Cyclist hit by lorry

cardinalbiggles

sequence wrote: »

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.

Absolute junk. Its a solid white line the truck cant cross it and when the cycle lane ends the bike is in front.

100% the truck drivers fault, he hit a cyclist while overtaking, the law is clear about giving cyclists room and he did not do this.

Norman_Castle

Truck driver leaves the cycle lane clear and only moves across after it. Difficult to tell how far ahead the cyclist was and if he ever got far enough in front to be out of the blind spot.

mikey72

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

Absolute junk. Its a solid white line the truck cant cross it and when the cycle lane ends the bike is in front.

100% the truck drivers fault, he hit a cyclist while overtaking, the law is clear about giving cyclists room and he did not do this.

I'm impressed. At no time did the cyclist look to his right during, or after passing the truck. So he could easily have been next to it the whole time, he may never have actually managed to undertake it completely. The only way you can make such an authorative statement is if you where in the car behind, as no one else here can see it. Or you could have made it up.

mikey72

Drivers view for all the cyclists out there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzL0Kyk4m-8&feature=related

Notmyrealname

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Truck driver leaves the cycle lane clear and only moves across after it. Difficult to tell how far ahead the cyclist was and if he ever got far enough in front to be out of the blind spot.

THIS. Merely being just in front of the truck wouldn't be sufficient. You need to be several feet in front of the truck. As a former truck driver I would like to comment that when driving higher cabbed artics I've had shorter cars undertake me on the nearside and they've been completely invisible out of the front windscreen until the rear of the car is a good couple of feet in front of the wagon.

AliceBanned

Over the past year or two there has been a lot of publicity about these type of accidents, which can so easily end up killing the cyclist. cyclists have been warned about the truck drivers' blind spots, which are often now given in signs on the back left hand side of trucks. I'm not sure who was at fault but for me personally I cycle carefully as I cycle through central London and often go through some of the cycling blackspots. When i see one of these trucks I stay behind, and definitely would never undertake it, unless it was stationery at lights, and even then, with these trucks and buses I prefer to err on the side of caution and stay behind them, rather than go ahead as I know they will then have to overtake me. it's much more relaxed cycling in this way as well. I know there are a lot of idiot drivers, cyclists and pedestrians or just people being thoughtless and in a hurry, so I try to heed the warnings cyclists have been given and not put my life in their hands any more than I have to.

AliceBanned

mikey72 wrote: »

Drivers view for all the cyclists out there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzL0Kyk4m-8&feature=related

Unbelievable, shocking.

AliceBanned

mikey72 wrote: »

I'm impressed. At no time did the cyclist look to his right during, or after passing the truck. So he could easily have been next to it the whole time, he may never have actually managed to undertake it completely. The only way you can make such an authorative statement is if you where in the car behind, as no one else here can see it. Or you could have made it up.

He also never even glanced behind - I prefer to have quick look behind every now and then, best to have an idea of what vehicles will be overtaking so I can pull right in or even sometimes stop to let them go ahead. He does seem to be acting as though it's a race, which is obviously dangerous on the public road. The cycle lane is pathetic though and probably doing more harm than good, especially as it ends abruptly. I don't think it's wide enough for the drivers to be able to notice it. If they have never cycled on a public road they'd have no idea how inadequate it is.

kizkiz

It would seem to be a prime example of the driver being at fault, but the cyclist putting himself in a really dangerous position.
Too many people, cyclists and drivers, have no concept of defensive driving and planning ahead

Johnmcl7

mikey72 wrote: »

And a need for training for cyclists.

Not really, if you have to train someone to use their common sense and not to cycle right beside a truck in the blindspot then it's a lost cause. The local school pupils cycling back and forth to school get cycle training and much to the frustration of the school, they're some of the worst cyclists there are in this area.

Also based on the video and comments from the uploader I doubt they'd take to training as they put the entire blame on the truck driver.

John