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• #302
Hi Bill, Thanks for taking the time to reply, I didn't mean to sound ignorant (or arrogant for that matter), and I certainly don't believe that all the incidents could have been avoided by the cyclists involved. I apologise if what I wrote was taken to mean that. Not what I intended at all. Sorry.
My post was meant to highlight that there are an awful lot of cyclists out there who would benefit from education - whether it's a case of shouting "Mate don't go up there, he's turning left", leaflets or stickers whatever. Just to point out, I'm not implying that those have died were lacking education, this is just an observation I've made. I'm sure everyone on here sees other cyclists putting themselves in vulnerable positions, up the inside of HGVs or vehicles turning left etc. like the vids I posted. It's these people that it would be easy to target and get a message across.
This by no means relinquishes the HGV diver of a duty of care of other road users around them. Although I can see how the stickers on the back of trucks would been seem to pass the onus of responsility from the HGV to the cyclist, this is not what I had in mind.
Sadly there will always be incidents when through no fault of the party involved they will end up injured, fatally or otherwise, and that's not saying that no one is to blame either.
Unfortunately as you pointed out when there is blame, they get naff all punishment, a case in point: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_home/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=451662
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• #303
Didn't get a chance to add, as I didn't have much time this morning, but Conrad DuToit's death probably shows that no matter what you do to road architecture, if the drivers fail to look, and yield, a raised curb will NOT save lives.
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• #304
Nice to see the Freight Transport Association seem to think it's all our fault/responsibility. Grr.
I've just spoken to Liam Northfield at the FTA regarding his press release above... must calm down. Well, he agreed that the 'ensuring you’re not in a blind spot at the front of a truck' was not good enough and irresponsible. I explained that there should be a mirror there to decrease the risk caused by the blind spot. Don't just tell us to bugger off out of it escpecially if you roll up behind us.
Anyway, he wants to stay in contact with our Action Group and solve this together. He did actually really seem interested and I will stay in contact.
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• #305
I have registered for six tickets. They are free.
Ya Em! Boris bothering!!!
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• #306
Ya Em! Boris bothering!!!
Yes, Em, this Boris Question Time on mon 10th Nov is straight after the next HGV Cycling meeting is it not!?
A great forum for action. Will check if its too late for BBC2. Doubt Boris will let us film inside but we could deffo hijack him and pump up the coverage beforehand.
He will prob have media there....?! Maybe we can smuggle in placards (or eggs, or sthg more relevant...) Sthg for the action group to consider...
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• #307
It's a shame there's no way on the forum to highlight a post such that people cannot skip it.
there is, you can get a post to pop up when someone logs in, saying something like:
"the admin would like you to read this"
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• #308
For sure, some of the deaths and injuries were the result of left turns by the lorries. But by no means all.
Hmmm, I think we need to bear this in mind, and find out all the possible ways in which a lorry might kill someone. Left turns are a huge danger, to be sure, but until the meeting the other night, I didn't know that some deaths have involved right turns or something else.
Well, having said that, on the morning of the meeting, I saw a cyclist hit by a lorry (THANKFULLY she was ok - my heart was in my mouth) when it sped through a red light a few seconds after hers had changed to green (she was coming out a junction to its left). Needless to say, I have reported it to the police, and am chasing the fleet manager of the company.
I'm sure one group or other will already be considering this, but presumably we need to put a lot of thought and research into all the myriad and different ways a lorry poses a threat to cyclists. Until this week, I thought I was keeping myself safe by always sticking to the right side of lorries. Clearly I'm not. :(
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• #309
Hmmm, I think we need to bear this in mind, and find out all the possible ways in which a lorry might kill someone. Left turns are a huge danger, to be sure, but until the meeting the other night, I didn't know that some deaths have involved right turns or something else.
Well, having said that, on the morning of the meeting, I saw a cyclist hit by a lorry (THANKFULLY she was ok - my heart was in my mouth) when it sped through a red light a few seconds after hers had changed to green (she was coming out a junction to its left). Needless to say, I have reported it to the police, and am chasing the fleet manager of the company.
I'm sure one group or other will already be considering this, but presumably we need to put a lot of thought and research into all the myriad and different ways a lorry poses a threat to cyclists. Until this week, I thought I was keeping myself safe by always sticking to the right side of lorries. Clearly I'm not. :(
You're much safer than if you positioned yourself in the secondary position or went down the inside. Let's please not forget that collisions happen in all sorts of ways and there will always be some. The risk of a collision in London is still quite small given the huge number of trips intersecting and coinciding in such a small area as London's over-congested centre, but there are still far too many deaths (anything above zero is far too many) and serious injuries.
There are no silver bullets, no magical solutions, just constant work to improve things gradually or stop them getting worse. The good news is that in the case of HGV safety, significant advances can certainly be made if some simple recommendations are finally followed.
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• #310
Do we have a public health analyst available to map out the accidents?
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• #311
Do we have a public health analyst available to map out the accidents?
i don't know but we do have a geographer (moi) and a cartographer on the list of names. personally, i also know a number of geographers specialising in public health and epidemiology who i might be able to get help from. i'll ask around.
what sort of 'mapping out' did you have in mind? a map of fatalities has already been made. however, this, cross-referenced with various demographics (age and sex especially) and integrated with a similar mapping of non-fatal accidents could be a goldmine of info that could feed directly into both standard policy-oriented campaigning and a more grassroots campaign (direct actions, stunts, etc.).
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• #312
Hi
Sort of stuff I use at work, a PCT , where we layer data about illness etc over data on services and deprivation etc etc.
We usually find out we have services where they should'nt be and we then don't change how we commission them; welcome to my world .
What I thought might be useful , and what seemed to be missing from the plans, was that we map out the accidents in terms of place and then find some way of sifting the accidents , ie who , when , was it an HGV etc . We then overlay them.
Buffalo Bill makes the good point that its not just a matter of women being hit at junctions by HGVs turning left....
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• #313
OK, i see what you mean. that'd be a good map to have. I can ask around and see how to get hold of those sorts of stats. my feeling is that it might be held by the transport police rather than health services.
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• #314
this is a major task in one of our groups - enforcement and data group.
boris et al are doing nothing to focus on the reasons for the deaths of experienced cyclists by hgvs. many many of them are. at least half of the women this year.we need stats on the collisison, who, when, why, who involved, experience of cyclist, familiarity of route, awareness of hgvs etc eg eilidh had done the same route for 3 years (a 20mile round trip), had read the stuff about dangers of hgvs and discussed it with friends, had cycled in london for years, she was in front on the right. in her own lane. there is a blind spot in front and on the right. please note! it was measured at 1.2metres!!
boris is not tackling this stuff, and wont admit this is a problem he is not tackling.only with these stats can we have a good case and a credible argument, sthg that is impossible to ignore or dismiss.
we need to contact all the families of previous victims and try and find this out. we need to design a checklist for the police to fill in on each crash. we need an annual analysis of this info and conclusions drawn. then they can act on the right and relevant info instead of putting in measures that look good in the press but that dont deal with the issue. ie the other party in all this, the hgvs. the party with no incentive to do anything; no fear of harm and no fear of public outrage and no fear of financial penalty and no fear of legal penalty, when they kill someone.join the working group if you can help on this.... will be up on the website this week
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• #315
Thanks Ktee, I was a bit worried that the analytical work was missing from the project.
Ideally , we need a public health analyst or epidemolgist for this .
I am but an amateur one , though I ve some possible contacts .
I ll be in touch
I ve example of the sort of thing I mean from work , which I ll pm/ email .
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• #316
The police have very good mapping resources . They can tell you which side of a road you are most likely to get robbed on.
However, as RTAs etc are probably not a priority, then this does not used to analyse these accidentsIf they collected the data , they could produce the sort of information we are discussing.
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• #317
The police do have a lot of data, but as a senior collision investigator told me the other day, a big part of the problem is that, whereas they always have lots of witnesses to the aftermaths of serious collisions, they rarely have good witnesses to what happened immediately before (as in Eilidh's case).
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• #318
Hi folks, pending any specific place for research-related stuff to go other than this thread, i've found a few more potentially useful bits n bobs on the research/mapping front. Below are relevant direct C&P quotes from emails.
"The police dataset you're talking about is called STATS19 and it will have data about where collisions took place and on vehicles involved. In terms of other factors, it may not always be very reliable or comprehensive. Also as you know there are issues about how complete the dataset is (I seem to remember a recent BMJ paper showing that the police figures had got less reliable over time - i.e. under-reporting to a greater extent - compared to hospital records)."
"There is a 'Society and Cycling' email list for academics researching the sociology of cycling."
" Tessa Anderson did her PhD on road collisions at UCL a few years ago. Not sure if it contains anything about bike collisions but it may have some context that would be useful - see http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/publications/workingPaperDetail.asp?ID=96
" My first option would be Transport for London's Road Safety Unit (Chris Lines, Head). Here is the link http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/roadsandpublicspaces/2840.aspx
Approximately 50% of road crashes involving bikes in the UK are not reported. My second option would be hospitals (lengthy and costly but effective). They are way far more reliable than the police reports." (NB. i have an article that covers the use of hospital reports for these sorts of issues)" Bus companies will keep records of accidents, as they tend to penalize drivers using what is called a 'Safety Committee'. It might take a Freedom of Information request, but they should make the records available."
"contact the Highways Dept in each London borough direct - they'll have stats i expect".
"Map of cycle collisions in the uk: [SIZE=2]http://labs.timesonline.co.uk/blog/2009/03/11/uk-cycling-accidents/
-[/SIZE] "This is for New York...so I know not the data you are looking for, but this might be a way in?? Here are stats: http://www.transalt.org/files/resources/blueprint/chapter17/ and map: http://www.nycbikemaps.com/spokes/transportation-alternatives-crash-stat-map/
The organization that put the map together did it through surveys, I believe...if you contact them (transalt.org) they might have some ideas."
- "I would suggest taking photos of troublesome junctions as well"
I'll post up more leads when i get them...
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• #319
Put it all in the Wiki: http://www.seemesaveme.com/wiki/
That is the place to put everything. Start just dumping it in semi-organised, as organisation is something that can emerge.
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• #320
There is an acadmic, whose name I ve fortgotten , as UCH who has an intrest in this
Hence the PhD.
Over to seemesaveme from now on.
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• #321
Put it all in the Wiki: http://www.seemesaveme.com/wiki/
That is the place to put everything. Start just dumping it in semi-organised, as organisation is something that can emerge.
aha, reading instructions fail on my part there. will do from now on.
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• #322
More on stats. I am not convinced that analysing killed is the way forward. The numbers are so low as to be statistically insignificant, plus the key witness is not able to give their own account.
I think a more fruitful approach would be to look at KSI. Much bigger numbers.
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• #323
I agree
What we also need to know about is any near miss's and non fatal accidents.
In health care , if only counted the fatal mistakes , we 'd appear very safe.
My pharmacy colleagues take near miss's in dispensing very seriuosly and, if required , do a root cause analyis. -
• #324
More on stats. I am not convinced that analysing killed is the way forward. The numbers are so low as to be statistically insignificant, plus the key witness is not able to give their own account.
I think a more fruitful approach would be to look at KSI. Much bigger numbers.
Definately, seriously injured, injured and near misses would be good. Someone doing current research on all cyclist injuries treated by HEMS and someone else sent an email about the same sort of stats they are looking at at another hospital (cant remember which).
Lets get it all on SeeMeSaveMe.
By the way, I just found an email back from Jonathan Mitchell, Adonis's Private Secretary, when I was asking for an IV with him. His closing comment expressed his sympathy especially as a cyclist but concluded:
"The recent spate of incidents involving HGVs has certainly altered my cycling behaviour."
Maybe Im being over-sensitive but it implies again that the cyclist can avoid these incidents by riding correctly. -
• #325
Yesterday I saw a private hire car that had a little orange light that turned on when something moved into it's blind spot. It was an orange tirangle in the corner of the nearside wing-mirror.
It was a flash Merc. But hey, the technology exists ... I chatted to the driver, who wasn't used to it yet as he'd only got the car that day ... but it seemed intriguing, to me. I guess the sensors work in a similar way to the parking sensors that many cars have these days.
When I saw it I thought of the possible application to LGVs.
It's a shame there's no way on the forum to highlight a post such that people cannot skip it.