BoJo plans traffic lights mirrors to save cyclists from lorries

And they're called 'trixis':
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/16/boris-cycling-traffic-light-mirrors

Lead a trucker to a mirror, can't make him look..

Interesting idea.

will only work if they look (obviosuly) and don't pull up into the bike box by over shooting the asl, as is so often the case.

better than nothing though. making red lights 'give way' to bikes only has also been mentioned somewhere.

It would be a better idea to make sure all the bike lanes/asl at junctions are in the centre of the road not on the left where cyclists are encouraged to ride in the blind spot/truck crush zone in the first place.

Good idea.

But does it mean they won't bother introducing law requiring better mirrors on the trucks themselves?

All in favour of this (and of plans in general that don't involve painting unenforced random lines all over the place).

To work that would need to be a nationwide strategy. So he'd need to do it:

To be fair to Boris in terms of something just for London this seems like a reasonable idea (as better mirrors on trucks in London only would be completely unenforceable).

Good idea.

But does it mean they won't bother introducing law requiring better mirrors on the trucks themselves?

I think it's a great idea!

Also gives you the opportunity to check your hair whilst trackstanding too!

double win

To work that would need to be a nationwide strategy. So he'd need to do it:

To be fair to Boris in terms of something just for London this seems like a reasonable idea (as better mirrors on trucks in London only would be completely unenforceable).

Why would it need to be nationwide? If there's a mirror in front of a driver they're able to look at it, doesn't matter which town they're in.

Why are mirrors unenforceable? Speed, get fined. Don't have required mirrors, get fined.

The mirror thing is an EU isuue I think. Compulsory n new lorries not on old lorries. The UK government could pass a law to make it so on all lorries but you couldn't do it just for London. It is beyond the durastriction of Boris & co.

Lead a trucker to a mirror, can't make him look..
That's the real problem. DfT have told us they won't do any more to improve mirrors on lorries. It's improving the drivers we have to go for now.
A version of the Trixie mirror is here:
http://www.archerstreetfurniture.co.uk/prod.php?prod=333

I'm sure that it would be possible to enforce that any truck entering London had to have the mirrors, which would ultimately lead to many trucks countrywide ending up with them. Want to drive a truck in London? Fine, you have to have the mirrors. If you don't want to drive in London, then you don't need them.

Problem with the mirrors on traffic lights is that they'd all be covered with tags, graffiti, flyers and those annoying fucking paper tag stickers in about 0.002 seconds, and they'd have to be cleaned EVERY DAY in order to make them effective. An expensive logistical nightmare.