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it's a sensible warning and can save lives. The warning certainly shouldn't have to occur at the point of the large vehicle, rather should be embedded in a general societal understanding that that is just something you don't do, but we are far away from that and if this simple message is spread, it can save lives.
Exactly this. And stickers on all types of vehicles could help with this. I personally find it more likely than this scenario:
if you have them on all vehicles, they'll be used as 'get out of jail' cards for all sorts of crashes, however minor. And this can, in due course, lead to increased road danger, as people's perception of the standard of driving expected of them changes for the worse.
Which is supported by anecdotal evidence only, though if there has been proper research into this theory I'd be interested to hear it.
The many drivers who pull out on me without looking (no euph) or rear- end me at traffic lights (no euph) are unlikely to use a sticker as an excuse.
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William.
It's more nuanced than that. I personally think it's fine to warn riders of undertaking large goods vehicles--there is the usual principled (and very important) argument that road danger ought to be reduced at source, as explained in Colin and Bob's excellent article, but it's a sensible warning and can save lives. The warning certainly shouldn't have to occur at the point of the large vehicle, rather should be embedded in a general societal understanding that that is just something you don't do, but we are far away from that and if this simple message is spread, it can save lives.
However, these stickers have migrated to all kinds of vehicles, and they have little point on smaller vehicles beyond trying to shift responsibility onto riders. Left-turning collisions involving those only very rarely cause the kind of life-changing injuries inflicted by contact with a large goods vehicle, and the proliferation of the stickers to these vehicles is most definitely not in the spirit of road danger reduction. With (the relatively few) lorry drivers, you can rely on most of them to understand the responsibility they have and not to assume that the stickers absolve them of all blame, but if you have them on all vehicles, they'll be used as 'get out of jail' cards for all sorts of crashes, however minor. And this can, in due course, lead to increased road danger, as people's perception of the standard of driving expected of them changes for the worse.
So, yes, they should be removed from all of those smaller vehicles, and the messaging needs to be sorted out for the larger vehicles.
Lest anyone thinks these stickers are new, they're not, of course. Just today I saw a massive scrap metal lorry (very similar to the one involved in Stephanie Turner's death at Seven Sisters Road/Amhurst Park) which had two ancient-looking and torn 'cyclists, do not pass this vehicle on the inside' stickers on its rear. It's just one more of those endlessly recurring topics in cycle campaigning in which the same problems arise again and again.