Blood on the streets

Velocios insurance point it a really important one. If you increase the liability you increase the risk. If you increase the risk you increase the cost.

Young drivers do things like those advanced courses to bring down their insurance. You could then offer a discount if people did specific advanced cyclist/motorcyclist aware driving courses. As long as the costs are balanced people would do it.

What ?
Oh is that your sarcasm ?

Given how people treat that particular law, and their general aloofness of it, it might as well be legal.

On the economics thing- I got side swiped by a car, the police did their standard thing of totally ignoring it.

I wrote to my MP pointing out that a) we were in a period of austerity and b) each RTA costs an estimated ~£62,000 and therefore c) the Police were being financially negligent in not acting to prevent said accident.

The Police re-opened their investigation when the MP insisted that they do so- it never went anywhere as the driver went back to Nigeria before it could do, but it was something.

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/400939788351856640

Guardian is asking for your near miss experiences in London

i have a bitch-blog about a shittily parked HGV on my route if anyone's interested.

http://norwood4lyf.tumblr.com/

/cbb

I've recently had to go through driver CPC training in order to be able to drive (rarely!) <7.5T vehicles for work. It was very interesting to see how cyclists are being portrayed as a problem to truck drivers. The instructor was very keen to point out how bad cyclists are - the usual "all cyclists rlj, ride pavements etc". I did have a rather robust discussion with him - with the support of a number of my colleagues - also cyclists. The instructor was clearly used to being agreed with by professional truck drivers, rather than being argued with by people who aren't just drivers, but may have to drive to do their job.
I'm hoping that he'll take some on the points on board and I have also written to the company that provided the training.

I got side swiped by a** car**, the police did their standard thing of totally ignoring it.

.

Another thing we can all do is to refer to the people who do these things rather than inanimate objects. The driver swiped you dammit with his/her car!

The driver didn't see the child crossing the road not the car didn't see him

This de-personlising language we all use lets people off the hook. It's like using the term accident rather than collision/crash.

I've recently had to go through driver CPC training in order to be able to drive (rarely!) <7.5T vehicles for work. It was very interesting to see how cyclists are being portrayed as a problem to truck drivers. The instructor was very keen to point out how bad cyclists are - the usual "all cyclists rlj, ride pavements etc". I did have a rather robust discussion with him - with the support of a number of my colleagues - also cyclists. The instructor was clearly used to being agreed with by professional truck drivers, rather than being argued with by people who aren't just drivers, but may have to drive to do their job.
I'm hoping that he'll take some on the points on board and I have also written to the company that provided the training.

pm'd

i have a bitch-blog about a shittily parked HGV on my route if anyone's interested.

http://norwood4lyf.tumblr.com/

/cbb

Just tweeted this to them

The solution is simple - banned HGVs from rush hour.

This. We need to change the culture of commercial transportation in London. But it won't happen in my lifetime, I fear.

to be fair - the molsoncoors lot have been pretty forthcoming - i ran this on twatter last week and they were suitably contrite, saying they would treat this as a matter of urgency blah blah...

that last pic was taken yesterday.

There's a thought experiment / meme I'd like to get into circulation...maybe one to use when having discussions about where the danger on the roads is really coming from

If there was a new mode of transport that went at equivalent speed to motor vehicles, and like motor vehicles could take you door to door, carry passengers, and provide heavy good deliveries etc, but the downside was it would also kill 30 people every week, would you accept it?

If not, then why the hell do we accept that from motor vehicles?

^ agreed wholeheartedy.... sadly, by similar logic we probably wouldn't have beer!

Infrastructure improvement, liability changes, amendments to the law and a whole bunch of other things are important and necessary and probably the right path to safer roads for everybody, but they're decade long solutions (at least) and, as VB's pointed out about HGV bans, it's insanely fucking complicated and there are potentially negative side effects to things that seem pretty straightforward.
Five absolutely unnecessary and eminently avoidable deaths in eight days, as well as a bunch of injuries, demands an immediate response surely?
Too much said here already to meaningfully multi-quote but, like mobile phone use while driving, there are so many existing laws and regulations that just aren't being enforced; speeding, RLJ (by all road users), uninsured drivers, HGVs/Tippers on the roads without the correct paperwork etc, cyclists without (or with poorly functioning) lights after dark. The Met/City Police could start cracking down on all these things in a matter of hours and, although I'm not saying that any of these recent incidents were directly/immediately caused by anyone breaking these laws a highly visible enforcement blitz might make everyone just chill the fuck out a little bit and maybe not gun it to get through an amber light if they think there might be a copper waiting to hand out a fine on the other side (for example).
It's absolutely a temporary, interim option and wouldn't have any lasting effect but if it even slows the incident rate over the next eight days while the darker evenings and crapper weather are still sort of novel then it's totally worth it, right?
/ill informed ranty anger posting

Are there stats on the types of HGV involved in incidents? Based purely on what I see whilst out riding is that it's construction lorries, tippers, scaffolding trucks, mixers etc that drive erratically and always pushing the limits. Is this to do with the way drivers are payed and time constraints? Again, this is only my observation but I've had less negative interaction with delivery lorries from large companies ie: Currys or Sainsburys - the drivers seem much more conscientious. Could it be the employment conditions play a part in driver behaviour?
As for everyday car drivers - well so much carelessness, aggression and phone usage that compared to professional drivers they scare me more. At least I can hear/see most trucks if they're behind me and stay well clear if not.

It really comes down to education on all sides and this is something that will take a generation or more as it's changing behaviour and culture.

Are there stats on the types of HGV involved in incidents? Based purely on what I see whilst out riding is that it's construction lorries, tippers, scaffolding trucks, mixers etc that drive erratically and always pushing the limits. Is this to do with the way drivers are payed and time constraints?

Quite right, an example is once a tipper leave a construction site, it's no longer their responsibility.

Make construction sites responsible for contractor they hire for example, and they'll be more concern with the number of death occurred

i have a bitch-blog about a shittily parked HGV on my route if anyone's interested.

http://norwood4lyf.tumblr.com/

/cbb

Did you get anywhere with this? I know the guy who runs the dogstar. Happy to have a word if it helps. Do you want to PM me?

What can they do? the best solution is to suggested an alternative place to park that HGV, otherwise there's no other way to solve this.

My dray (almost) always turned up bang on 6am, it was gone by 7.

I think the hgv delivery drivers attitude is just fuck it.

superdrug in morden get deliveries by hgv and once a week in the morning you'll have a hgv reversed down this back street so its cab is in line with the door on the right

http://goo.gl/maps/0LnkY

and a queue of vans from the other shops sitting there waiting for him to move the fuck out of the way so they can get to their own business.

I've not seen it arrive before but i can imagine it causes a clusterfuck trying to do the reverse in that area as well.

Did you get anywhere with this? I know the guy who runs the dogstar. Happy to have a word if it helps. Do you want to PM me?

i have been in touch with yer man from the DS as you can see from the correspondence included on the page, as well as a number of tweets wherein he claims to have brought this up with the brewery so i'm sure he's aware of the situation. If you know him personally i would appreciate it greatly if you could have a word anyway, i harbour no ill will towards the man and i appreciate that he has done everything in his power to effect change.

it genuinely appears to be down to the driver of the lorry who appears to just not give a shit regardless of what his brass tells him.

What can they do? the best solution is to suggested an alternative place to park that HGV, otherwise there's no other way to solve this.

1) he can make his deliveries during the proscribed times
2) there is a dermarcated loading zone not 20 yards away on the other side of the road. he's just too fucking lazy to use it.

Quite right, an example is once a tipper leave a construction site, it's no longer their responsibility.

That's not quite correct, Ed. The Olympics, for instance, adopted a zero casualty target for its construction. I'm not quite clear on whether they met it--Charlie investigated some of this at the time and may know more. I think there was a suspicion that the lorry and driver involved in Lisa Pontecorvo's death may have been Olympics-related, but I don't think it was ever proven. I think there have been other construction projects which adopted similar policies, but you'd have to ask Charlie for details.

Make construction sites responsible for contractor they hire for example, and they'll be more concern with the number of death occurred

It's certainly true that this would improve things. One of the worst hotspots of recent years was Shard-related--the area between Tower Bridge and London Bridge, especially Tower Bridge Road and its turnings to the west towards the Shard site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24936942

"He (Andrew Gilligan) pointed out that there were 69 pedestrian deaths last year but that pedestrians do not have as strong a voice in the media."

facepalm.jpg

Beware HGV drivers who only travel short distances - they have had no training whatsoever..

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/driver-training-exemption-set-to-cut-costs-and-bureaucracy