Action Group Meeting - cycling deaths caused by lorries

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.