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London mayor Sadiq Khan plans to ban unsafe lorries from capital's roads

London Cycling Campaign welcomes proposals – but haulage trade body says they're “unfair”...

Tens of thousands of lorries could be banned from London’s roads due to new rules proposed by Mayor Sadiq Khan to make the capital’s streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians and encourage operators to switch to ‘direct vision’ lorries.

The Labour politician plans to bring in a system that would rate lorries from zero to five stars based on how much visibility the driver has from the vehicle’s cab.

Only those rated three stars and above would be permitted to operate in the city by 2024, although in the shorter term, up to 35,000 lorries could be banned by 2020 – although it is hoped many will be upgraded to meet the tougher safety standards.

Although lorries account for just 4 per cent of the total mileage driven in London, they account for a hugely disproportionate percentage of casualties among vulnerable road users.

In the past two years, HGVs were involved in 58 per cent of cyclist deaths in London, and in 23 per cent of pedestrian fatalities.

Khan said the scheme was the first of its kind in the world and would result in many lorries being upgraded before the ban came into place.

“I’m not prepared to stand by and let dangerous lorries continue to cause further heartbreak and tragedy on London’s roads,” said Khan.

“The evidence is clear: HGVs have been directly involved in over half of cycling fatalities over the last two years, and we must take bold action to make our roads safer for both cyclists and pedestrians.

“I’m determined to ensure the most dangerous zero-star rated lorries are removed from our roads completely by 2020.”

The move has been applauded by the London Cycling Campaign, which has long campaigned for safer lorries that allow drivers a much greater field of vision to minimise blind spots.

Its senior policy and development officer, Tom Bogdanowicz, commented: “Pedestrians, cyclists and drivers and operators of HGVs all stand to gain if modern designs with minimal blind spots become the norm for on-street use – no one wants fatalities and life-changing injuries to continue to happen.” 

The Road Haulage Association, however, said the proposals are “unfair” and that they demonise lorries.

Its chief executive Richard Burnett said: “Demonising lorries, which keep the economy and shops going, is unfair. 

“Lorries, including construction vehicles, play a vital part in the economic life of London. Without them the capital’s businesses would grind to a standstill.

“We want to bring balance to the argument. We’re not convinced these measures are the solution. Improved visibility isn’t going to sort the problem alone,” he added.

Mr Khan’s announcement comes in a week in which the Department for Transport has been criticised for a ‘Hang Back’ video released under its Think! road safety campaign that many have interpreted as suggesting that cyclists killed or seriously injured in a collision with a lorry are to blame.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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16 comments

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davembk | 7 years ago
0 likes

Yes, things have to change now, not in 5, 10 years. when thousands more lives will have needlessly gone. No driver who cannot fully shoulder his or her solemn responsibility to drive with full attention, care and consideration for everyone else has no place on any road.

Most people would view their lives as precious, and cyclists are no different so why should our lives hinge on whether drivers choose to concentrate, or to text, or rummage around for a lost cd.

It is sickening and ridiculous that being squashed by a truck is seen as no big deal compared with being shot by a gun. The pain of the families left behind is no less.

Thousands more are taking to bikes, there should be proportionate moves to ensure our safety. Maybe slowly it is happening but it is slow.

 

Avatar
gunswick | 7 years ago
2 likes

One step at a time folks... Change the vehicles the there are no hiding places for the bad drivers and the result will be change in driver training and safety.

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Dan S | 7 years ago
1 like

Yes, it obviously requires drivers to look as well as have better vehicles. Equally, a driver paying the attention they should will not hit a cyclist (barring bad cycling or some other unusual outside feature).

The world is not divided into careful drivers and drivers with their eyes shut. There is a sliding scale of attention. A driver who just fails to notice a cyclist in a lorry with poor visibility may well see the cyclist if he's in a different lorry.

Moments of carelessness happen. Any driver who says they've never had one is either a liar or a moron. Moments of carelessness in vehicles with poor visibility are more likely to kill people so let's improve the visibility. Seems pretty simple.

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davembk | 7 years ago
1 like

We have to face it, nothing will change unless the drivers do.

We all know that truly responsible and concentrating drivers would never kill anyone, let alone cyclists, barring bad cycling of course, even if truck visibility were worse than now.

Motorist threat in general, I absolutely hate the uncertainty of cycling, all because of drivers who don't view our lives as important enough to at least give us a bit of space .

Our lives are allowed to continue only because of privilege, through people being kind enough to not be texting, not be changing cd's,  not fiddling with satnavs etc

It doesn't seem to be our right and that's the problem

Why should we feel sick with trepidation, fear even, when we go out on our bikes?

 

 

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Stef Marazzi | 7 years ago
2 likes

I'd like to see him look the families of the dead cyclists , killed by HGVs in the eye, and tell them it's "unfair" that the industry has to make their lorries safer.

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WillRod | 7 years ago
2 likes

Apparently, the majority of lorries that would be banned by 2020 will be banned from the Low Emissions Zone anyway, which means Sadiq Khan doesn't actually need to do much to implement this. It also means the RHA are complaining for no reason.

Hopefully they will spread this nationwide so the haulage companies can't just use substandard lorries elsewhere in the country.

Out of interest, is there something like the Euro NCAP safety ratings for HGV's? I know NCAP cover pickups and vans as well as cars, but it would be interesting to see how badly they would fail in a proper test.

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Mungecrundle | 7 years ago
2 likes

The BBC was quoting 66 pedestrian deaths with 23% of those involving an HGV.

As to 'unfair'. If the RHA can get a signed agreement from all the families and friends of the victims of preventable deaths, not to mention the drivers who live with causing a death on their conscience, if they can get those people to agree that requiring HGVs to be safe for road use is unreasonable, then he may have a fair point.

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Grizzerly | 7 years ago
2 likes

Perhaps the reason lorries are being demonised is because they are demonic. 

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brooksby | 7 years ago
2 likes

Clearly the RHA thinks that dead cyclists and pedestrians are just a price worth paying to keep their members in business and the shops and economy of London going... Hmm.

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jaymack | 7 years ago
2 likes

Your views may be more valid if you replaced the word "pleb" with the word "driver".

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STiG911 | 7 years ago
2 likes

While redesigned lorries are nice, the major stumbling block is the pleb behind the wheel. Introducing all this clear-vision-proximity-warning malarkey is all well and good, but the guy at the wheel still has to actually drive responsibly and that's 95% of the problem.

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hawkinspeter | 7 years ago
8 likes

So, they think these measures are 'unfair', yet I haven't seen any 'fair' proposal by them to reduce the number of fatalities. I don't think it's demonising lorries - it's just that some of the lorries have really bad visibility and these tend to be the ones killing people.

Let's do a bargain - stop killing cyclists and we'll stop demonising lorries.

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PaulBox | 7 years ago
6 likes

“We want to bring balance to the argument. We’re not convinced these measures are the solution. Improved visibility isn’t going to sort the problem alone,” he added.

He's right, the driver will still need to actually look and indicate...

 

PS. Anybody know the number of pedestrians that were killed by HGV's that makes of the 23% number? I've been having an argument with a reporter about this on twitter.

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davidtcycle replied to PaulBox | 7 years ago
2 likes

PaulBox wrote:

“We want to bring balance to the argument. We’re not convinced these measures are the solution. Improved visibility isn’t going to sort the problem alone,” he added.

He's right, the driver will still need to actually look and indicate...

 

While you worry about balance other people die. Get real

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ChairRDRF replied to PaulBox | 7 years ago
1 like

[quote=PaulBox

PS. Anybody know the number of pedestrians that were killed by HGV's that makes of the 23% number? I've been having an argument with a reporter about this on twitter.

[/quote]

See Mungecrundle.

 

Basically it is a much smaller proprtion of ped deaths, but then there are more peds killed. The main point is that a similar number of pedestrains and cyclists are killed in crashes where an HGV is involved. In terms of statistical significance it is difficult to comment because the number per year is small. But the basic point remains - HGVs are involved in crashes where both pedestrainsand cyclists are killed and the design of the HGV is implicated

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vonhelmet | 7 years ago
13 likes

You know what's unfair?  Cyclists not being able to safely use public roads.  That's unfair.

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