It says it’s on bicicyles only, but keep watching, it’s good food for thought.
Leaving aside the suspicion I have that TED is where people who love to hear themselves talk, go to talk to crowds of intellectual sheep, this lecture is only remarkable for the obviousness of it’s subject. The bicycle is back (and that, despite the H&S hysteria that has engulfed modern day life.)
I feel that in place of the biking fraternity trying to find ways to make trucks safer, by insisting they have advanced sensors and mirror systems fitted, to warn the truck driver that a cyclist is in the near vicinity of their vehicle, there is a far more simply solution.
That solution is simply to educate ALL cyclists that regardless of their inalienable rights to use the road alongside heavy goods vehicles, they risk serious injury or worse, if the insist on exercising those rights at all times.You would imagine it would be plainly obvious to anyone with half a brain cell, but I am constantly amazed at how often cyclists are prepared to risk their lives, because they have a right to be where the danger is at its greatest.
As a truck driver for more than 35 years, I don’t want to have an accident. I don’t want to injure or kill anyone. I take a pride in driving to the best of my ability and make use of many years of experience in many countries around the world to carry out my job as well as I possibly can.
I cannot, in all honesty, claim that I can always, for every second that I am driving, know exactly what is on my nearside. Given the demands of driving trucks in urban environments, it is simply not humanly possible.
I and all other drivers, apart from the equipment already given to us, i.e. eyes, ears and mirrors, use our training and a degree of judgement. And as humans, our judgement is sometimes incorrect. 99.999% of the time our judgement is good if not excellent. The other 0.001% of the time we drag the nearside trailer tyres over a kerb.
It really is the responsibility of BOTH the cyclist AND the truckdriver to avoid accidents, and if that was accepted by both parties, I am certain there would be fewer accidents resulting in the death and injury of cyclists in this country.
Yeah.
I really like this action of London Police where they take a truck and invite cyclist to sit behind the wheel and to see what the trucker can see. I think this should be much more widespreed.