Cyclist Killed

A cyclist has been killed in a collision with a lorry in east London.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene on Commercial Road, Stepney, shortly before 08:30 GMT.

His family have not yet been told of his death. The road is closed in both directions near the junction with Arbour Square.

Transport for London said 14 cyclists had been killed on the capital’s roads this year. A police spokesman said investigations were under way.

A force spokesman said the driver of the lorry had stopped at the scene.

The London Cycling Campaign said what it called the “large number” of cyclists and pedestrians killed in crashes with lorries had to be addressed.

The spokesman said: “Much more must be done to protect cyclists and pedestrians, which means making sure every lorry on London’s streets is driven by someone who’s had cyclist-awareness training (preferably on a bike, as well as in a classroom) and all lorries have the best safety equipment such as mirrors, cameras and sensors.”

A better idea! Lets not drive an LGV inside the M25! Simples :sunglasses:

Has this situation got worse in the last 10 years?

I ask because when I was doing London on a regular basis 10+ years ago I never came into conflict with any other road user even in the rush hours

neil46:
The spokesman said: “Much more must be done to protect lorry drivers and pedestrians, which means making sure every bicycle on London’s streets is ridden by someone who’s had lorry and pedestrian-awareness training (preferably in a lorry, as well as in a classroom) and all bicycles have the best safety equipment such as mirrors, cameras and sensors.”

Just to appease the PC brigade - must be fair to all. :wink:

Stan

Both the spokesmans comment and the edited/ altered comment are correct.
there needs to be training, awareness on both sides, AND, there needs to be enforcement of the rules for both sides equally.

Not having driven in London for quite a while now I was shocked when watching the TV programme on cyclists in London at the sheer number of them.
What was obvious was the almost total lack of any kind of deterrent for cyclists and the complacency by which they ignored the laws… and their own safety.
I also have concerns over the number of mirrors that are currently stipulated and the possiblilty of calls for even more, creating problems with increased blind spot obstruction for forward vision.
No matter how many aids a HGV driver has, he still has to make manouevres which can cause a problem for other road users, these other road users have to be aware of and allow for that.
Perhaps it is time for some kind of licencing and compulsory training for cycle users,along with some kind of registration system for indentification purposes.

del949:
…there needs to be training, awareness on both sides, AND, there needs to be enforcement of the rules for both sides equally.

What was obvious was the almost total lack of any kind of deterrent for cyclists and the complacency by which they ignored the laws… and their own safety.

Perhaps it is time for some kind of licencing and compulsory training for cycle users,along with some kind of registration system for indentification purposes.

^^^^ that

As both a driver and cyclist, I feel that I am a lot safer driving amongst cyclists than I might be otherwise. If we are forced to have fairly useless DCPC courses thrust upon us, one aimed at cycle awareness might actually help prevent tragedies. After all I bet we all know people who cycle and would want them to be as safe as possible. We all have to drive into congested areas sharing roadspace with cyclists and pedestrians, they don’t come out of a collision with us well!
Our industry has done a lot to improve the danger to vulnerable road users, and it has been effective. All good drivers see the benefit of properly focused training which is actually useful.

Hexhome:
As both a driver and cyclist, I feel that I am a lot safer driving amongst cyclists than I might be otherwise. If we are forced to have fairly useless DCPC courses thrust upon us, one aimed at cycle awareness might actually help prevent tragedies. After all I bet we all know people who cycle and would want them to be as safe as possible. We all have to drive into congested areas sharing roadspace with cyclists and pedestrians, they don’t come out of a collision with us well!
Our industry has done a lot to improve the danger to vulnerable road users, and it has been effective. All good drivers see the benefit of properly focused training which is actually useful.

I am not so sure that loads of training is the answer - I think it is more down to attitudes

dessy:
A better idea! Lets not drive an LGV inside the M25! Simples :sunglasses:

+1 make them come and collect it :smiley:

As both a driver and cyclist, I feel that I am a lot safer driving amongst cyclists than I might be otherwise. If we are forced to have fairly useless DCPC courses thrust upon us, one aimed at cycle awareness might actually help prevent tragedies. After all I bet we all know people who cycle and would want them to be as safe as possible. We all have to drive into congested areas sharing roadspace with cyclists and pedestrians, they don’t come out of a collision with us well!
Our industry has done a lot to improve the danger to vulnerable road users, and it has been effective. All good drivers see the benefit of properly focused training which is actually useful

perhaps I am misunderstanding your post but you seem to be of the opinion that all the issues will be solved by training drivers or by the industry doing things.
You seem to ignore the fact that the ones “who don’t come out of a collision well” have a responsibility for their own safety.
Encouraging them to rely on drivers being aware of them and taking appropriate action is not going to encourage them to think of their own safety and responsibility, which I see as being of equal or more importance.
After watching some clips of cyclists in action I think that in some cases no matter how much training and awareness on the drivers part there is, unless the same is done for/by cyclists then these accidents will continue.

ROG:
I am not so sure that loads of training is the answer - I think it is more down to attitudes

Well I agree with you so what do we do about it?

We aleady have ‘loads of training’, how much of the DCPC is actually useful to an increasingly older and more experienced pool of professional drivers? I can assure you that Cycle Awareness training changes attitudes. Anyone who undergoes good quality training comes away with a changed attitude I would suggest.

del949:
perhaps I am misunderstanding your post but you seem to be of the opinion that all the issues will be solved by training drivers or by the industry doing things.
You seem to ignore the fact that the ones “who don’t come out of a collision well” have a responsibility for their own safety.
Encouraging them to rely on drivers being aware of them and taking appropriate action is not going to encourage them to think of their own safety and responsibility, which I see as being of equal or more importance.
After watching some clips of cyclists in action I think that in some cases no matter how much training and awareness on the drivers part there is, unless the same is done for/by cyclists then these accidents will continue.

I think that you might be misunderstanding me. We are professional drivers, we trained to reach the high level of skills which we have. We now have to go ongoing DCPC training which may or may not be useful. I don’t think that any actions on our part absolve other road users from responsible behaviour and indeed there is lots of training out there for such road users. As has been said, attitudes have to change and a ‘it’s their own fault’ attitude achieves nothing.

I think most truck drivers are very aware of cyclists, we’ll never know how many potential incidents are avoided by the awareness of the driver and that last look.
But with so much going on it’s only take a split second of distraction to not see the cyclist coming down the left hand side. Of course it’s a lot easier for a cyclist to see a truck than a truck driver to see a bike.

I ride motorbikes, seen as the same type of demons as cyclists by many other road users, the person most responsible for my safety and staying out of trouble is me as a vunerable road user it’s no comfort saying it was the cars or trucks fault when I’m lying in hospital or worse.

We need to get away from the conflict and start working together, the haulage industry and cycle groups need to do more to get both side to appreciate the problems of the other group. That’s means cyclist need to get into a truck and have truck awareness course as well as truck drivers needing cycle awareness courses.

muckles:
I ride motorbikes, seen as the same type of demons as cyclists by many other road users, the person most responsible for my safety and staying out of trouble is me as a vunerable road user it’s no comfort saying it was the cars or trucks fault when I’m lying in hospital or worse.

We need to get away from the conflict and start working together, the haulage industry and cycle groups need to do more to get both side to appreciate the problems of the other group. That’s means cyclist need to get into a truck and have truck awareness course as well as truck drivers needing cycle awareness courses.

Courses for cyclists are being run and are ongoing with the support of the industry. Just to be clear, I am not absolving cyclists or other road users from blame in this BUT we suffer as well in such events which are preventable. The haulage industry and cyclist organisations are working together but there is still a lot of ‘it’s their own fault’ attitude about. This attitude whilst understandable does nothing to help us work together.

Hexhome:

ROG:
I am not so sure that loads of training is the answer - I think it is more down to attitudes

Well I agree with you so what do we do about it?

We aleady have ‘loads of training’, how much of the DCPC is actually useful to an increasingly older and more experienced pool of professional drivers? I can assure you that Cycle Awareness training changes attitudes. Anyone who undergoes good quality training comes away with a changed attitude I would suggest.

Maybe I’m not fully grasping this but I fail to see what I as a driver stand to gain by attending a cycle awareness course. I already know that if I run one over then he’ll leak then die. It’s really that simple, the training I did in order to qualify for my vocational licence taught me to give cyclists plenty of room, to anticipate their potential actions, to treat them with respect, and to not reverse over them.

There, that’s my training paid for and done, how about the cyclists training?

the maoster:
There, that’s my training paid for and done, how about the cyclists training?

No it isn’t, you know full well that you need to undergo 35 hours of training every 5 years. Why not have some of it which might actually be useful!

Hexhome:
I can assure you that Cycle Awareness training changes attitudes.

Then, if that is correct, it needs to be made compulsory but will any Govt chance losing votes by doing that?

ROG:

Hexhome:
I can assure you that Cycle Awareness training changes attitudes.

Then, if that is correct, it needs to be made compulsory but will any Govt chance losing votes by doing that?

No, I have campaigned for this at Minister level and they will not make it compulsory. Certain sections of our industry are such as the Crossrail project transport suppliers are making this training compulsory. I envisage that as the problem is mainly in London, there will be a form of compulsion for HGVs entering London Boroughs in a similar way as the Quiet Lorry legislation worked in the early 90s. Hackney and Lambeth are leading the way with this - hackney.gov.uk/Assets/Docume … ackney.pdf

There is a real problem, cyclists are increasingly being killed by large vehicles and unfortunately it is not always the cyclists error!

Hexhome:

the maoster:
There, that’s my training paid for and done, how about the cyclists training?

No it isn’t, you know full well that you need to undergo 35 hours of training every 5 years. Why not have some of it which might actually be useful!

I’ll reiterate as you’re obviously having problems grasping this. What training is there available to a driver apart from the traing he received whilst on “L” plates that could possibly alleviate the cyclist vs truck problem? Surely you can’t be advocating that truck drivers get on their bikes as part of their DCPC training? I can just picture 20 or 30 fat, asthmatic, hi vis and lycra clad potential heart attacks wobbling through town following a trainer with a flashing beacon stuck on his safety helmet!

No, far better to provide compulsory training to the vulnerable ones in this equation before they are entitled to do battle on the city streets. After all, it’s quite rare for a motorist to be killed by a cyclist as far as I’m aware.

What a load of bollox!!! What more can we do??
We check our blind spots, be extra cautious when traffic is stop start. There is only so much a driver can do from his seat, we can check our mirrors as many times as we want but in that split second we are checking the other mirror some idiot will be up the inside.

It’s cyclists who need educating not the drivers!!
I would put good money on every single one of those deaths that the cyclist was on the near side. They don’t deserve to die but if they play with fire they are going to get burnt.