
Bottom line: if you ride in the gutter, people will treat you like sh*t.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxEquA2dVoU
My opinion is that the cyclist makes numerous errors.
He is seen at the start of the video positioned between the double red lines. This is far too close to the edge of the road and invites following boy racers to overtake at high speed when the lights change. He should take the position directly in front of the middle of the car behind.
At 0:40, he sees the queue of traffic and cycle lane for filtering past it. The cycle lane however is not wide enough and caution is needed. Suitable for slow speed only. He needs to be aware of potential left-turning traffic ahead.
At 0:45 there are two dangers - getting cut up by left-turning cars from his road, who might not notice him in the cycle lane, and also cars entering from the side road, who likewise might not see him coming.
At around 0:58 he's accelerating and going faster than the cars. This is dangerous, given the speed of the traffic and narrowness of the lane. He would be better off slotting in behind one of them and passing on the right. Two motorcyclists are seen passing on the right in this video.
At 1:21 there's a 'right bend' sign and a lorry. This should cause alarm. He is best advised to slot behind the lorry here.
At 1:26 the cycle lane ends with no warning. This is poor road design, and the cyclist is going too fast to take the escape route onto the pavement, where, absurdly, he's supposed to screech to a halt. He is also right alongside the lorry.
At this point there is extreme danger. Lorries kill cyclists and he should brake and allow it to pass, but instead completes the undertake, now with no road space to call his own, not even the miserable two feet of tarmac that three was before.
The Range Rover in front is seen to accelerate, and it's quite conceiveable that despite passing the lorry he never actually clears it. Since there's no shoulder check he has no idea. This is rather foolish, considering the threat posed by this vehicle.
The fact that this is an error is compounded by the fact that having understandably not stopped on the pavement, with no cycle lane to ride in, the cyclist needs to establish his own road space. In other words he should be moving out into the middle of the lane, roughly at the centre point of the Range Rover in front. Obviously he needs to do a shoulder check before moving out, which would establish the danger that he is in from the lorry, and perhaps give him the chance to escape into the bus stop. He's hit by the truck, which maybe never saw him, and he seeks to blame the lorry driver. Is he blame? Well maybe. But for me the biggest errors here are:
* the cyclist for not 'taking the lane', doubly important given that he evidently moves faster on the whole than London traffic
* the road designers for the stupidly narrow cycle lane that terminates without warning
* the cyclist for not treating the big scary lorry with a bit more caution
Now it might very well be that the lorry driver is just an inconsiderate idiot who has seen the cyclist but gone for it anyway, because he doesn't want to be 'held up', and has misjudged the space. In which case obviously the lorry driver is legally liable, but.... the cyclist needs to position himself slap bang in the middle of the lane and thereby dictate to drivers when they can overtake, rather than just lurking somewhere over on the left and relying on their good judgement.
Bottom line: if you ride in the gutter, people will treat you like sh*t.
0
Comments
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Truck driver in the wrong0
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Truck driver needs to wake the f*ck up......
Me personally though, id have ducked into that bus stop and let the truck pass, dangerous place to be next to a truck like that. The cycle lane is also far too narrow, a great example of the cycle lane making the road even more dangerous.
Cyclist is lucky to be alive.“I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an a** of yourself.”
<><><><><><><><><<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Don't forget to like and subscribe \/ \/ \/0 -
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Strider590 wrote: »Truck driver needs to wake the f*ck up......
Me personally though, id have ducked into that bus stop and let the truck pass, dangerous place to be next to a truck like that. The cycle lane is also far too narrow, a great example of the cycle lane making the road even more dangerous.
Cyclist is lucky to be alive.
Looking at the comments on the video it seems the cyclist was in front the truck but the truck tried to repass him, so he was aware he was there. It's a difficult situation because the car in front is clearly accelerating away from the cyclist, so you need quite a bit of confidence to get in the way, but that's his option really - signal and move out into the middle of the road, or back off completely. You can't trust a truck driver not to overtake you dangerously, puts your life in their hands,0 -
Tricky one, my initial thought on watching the video was that the truck driver was at fault as he gives no room to overtake the cyclist as he should have done. On a slower viewing you see the cycle lane is an odd design which I haven't seen before, I assume it means you can't continue further on the pavement. I think the cyclist could have made it onto the pavement even if they didn't know the road but I guess it would be pointless as they would have had to stop.
Personally as someone who cycles a lot it's not what I've have done, with the bus lane ending I wouldn't have wanted to be right beside the truck so I'd have either followed the lane onto the pavement and rejoined the road or as the truck started accelerating moved over into the bus lane to give the truck more room. I may not have to do it legally but I'm the one that's going to be a lot worse off if there's any contact so I prefer to make sure there's room. I also notice on the video the cyclist hardly seems to look around him which I assume the video would show. I don't know officially what you're supposed to do on a bike as I was told when riding as part of a peleton that it's dangerous to look back but coming from a motorcycle it's been drilled into me to perform 'lifesaver' looks frequently. When I'm cycling I like to keep an eye on what's behind me so if I think someone is going to make an impatient overtake I'm ready for it.
John0 -
blind spots ,the front near side corner and theirs a big pillar in the way ,and about seven foot before you can see if something is there ,you can lose a car in that spot
accident waiting to happen on any large vehicle
could this one have been avoided yes
should have given the cyclist more room or stayed back until it was clear to pass ,
and yes i am a hgv driver ,i would have pushed more to the middle off the road and watched the cyclist ,until i had passed and was clear off him
hope the driver gets his a|$$ kicked big time ,it should not have happened
it is not a accident its a indecent its avoidable
did not read you post just watched the video which was enoughthere or their,one day i might us the right one ,until then tuff0 -
Its difficult to say without seeing the distance between the truck and the cyclist. If the cyclist was too close to the front of the truck the truck would have never seen him. As the above comment say there's a big blind spot of trucks and while truck driver need to careful of this so do cyclist.
The truck driver made no attempt to overtake safely. So either he did it on purpose or just didn't see him.0 -
I doubt the truck even knew he wa there. The engine noise doesn't change, so that suggests the cyclist hadn't cleard the front of the cab. As he starts to try to get past on the inside, the truck driver would have been watching the motorcyclist on the offside, then the cyclist would have vanished into the blind spot. Then the cycle lane runs out.0
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Cyclist was at fault, he should never have gone up the inside of that truck, cycle lane or not. He didn't have enough speed to get out of the drivers blind spot, which is why the driver never saw him. The driver probably had no idea he was there. A fine example of why there should be minimum standard for cycle lanes too.0
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And a need for training for cyclists.0
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