HGV bans and other measures

Now that's a moral nugget to chew on. I read up about that a while ago, and it seems like you actually compare (we save x minutes journey time by building x) vs (this many people are likely to get seriously injured / killed by accidents when we build x) when planning traffic. Must be quite a lot of pressure.

I knew a guy who did risk assessment like that for London Underground. They knew places where there was risk of death, the question was whether the average cost, and peak cost, of the lawsuits and associated costs exceeded the cost of mitigating the risk through various options.

That's been explored quite a few times, the most famous example was the exploding-fuel-tank-in-a-crash "feature" that Ford designed into one of their new cars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed

When I complained to my MP about the chap side-swiping me I used as an example of why total police inaction was not helpful the average cost of a non-fatal accident in London which was ~£65,000/accident.

My point being that the police had the opportunity to do something now, before the guy who thoughtlessly hit me knocked someone else off "properly".

The actual cost of a fatal accident is a lot higher- costs to the employer, the family, etc etc.

It (the pilot job) might be a good one for cyclists to do- who would be more aware of where other cyclists would be invisible?

Now that's a moral nugget to chew on. I read up about that a while ago, and it seems like you actually compare (we save x minutes journey time by building x) vs (this many people are likely to get seriously injured / killed by accidents when we build x) when planning traffic. Must be quite a lot of pressure.

Much like the baby seat on aeroplane debacle.

My point being that the police had the opportunity to do something now, before the guy who thoughtlessly hit me knocked someone else off "properly".

That's a really interesting angle.

That as a society we acknowledge escalation of behaviour with things like crime, and choose to try and prevent that escalation. But in relation to behaviour on the road we treat every incident as an isolated event with no regard as to whether behavioural change could have prevented it.

Exactly- I think I put it in terms of "in this period when the focus is so sharply thrown onto budget cuts and financial responsibility I find it amazing that the police turned down this opportunity to save £65,000 by choosing to act only when a serious accident was too late to prevent".

I stayed up when he hit me- my mum (for example) would have been straight down onto the road in front of oncoming traffic, and the taxpayer would be out £65,000.

might a ban during rush hours be an option?

I'll reiterate what I said earlier. It takes the threat of HGVs out of rush hour but then just loads them into the traffic on either side. You're not actually removing the threat, just changing the hours when it is present.

Has anyone analysed when HGV incidents occur? Is this even a particular issue? There's probably some merit in analysis of the distribution of incidents and modal distribution of traffic.

I'm also of a mind that if you're riding in rush hour you're somewhat more inured to the dangers of traffic and are more likely to have some of the confidence and road skills that make you safer, particularly around HGVs and other higher risk vehicles. This might also be counterpointed by an elevated expectation of cyclists on the road.

I suppose what I'm asking here is whether the threat of rush hour isn't a bit of red herring in all of this.

Here's the data as an extract from the national dataset since 1985.

London HGV cyclist fatalities by location

Clearly central London is particularly dangerous, and the morning rush hour is more dangerous than any other time of day.

Clearly central London is particularly dangerous, and the morning rush hour is more dangerous than any other time of day.

That's a false conclusion.

Clearly the place in which most people cycle, at a time when most people cycle, will see a greater number of accidents if they were evenly distributed.

Chiswick High Road has a greater number of incidents than roads around, but given that the volume of cyclists on that road is significantly greater than the roads around, the actual actual incident rate per cyclist is actually lower there.

This is why it needs to be cross analysed with the modal distribution. Possibly also intramodal distribution as well. Proposing solutions to a problem we don't fully understand is often a flawed endeavour.

Can someone explain the red line. 4 per. Mov. Avg. isn't a term I understand.

That said, designing safety based on critical times for density and incidents should show some onward benefit into other times.

Not really false, more like the opposite side of the coin, like comparing the mean and mode.

If a thousand people cycle along a road and 100 of them die, you wouldn't ignore that to go and fix the road where two cyclists cycle and one of them dies. Based on a mean average and even distribution the second road is more dangerous. But it ignores the fact that virtually nobody cycles there.

SK - the moving average is just a means of softening the peaks and troughs in a graph to make it a bit more easily readable.

Clearly central London is particularly dangerous, and the morning rush hour is more dangerous than any other time of day.

As has been said above, there are massively higher numbers of riders at rush hour than any other time so there will be more incidents in raw numbers

(TfL will start reporting KSIs as rate based data rather than absolute numbers which means that while there may be an increase in absolute numbers of KSIs, as a percentage of total trips they may be falling.)

A ban would be tough for the industry and displace lorry traffic to other times. Education of drivers and cyclists, enforcement and lower speeds could help.

There is an issue with where cyclists are positioned on the roads reinforced by drivers getting annoyed when a rider is 'in the way' so punishing them with a beep or worse, and too many cyclists believe that they need to keep as left as they can. Many cyclists instinctively move left to pass stationary traffic, or when there is a big vehicle behind (rather than right which is often much less risky though more scary), moving left takes them to the least visible places.

When we train lorry drivers in cyclist awareness we ensure they end up understanding why cyclists ride in the middle of the lane and also understanding that it is better for them to have the rider 'in the way'. They also learn that many cyclists aren't assertive and mis-assess the risk believing they are safer keeping left so they need to be especially protective of them and hang back.

Some drivers on these courses say the purposefully move close to the curb to leave no room for cyclists on their left. That's an interesting practice.

A chap from my old place of work said that- he always got as close to the curb as possible to stop cyclists getting past him at the lights.

He was very, very stupid so I'd discounted him as being representative though- maybe that was a mistake?

That would probably cause quite a few people to get on the footway and re-enter the carriageway ahead of the lorry.

A chap from my old place of work said that- he always got as close to the curb as possible to stop cyclists getting past him at the lights.

He was very, very stupid so I'd discounted him as being representative though- maybe that was a mistake?

As I filter on the outside this would be helpful to me.

Aren't drivers in holland expected to move towards the curb at lights and demonstrate that as part of their driving test?

Are we ignoring the elephant in the room? why aren't we're talking about the fact the cycle lane encourage people to their death?

TfL; stay in the inside, always undertake, especially in traffic life, it's the safest option, why? because we tell you to.

Yes the feeder lane is clearly an issue Ed, and a symptom of the point I made earlier about the view of a cyclist's position in the lane. it is not just TfL. I even think the majority of forum riders and many experienced cyclists instinctively pass on the left. Many of those with whom I have ridden do that. #mentioningnonames

@olaf: all major construction sites have a plan and procedure for getting vehicles in and out of site, usually a requirement to use banksmen on entry and exit. but unless the local council and highways dept pick up on potential hazards caused by site traffic further afield, they only manage the area immediately outside site. I don't know if that ever happens - highways dept do look at all construction permits and planning applications etc, and think about whether it's an acceptable impact on local traffic, but I don't know whether they ever require (for instance) manned junctions half a mile away.

the idea of having local escorts into town is a really interesting one and seems (at first instance) to be really good. transferring loads from larger to smaller vehicles, timing bans etc seem basically so disruptive and economically damaging as to be unfeasible, particularly for construction loads. but perhaps there could be a combination where there is some incentive for appropriate goods to use smaller vehicles, but big loads (that typically require a crane at each end to load/unload) get an escort.

last week I think on Bishopsgate there was a really complex bit of maneouvring going on with 3 banksmen, they could probably have done with 4 as one of them had to run from one end of the block to the other. HGVs all over the place.

Some drivers on these courses say the purposefully move close to the curb to leave no room for cyclists on their left. That's an interesting practice.

It's unfortunate that on the occasions when it's most important to prevent cyclists filtering on the inside, they actually have to leave a huge gap between their vehicle and the kerb.

I sometimes find when I'm behind slow-moving traffic, or coming up to a red light behind traffic, that the driver in front will try to be helpful by moving really far from the kerb to let me through. It's tempting to go through to accept the rare gesture but I just wait behind if I can't go to the right.