Recent comments

Watching it on a big screen at the Koppenberg, Thomas looked in great form, trying hard to bridge the gap in the last few km. If people around him had of helped him rather than letting him do all the work maybe he would have bettered that tenth. He was very impressive.

My company takes a photocopy of my licence every 6 months, if they do the same which they should they would have known about putz's previous offences. Its drivers like him that give the rest of use proffesional drivers a bad name.

Although I agree with most of the Five point safety plan these are the problems I can forsee:

1 Cyclist-awareness training for drivers

All city lorry drivers should be have ongoing cycle-awareness training, including on-bike experience.
**Who would pay for this? and what constitutesa city lorry driver (I drive in to london on the odd occasion but dont see myself as a city driver)**

2 Drivers must take more responsibility

Authorities must recognise driver responsibility for doing everything practical to reduce risks. Blaming a ‘blind spot’ should be an admission of guilt.
**Lorry design shouldnt be the fault of a driver, more training should be given to cyclists to make them aware of the blind spots of a lorry**

3 Safer design for London lorries

Lorries designed for off-road use should be taken off city streets. The best mirrors, cameras and sensors should be fitted as standard.
**This is a stupid comment, Off road vehicles wouldnt be registered so therefore wouldnt be able to go on the roads, unless they are talking about shunter vehicles used at most ports and distribution centers, they are usually restricted to 15-20mph so surely they would be more safer in town.**

4 Higher standards from lorry operators

Quality-assurance schemes such as London’s Freight Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS) should be mandatory, and the police encouraged to crack down on rogue operators.
**This I agree with whole heartedly, the police and VOSA should be cracking down on rogue companies**

5 More responsible procurement

Companies must only buy haulage services from reputable firms, with government taking a lead in encouraging best practice.
**Again this i agree with, there are more and more companies subbing the work out to foreign companies whos drivers in some cases only need to be able to driver a tractor to drive an HGV**

Plus: Better education for cyclists

Cyclists must be given the most accurate and up-to-date information on riding safely around lorries.
**THIS WOULD SAVE THE MOST LIVES! If more cyclists understood that coming up the left side of a truck thats turning left is a dumb move the less fatalities there would be, also using cycle lanes properly would help, the ammount of times I have seen a cyclist on the main carrigeway instead of in the cycle lane is unbelievable.**

Problem you have there is that most companies wont pay for someone to offload a lorry overnight, and I doubt anyone living next to a building site would want a delivery to appear when they are trying to sleep.

Trucks are designed the way they are due to the engine being low down and forward in the chassis, if you were to have a slung cab (such as the rubbish lorries) you would loose load space as the trailer would need to be shorter as there are limits to the length of a trailer, and as for having loadspace above the cab you have weight distribution issues as the truck would be more prone to toppling over,

As you might have guessed I am a truck driver, but also an avid cyclist (justifying my presence here), I have driven in London on several occasions and you can put money on at least one cyclist with a death wish not paying attention to my left turn signal and trying to come up my blind side as I am trying to turn left, but that is also extended to motorcyclists, car and van drivers. But one observation I have made, if you watch all these videos that are posted of cyclists commuting through london and so on, commenting on poor driving when they are cycling out side of the cycle lane.

All motorvehicles have a right to use the public highways of the UK provided all their documents are in order (obviously abiding by individual road restrictions) so to ban all lorries from cities would cause major problems for everyone, just look around you, pretty much everything in your area has been on the back of a lorry at some point INCLUDING your cycles, if lorries were restricted to the outskirts of london most companies that require deliveries by road would move out of the city yes leaving every cyclist free of danger from trucks but you wouldnt be able to buy half of the goods you currently buy in the city. All of the superstores would stay on the outskirts as they have such a high turnover of trucks delivering to their stores it wouldn't be cost effective to deliver everything by van or even 7.5t trucks.

Everyone just needs to pay more attention including truck drivers.

nope, click on 'everyone' and pick Dessel instead

as only brad wiggins is the only gc choice do you have to pick him to ensure your team get points for P-ROUB??

Flick the elbow

I find it sad that the DfT and other bodies only approach to reducing fatality figures is to straighten roads; place anti-skid surfaces on corners and junctions; and rumble lines on the approach to junctions and roundabouts; dual-carriageways that suddenly run out!!

Last week I have had a near misses with a tuition vehicle minus the learner! If this is the standard of driving demonstrated by the instructor I hate to see what he is teaching the learner driver!

The sooner tuition is sorted out the better - motorway driving and cycle awareness are two that spring to mind!

disasterous. trying to keep up with a multi ironman finisher and a national standard time trialist was bloody awful. I need more will power (and fitness)

now that I would go for.
A mass start and a full loop of the M25 sounds ace!!

How about they close the M25 and the 30,000 people can ride around there. It's a lot of people to plan for, so they'll have a lot of room on the motorway, and given the average speed on the M25 is about 15mph anyway, it would be a great demonstration of how bikes are again faster than cars in a busy traffic situation. Of course there would be the obligatory contra-flow section, and even when closed there'll be a tosser in a BMW carving people up, but hey, it's the UK!

On the more serious side, it's good for Boris to dream big, no matter what his motivation, and if this helps to get more people out on their bikes, (and proving to naysayers that it's safe when they don't get mown down the instant their front wheel touches the asphalt)well, good on you Boris!

Don't forget there will be 11 football matches played at the Millennium Stadium in Wales (or that the home athletes at London 2012 will be representing GB, not England)

And to those of us from North of the Border, the football match that sticks in the memory is a certain one played at Wembley in 1967, not 1966