2016-10-24 - Rider down/fatality, Lavender Hill, Wandsworth

Lucia was our guest and we failed her.

As well as the appalling road layout the use of a mobile phone is an important factor in Lucia's death. There is convincing evidence that using even a handsfree phone causes the same level of distraction as being at or over the drink driving limit.
It is not clear if the phone really was handsfree or just had a bluetooth earpiece. It was the driver's personal phone, not the company installed phone which was not working that week. The driver was talking to another driver, about routes and locations for other deliveries. Quite possibly his brain was concentrating on those road layouts, not the one right in front of him. At the crash scene the driver told the police that he had been using his handsfree phone, they told him that's all right because using handsfree is not against the law. It seems the police did not consider the impairment effect of such a call.
I think this is another example of the police collision investigator doing an excellent job identifying the situation of the crash and the problems with the road layout and traffic management while the police senior investigating officers not bothering to examine the driver's performance and lack of care.
I have spoken with and emailed the managing director of John Jempson & Sons asking about their policy regarding drivers use of phones while driving. He never replied

This probably isn't place for the discussion, but the amount of things that could distract someone from their driving is huge. Talking to someone in the car, having a child in the back who's complaining, stressful situation at work/home playing over in your head, being lost.

I don't think banning handsfree sets is the solution, because there will always be distractions.

The key in my mind is making roads as safe as possible and making the vehicles that drive on them as safe as possible. Here, the road was crap and the visibility from the cab of the truck poor. If you change those things, even a distracted driver has a much better chance of not killing someone.

Drivers (and cyclists/pedestrians) will always find ways to be distracted. We need to find ways that allow greater margin for error, while also ensuring driving standards are as high as possible.

A person in the car can see if you're having to negotiate a junction or similar and pause, hence why conversations in cars can be quite stop start. A person on the phone cannot. Hence drivers on hands free will attempt to keep the conversation flowing more freely and become more distracted. Or will have one of their senses in use when they may need to be using it for driving.

A very good argument that I think cuts to the heart of the problem.

Anyway, this is a 'rider down' thread, so we should keep discussion out of it.