cav551:
And crash into the vehicle in front because it has just stopped again! You have to look where you are going at some point when in a queue of very slow moving traffic, you can’t just keep looking in the mirrors.
Please, read what I wrote, not what you thought I wrote. Then have another go at constructive discussion.
What a sad and probably avoidable event.Yes any pedestrian should use a crossing and yes all motorists should check very carefully before moving off.
The problem is some pedestrians do not and some drivers do not.
The next time you are out and about take time to watch drivers moving off from junctions and when in moving traffic.I can tell you there are an awful lot that do not check at all never mind properly.
Not saying that was the case this time but next time you get the chance…have a look…you will be shocked!
I know a driver who had a similar situation to this one.An old man close to the front of the cab who crossed the road on a red light and was run over and broke two legs.Vosa kept the truck for checks on it.
Driver told no further action to be taken.Witnesses said it was the old mans fault.The truck had a mirror at the front .Vosa returned the truck.It had a servuce a few days before the incident at Bridgwater.
There are some junctions where i’m swivelling my head like a bloody man possessed trying to see all the hazards, one in particular is a left turn out of a factory in North London, you have to take the whole road up as you leave and theres a T junction 50 yards away to your left and cars come hurtling round the corner, cars come down the street from your right at 50mph+ in the 30 limit, then you have suicidal wandering pedestrians criss crossing the front at various times, some fast some dawdling, from behind you too from the factory.
And don’t mention the bloody cyclists riding like the devil himself was on their tail permanently aggressive cos their knackers are crushed in lycra tights.
When you can eventually go you have to focus again like greased lightning on all those mirrors as well as whatever field of vision you have through the windows, sometimes you’ll get half way out and some loon comes tearing round the T junction at breakneck speed, so you stop to let him go and next thing some impatient pedestrian appears from nowhere and nips round the front of the lorry, and despite how this reads i always let pedestrians go cos i’m never in that much of a rush anyway.
Front down mirrors are all very well but on too many vehicles are not visible through the wiper swept portion of the screen, and i do wonder if back in the days when lorries had solid unforgiving looking bumpers and sounded a bit gruff on tickover whether pedestrians possibly were more wary of the dangers they might be putting themselves in when they jay walk.
I’ve even had half wits, adults apparently as well as kids, walk across the drawbar when i had a lorry and drag transporter at traffic lights and junctions, one ■■■■■■ up twerp misjudged it and went sprawling all over the path which was amusing, but the thought of driving off with someone unforseen caught in the drawbar was terrifying.
Very sad case this one, but Darwins theory cannot be cheated you can only do so much to prevent people being killed if they willingly put themselves in such danger.
what a stupid bloody place to cross,asking for trouble but the poor old bloke paid for it,i would’nt like to even picture a wagon going over my head while lying there wandering if some low axle was going to drag me to death,the car should’nt of been so close as not to see him,should of been at a distance to see tide of the tyres and tarmac of the road hence the saying “tide and tarmac”.
Seems to me like the death may have been caused by the car driver. Had she have been following the ‘Tyres On Tarmac’ rule she’d have seen the old fella. No doubt she was right up close enough to kiss his number plate.
But, if the bloke was on a walking stick, came from the footpath and was bowled over close to the off side then it’s obvious the driver didn’t check his front mirror.
But, but, but, crossing the road in front of a truck, especially on a walking stick is stupidity of the highest order and as has been mentioned already, walk to the nearest crossing. Better a few minutes late in this world than many years early for the next.
I would like to think that the jury is made up of 12 good and true Lorry drivers…
Who checks that front mirror to make sure some one hasn’t walked directly in front of the wagon EVERY time before pulling away? I don’t.
Would he still have been prosecuted if his wagon was pre 2007 & didn’t have a front mirror fitted by law? 
No evidence of the truck killing the old man.
No evidence of the car behind killing him.
So why is the lorry being charged for his death.
Did the old man have the truck drive over him and was alive and then crushed by the car.
The police expert says there are six mirrors fitted.It does not matter how many are fitted as the mirror at the front of the cab is the issue in this case.
I think the Lgv driver will be let off the charges.
If the car driver knew she was going at 10 to 15 mph but failed to see a body in the road.
In stop and go traffic the Lgv driver would assume nobody is daft enough to cross so close to his cab and would be monitoring the traffic movement in a busy street.The police can not prove he did not check his mirrors on the left and right side of the cab.The old man took a chance.If no mirror was fitted at the front of the cab how would the case change then.?
would it make matters clearer if we had a tick box checklist to complete EVERY time, before we move our vehicles… ■■ , just a suggestion, (ok… i’ll go and get my coat)
Witness reports the lorry was driving slowly.
The car driver said the lorry was driving normaly.
Why is it careless driving for the trucker.
Why did’nt any of the passers by in the street see the old man crossing in a dangerous situation and not stop him crossing the road or shout at him to cross in a safer place or ■■■■■■ him over the road.?
By the time any of us have checked all our mirrors and done some more visual checks before pulling off every few seconds in heavy traffic it is the time when one mirror is missed that a tragedy like this occurs.
The car was seen driving over him.but no acction taken.How can that be.The case should be thrown out of court and as for the police expert is he a commercial vehicle enforcement officer.
In Holland if a truck hits a cyclist and it was the cyclists fault that does not matter over there the trucker is to blame.
cav551:
A lorry driver who failed to see an 85-year-old man crossing the road has gone on trial.
Robert Barnett (pictured) denies causing death by careless driving. He was driving an HGV in a “stop-start” traffic queue in Melton Road, Leicester, when Kantilal Shah walked in front of the stationary vehicle.
As the articulated lorry slowly moved off, Barnett unknowingly knocked over Mr Shah, and the pensioner fell under the vehicle, which passed over him.
A woman driving a car following closely behind had no idea anyone was on the ground.
It would have been impossible for her to have seen him — and she drove over him, Leicester Crown Court was told.
Mr Shah, the founder of a family accountancy business in Melton Road, who was well known on the Golden Mile, suffered fatal chest injuries and died in hospital.
The tragedy happened near the junction with Lancashire Street at about 11am on July 10 last year.
Avik Mukherjee, prosecuting, said the lorry was correctly fitted with six types of mirrors, including one specially angled to see directly in front of the cab.
He said: “The driver should have seen Mr Shah crossing, but failed to do so because he had a lapse in concentration.”
Witness David Hills allegedly saw what happened from his Hair Today barber’s shop opposite.
In a statement read out, he said he knew Mr Shah, who was “quite frail”.
He said: "I saw Mr Shah on the pavement on the opposite side of the road to me.
"He stepped into the road directly in front of the lorry, with his right shoulder a foot from the lorry, walking towards the centre of the road.
“Before he got to the offside to look for traffic on the other side of the road, the traffic started to move off and the front of the lorry made contact with Mr Shah’s right side. It toppled him over.”
He also described a Honda behind driving over Mr Shah.
The Honda driver, Vijya Chauhan, in a statement read out, said: "As far as I was aware the lorry was driving normally.
"I was doing 10 or 15mph and felt my car had gone over something and I stopped.
“When I got out I saw a black walking stick in the road and saw a gentleman lying in the road and I didn’t know how he’d got there.”
She is not being prosecuted.
A witness ran after Barnett’s lorry and told him he had run someone over.
He replied: “Have I?” and immediately returned.
In interview, Barnett, 55, of Sheridon Street, Coton Fields, Stafford, told the police: "He must have walked straight in front of my grille.
“I never saw him. My cab is quite tall, I never felt a thing.”
He said he did not see anyone in front when using his angled front mirror, telling police: “I’d looked at the mirrors and by the time I had my foot on the accelerator, that split second must have been when the chap walked in front of me.”
Barnett said he did not see anyone who was about to cross on the pavement and had “no idea” which side of the road Mr Shah crossed from.
Police accident expert Pc James Lawrence said that if Barnett had checked the front-facing mirror — showing what was within a metre of the front of his cab — he would have seen the pedestrian.
He said: “It’s not likely to be one second. It’s going to take a time for a pedestrian of his age with a back condition and a walking stick.”
The trial continues.
A desperately sad accident for all involved and Particularly for poor Mr Shah’s family for whom I have the greatest sympathy, but is there a political agenda here?[/quote
Interestingly no one has picked up on this?
Check out the names of the victim,the prosecutor and the eventual perpetrator.
Then the location.
Just a thought.
toby1234abc:
No evidence of the truck killing the old man.
No evidence of the car behind killing him.
So why is the lorry being charged for his death.
He wasn’t charged with his death, the lorry driver was charged with ‘causing’ his death. there’s a difference.
The man that died has to be responsible for his own actions.If i jumped in front of a train would you expect the train driver to end up getting charged for my death.
Maybe the Police and CPS may read the opinions in Trucknet and see how they are relying only on the construction and use act for having a front mirror fitted and the proof of whether the driver checked it or not.
If it was a small child crossing would the mirror have a blind spot and not detect the child.
The police say the man would have been slow to cross with a back condition and using a walking stick and say this gives the driver time to see him.
The elderly man could have been feeling good the day he died and crossed the road quicker that day.We all have good and bad days.
Silver_Surfer:
Who checks that front mirror to make sure some one hasn’t walked directly in front of the wagon EVERY time before pulling away? I don’t.Would he still have been prosecuted if his wagon was pre 2007 & didn’t have a front mirror fitted by law?
Most of the time i cant use that front mirror, as it is obscured by the sun blind in my magnum!
Derf:
toby1234abc:
No evidence of the truck killing the old man.
No evidence of the car behind killing him.
So why is the lorry being charged for his death.He wasn’t charged with his death, the lorry driver was charged with ‘causing’ his death. there’s a difference.
Just like Gary Hart after the Selby rail crash. He wasn’t even in the car when the collision occurred.
But Gary Hart lied to the police.They obtained his computer and he had been up most of the night on his computer,when quizzed on how much sleep he had then falling asleep at the wheel.
I can not believe how the car driver ran over the old man and is expempt from any legal action.
I hope the Lgv driver is let off any charges.
I’ve read this thread with a degree of fear, it’s got to be one one the worse case scenario to defend yourself against.
Correct me if I’m wrong (someone will), IIRC the forward down looking blind spot mirror was added/designed to spot cars caught sideways on in front of the lorry, not to spot pedestrians/cyclists.
I also believe that the other downward looking mirror on the door was also originally designed for spotting cars in that particular blind spot but some considerable time ago.
Now, I know I can see all sorts in the mirrors but they are not the best at allowing me to determine what that “all sort” is up too.
Either way, two wrongs don’t make a right and in this case some one paid the ultimate price.
The hundreds of times we pull off from stationary, with the myriad of things to check, it only takes one little thing for it to go wrong, and with some one putting themselves in a dangerous position, then the inevitable will happen and sods law they will be right where they shouldn’t be.
Owww!! my lip hurts! 