Imagine running over a 70 year old dear i must be equivalent of running over twigs , tragic! . Does’nt look like a lot of room on that road to overtake a bike in a car never mind a lorry , personally would of stayed clear of it but if needs must . Lets hope there was nothing driver could of done .
I guess if a 70 year old rides a bike like they drive a car then its anybody’s guess . Just hope driver has cameras fitted front & sides .
Reading those reports, it doesn’t seem the lorry was overtaking the cyclist - it reads to me as if he was stationary at the side of the road and pulled out into the traffic as she was passing him.
One can only hope she didn’t suffer, regardless of how it happened.
Perhaps she fell under the trailer wheels and he didn’t realise, which is why they pulled him over on the M2 and are assuming hit and run, hence the arrest?
bazza123:
Perhaps she fell under the trailer wheels and he didn’t realise, which is why they pulled him over on the M2 and are assuming hit and run, hence the arrest?
It’s horrendous to think that he got as far as Farthing Corner services without realizing he’d killed someone on the way. Even if the poor cyclist was just pushing the bike out between parked cars - and ended up under his back wheels. Doesn’t anyone check their mirrors over and over again whilst passing through 30mph village roads that have parked cars on either side to boot?
A lot of the runs out of F&W turn left, and go along this stretch of road. On this occasion however it appears to have been a Coop driver involved. F&W drivers might be expected to know the road a bit better, making them safer drivers upon it. An essex driver delivering a load also out of Essex - is sadly not going to know the road as well alas.
Already in custody, and probably going to stay there - sad it is to say.
It doesn’t help our public image to have idiots like Harry Smith (Kent Online Comments) hurling venom and abuse at the entire industry either.
Winseer:
It’s horrendous to think that he got as far as Farthing Corner services without realizing he’d killed someone on the way. Even if the poor cyclist was just pushing the bike out between parked cars - and ended up under his back wheels. Doesn’t anyone check their mirrors over and over again whilst passing through 30mph village roads that have parked cars on either side to boot?
There is a point where it could just as easily be someone getting into a position of conflict anywhere around the vehicle while the driver can only watch out for one point of conflict at any one time.By your example he’s watching for anyone going under the trailer just as someone goes or potentially goes under the unit.In addition to the fact that the driver can’t observe opposite sides of the vehicle at once either.Make no mistake the possibility of taking someone out without knowing it gets ever greater as traffic and population densities increase with a population being ever increasingly told that it’s the driver’s responsibility to ensure their safety regardless of their own actions.Bearing in mind the nightmare situation of not only knowing about any collision but also then by default having no defence because the driver doesn’t even know what happened.On that note check out some of the old historic truck photos regards visibility and mirror provision.In which there’s no way that they could have got through the week let alone year without an attitude in which the public were going by that of it’s easier for cyclists and pedestrians etc to see and avoid conflict with trucks than vice versa.
What you have to remember CF is that those old lorries weren’t quite so huge as what we have now, the cabs weren’t big or high in most cases and generally had large windows and rear windows which given (on artics) the large gaps between unit and trailer in those days were very handy indeed, and amazingly those who drove them didn’t pull tasseled curtains across them
I’ll never forget the first time i drove a Volvo F88, the cab seemed stupidly high with silly little port holes for side windows and no down mirror specced as i recall so the N/S blind spot was a real problem.
But the biggest difference then was traffic volumes, plus the population generally was far lighter/lower than it is now…but most importantly common bloody sense from all road users hadn’t yet been banned.
Collisions still happened, as they always have, and they always will, but back then lorries tended to look and sound a bit menacing, they didn’t have soft looking placky bumpers, they didn’t have bendy side guards to push you out the way, if you were on a bike and came into contact with a lorry it was going to bloody hurt even if a glancing blow from a rope hook or reinforcing strut on a tipper body, not saying we should go back to those days far from it, but if summat looks nasty you tend not to get too blinking close.
■■■■ shame for the poor lady in this thread whatever has happened.
