Boris Johnson's Narrow Escape

A few weeks something similar but far less severe happened down by London Fields/Broadway market when I was out with Crane, Pepperoni and a few other forumengers, they still had all the scaffolding stuff erected from the market but it was taped off, some guy in a van with a ladder managed to hit one of the scaffolded stands at the beginning and move an entire row of these metal stands about 8 ft along the ground, knocking some woman who was crossing the road clean off her feet and into the concrete, again ironically, because the dude just couldn't wait for some cyclists to move, so he tried to go around, and in the process probably gave some woman a broken collar bone, well i'm pretty sure it was broken, it certainly didn't look to good when we went, but she had loads of friends etc looking after her. It was so surreal as we were riding along next to these stands as they started moving and we were like What the fuck!

Interesting! The cyclists were Boris Johnson with his advisers (including Kulveer Ranger), the Transport Minister and Peter Hendy the TfL Commissioner.

The lorry driver couldn't have chosen a better crowd!

I hope you mean because it highlighted, in the most graphic way, to the people who really need to understand this stuff just how dangerous lorries are to cyclists. (And not that you would like them squashed by a lorry - though I'm no fan of Peter Hendy, he doesn't deserve that!)

It's kind of lost in the story, but they were out scouting for the cycle "super-highway".
i.e. BoJo is out doing what he promised to do, and has the transport minister on board. This is really good news.

I wish he'd ban trucks though.
Especially ones teararseing down the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, over speedbumps with unsecured doors.

Damn, they nearly got him. Better luck next time Mr truck driver.

That truck looked like it was going a fairish clip, really cutting in to get in front.

I do love the fact though you see what apear to be Boris walk round the lorry and do his trade mark hair ruffle.

The parked car was just trying a wreckless skitching move.

The parked car was just trying a wreckless skitching move.

haha.

Crazy incident. Maybe Bojo will do something about the lax attitude of some of London's truck drivers? Riiight.

i love the nonchalance of the fat cunt lorry driver. cylists may be mangled in the wreckage but i have dropped my half eaten ginster which i need to put back in the cab for later plus i don't want to get out of breath walking to the back of the lorry as i'm being paid by the hour.

first thing i noticed, what an inconvinience for the chap

still i am glad my hair twin is safe. really can't see anything to come of this unless someone compiles a list of offenses against cyclists by lorries and sends it to all those involved.. just to give them an hint that this wasn't a fluke

I hope you mean because it highlighted, in the most graphic way, to the people who really need to understand this stuff just how dangerous lorries are to cyclists. (And not that you would like them squashed by a lorry - though I'm no fan of Peter Hendy, he doesn't deserve that!)

It's kind of lost in the story, but they were out scouting for the cycle "super-highway".
i.e. BoJo is out doing what he promised to do, and has the transport minister on board. This is really good news.

I wish he'd ban trucks though.
Especially ones teararseing down the wrong side of the road on a blind bend, over speedbumps with unsecured doors.

Goodness, I would never wish any harm on anyone, unlike the driver of that lorry.

I just thought the whole story was interesting, the transport specialists working on a project to make London safer for cyclists and experiencing a stupid accident because of a dangerous lorry driver. It also illustrates the few stories that I read on the forum of hit and run this week and the police not interested in following anything up. I feel a little better knowing that people who have the power to make decisions share the same experiences as us, the insignificant ones.

W.a.c.

This is an incident of an incautious (but not extremely so) overtaking manoeuvre by the lorry driver which could and should have been prevented. In the seconds before the lorry overtakes, every single rider leaves the primary position which they should take through this stretch of Narrow Street, as it is narrowed further by parked cars. They could obviously not have predicted that the rear doors would open, but they were still riding poorly in ths situation and were increasing the likelihood of being in a side-swipe collision. Cycle training would have taught them correct positioning.

Cycle training is by far and away the best method of ensuring rider enjoyment, and rider safety as a highly valuable secondary product (which is a very important part of enjoyment--I'm not saying that enjoyment is more important than safety, but rather that it is included in the idea of enjoyment, whereas enjoyment does not fall under safety).

I do hope there is no repeat of this situation. It would be great if the Mayor of London were to make a good example of himself by taking up cycle training.

Be interesting to see how this pans out - clear video footage of driving like a total cnut, even without the negligence on the doors. No way is that an overtaking opportunity, even if there was only one cyclist. Anybody got the precise location, because I can't see a curve which goes that way on Narrow St?

Herr Schick, while I agree about BoJo taking and the crew taking lessons I disagree that that it's not extremely poor driving on the part of the lorry driver. As mentioned earlier, the rears of those sorts of truck have multiple locking mechanisms in place to ensure that sort of thing doesn't happen. Add to that, speeding up on a bend with obvious width issues, speed bumps etc...
Far worse things have happened to cyclists with more diligent HGV drivers being apparently careful so frankly that sort of reckless behaviour is inexcusable as far as I'm concerned.

Herr Schick, while I agree about BoJo taking and the crew taking lessons I disagree that that it's not extremely poor driving on the part of the lorry driver. As mentioned earlier, the rears of those sorts of truck have multiple locking mechanisms in place to ensure that sort of thing doesn't happen. Add to that, speeding up on a bend with obvious width issues, speed bumps etc...
Far worse things have happened to cyclists with more diligent HGV drivers being apparently careful so frankly that sort of reckless behaviour is inexcusable as far as I'm concerned.

Fair enough, CYOA, I suppose I have simply read about and seen far more extremely bad overtaking manoeuvres, and I can assure you that this is not in that bracket I'm thinking of. As we don't know the cause of the opening of the doors, we can only speculate that this was caused all by the speed hump and not to some extent by the driver not locking them correctly. I certainly had no intention of excusing the driver. It's sometimes like this in a thread, everybody's already had a go and you don't want to repeat what has already been said so many times, so I just focused on another aspect.

I'll ask Boris when I see him riding.

I thought I saw the lorry taking the bend so fast the rear trailer thing acutally slid out wide, just before the doors open. This would indicate that he's going at a hell of a pace. Is it just me?

@Vee Vee - I'm so glad I read you right - it was a bit ambiguous.

The truck practically gets air off the speedbump!
Glad no one was injured dislike/distrust politics aside, it looks nastier everytime you see the clip.

On a humourous note, it does remind me of the very end of an IT Crowd episode...
'What was Wenger thinking last night.........'

Regarding the CCTV, the journalist who broke the story is a very good friend of mine. He recorded the footage on his mobile from the tv screen.

More to the point, why were they on there way TO work at 11:10am?

More to the point, why were they on there way TO work at 11:10am?

They were technically at work. Johnson has done a few of these rides to reconnoitre potential routes for Cycle Highways.

Wow, this is a pretty impressive / careless manoeuvre just lucky no one got hurt

The driver was wreckless with that *maneuver but like Oliver says: Hold your position
*
I'd rather the prick banged on his horn than have to deal with that.

JEBUS, That truck driver is a cnut. Overtaking down the narrow in a fuc*ing truck!

He should loose his license for that. I hope BoJo does something about these truck drivers that don't give a sh*t.

Regarding the CCTV, the journalist who broke the story is a very good friend of mine. He recorded the footage on his mobile from the tv screen.

So does your journalist friend ( or any journalist for that matter) have access to CCTV footage then ? Or was it recorded from Wharf TV in which case does Wharf TV have access to CCTV footage ?
Just wondering ...