Sixth London cycling death this month as man in his 60s is hit by lorry in Camberwell

It's shocking and sad, but there must be some data to help figure what can/should be done. For these (and indeed any injury or death) is there information on;
- was the cyclist not following the Highway Code?
- was the vehicle driver not following the Highway Code?
- what time of day was the incident?
- did the cyclist have full front and rear lights and rear reflector?
- was the cyclist dressed to be seen?
- was the driver on the 'phone (or some other version of not paying attention)?
- are there particular characteristics of the road or the junction where it happened?
- was the driver breaking the speed limit?
- was the cyclist using a pedestrian crossing or feature etc. to ride on?

There will be more I'm sure, but data behind all of these terrible incidents must drive the debate, otherwise it becomes a mindless 'lycra lout' vs 'idiot driver' shouting match.

If there was a decent segregated path to cycle on, then all these become fairly irrelevant.

The point is that on the roads people will make mistakes. If you have sht roads then these mistakes kill people. If you have decent roads then they don't.

Gemianini wrote:

It's shocking and sad, but there must be some data to help figure what can/should be done. For these (and indeed any injury or death) is there information on;
- was the cyclist not following the Highway Code?
- was the vehicle driver not following the Highway Code?
- what time of day was the incident?
- did the cyclist have full front and rear lights and rear reflector?
- was the cyclist dressed to be seen?
- was the driver on the 'phone (or some other version of not paying attention)?
- are there particular characteristics of the road or the junction where it happened?
- was the driver breaking the speed limit?
- was the cyclist using a pedestrian crossing or feature etc. to ride on?

There will be more I'm sure, but data behind all of these terrible incidents must drive the debate, otherwise it becomes a mindless 'lycra lout' vs 'idiot driver' shouting match.

If there was a decent segregated path to cycle on, then all these become fairly irrelevant.
The point is that on the roads people will make mistakes. If you have sht roads then these mistakes kill people. If you have decent roads then they don't.

bedethe builder wrote:

How can lives be sacrificed in this way on our roads and so little done to protect vulnerable road users?

Because Londoners voted for a mayor that thinks as long as you keep your wits about you, youll be ok, that cyclists bring their own deaths upon themselves and that the super rich are a put upon minority

zanf wrote:

bedethe builder wrote:

How can lives be sacrificed in this way on our roads and so little done to protect vulnerable road users?

Because Londoners voted for a mayor that thinks as long as you keep your wits about you, youll be ok, that cyclists bring their own deaths upon themselves and that the super rich are a put upon minority

Because "some" Londoners

northstar wrote:

zanf wrote:

bedethe builder wrote:

How can lives be sacrificed in this way on our roads and so little done to protect vulnerable road users?

Because Londoners voted for a mayor that thinks as long as you keep your wits about you, youll be ok, that cyclists bring their own deaths upon themselves and that the super rich are a put upon minority

Because "some" Londoners

More than voted against him. Being as that's how an election works and all.

On a more serious note, more terrible news. It doesn't seem to be hitting home to those who make policy that every one of these statistics is a son or daughter to someone.

merckxissimo wrote:

northstar wrote:

zanf wrote:

bedethe builder wrote:

How can lives be sacrificed in this way on our roads and so little done to protect vulnerable road users?

Because Londoners voted for a mayor that thinks as long as you keep your wits about you, youll be ok, that cyclists bring their own deaths upon themselves and that the super rich are a put upon minority

Because "some" Londoners

More than voted against him. Being as that's how an election works and all.

On a more serious note, more terrible news. It doesn't seem to be hitting home to those who make policy that every one of these statistics is a son or daughter to someone.

Actually, if you look at the votes, more did not vote for him than did. Firstly, there was only a 38% turnout, so 62% didnt vote for him.

There were 2,208,475 votes counted (40,210 rejected on 1st preference, 445,466 rejected on 2nd preference, for various reasons such as 'unmarked', 'uncertain' or voting too many').

Out of 1st preference votes, 1,236,544 didnt vote for him.

So thats how elections work....

[Source]

merckxissimo wrote:

More than voted against him. Being as that's how an election works and all.

Humph!

Mostly outer-Londoners! Who just see inner London as a place to drive through as quickly as possible!

Bring back the LCC!

Oh - though maybe shouldn't go so off-topic on a thread like this, sorry!

Another tragedy. The toll is starting to look very grim indeed. Surely its not going to go on like this for the rest of the year?

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

merckxissimo wrote:

More than voted against him. Being as that's how an election works and all.

Humph!

Mostly outer-Londoners! Who just see inner London as a place to drive through as quickly as possible!

Bring back the LCC!

Oh - though maybe shouldn't go so off-topic on a thread like this, sorry!

I didn't even get a vote, as I live outside the 'London' boroughs. But I'd have voted for Boris - bear in mind that the alternatives were Red Ken and, er...

The fact is, whoever is in charge has a wide range of conflicting priorities. For what it's worth I think Boris would quite happily close large numbers of roads to be used as cycle-only routes - but he is also (quite rightly) very protective of the economic strength of the City and London as a whole - and unfortunately, construction and HGV traffic is part of that.

Me? I'd ban cars from a large central area and have trams/trolleybuses and autonomous driverless mini-taxis. Force everyone to walk, cycle, tube and so on. It'd never work.

Gizmo_ wrote:

I didn't even get a vote, as I live outside the 'London' boroughs. But I'd have voted for Boris - bear in mind that the alternatives were Red Ken and, er...

The fact is, whoever is in charge has a wide range of conflicting priorities. For what it's worth I think Boris would quite happily close large numbers of roads to be used as cycle-only routes

You seriously believe that? Boris does whatever the hell Boris thinks will make him most popular - a few soundbites here and there to get people to shut up until the storm has blown over and that's exactly what we're seeing here although I really think he's underestimated the strength of feeling here and that it *may* not work this time.

He's an absolute arse of a man - even by politicians standards

VeloPeo wrote:

Gizmo_ wrote:

I didn't even get a vote, as I live outside the 'London' boroughs. But I'd have voted for Boris - bear in mind that the alternatives were Red Ken and, er...

The fact is, whoever is in charge has a wide range of conflicting priorities. For what it's worth I think Boris would quite happily close large numbers of roads to be used as cycle-only routes

You seriously believe that? Boris does whatever the hell Boris thinks will make him most popular - a few soundbites here and there to get people to shut up until the storm has blown over and that's exactly what we're seeing here although I really think he's underestimated the strength of feeling here and that it *may* not work this time.

He's an absolute arse of a man - even by politicians standards

You have to forgive Gizmo's naivety. They obviously havent really examined Johnsons history beyond his carefully crafty media personality.

Prior to his re-election, he was scornful of anyone who spoke about bringing Dutch style solutions to Londons (and the UK's) infrastructure. Through campaigns such as Londoners On Bikes, he signed up to the "Love London, Go Dutch" ethos yet has continuously used every dirty trick with putting off actually doing anything outside of what they (TfL backed by him) were doing before.

What needs to happen is that people now start protesting on a regular basis, shutting down lethal junctions, quit thinking that the LCC is going to get anything done with its passive, non-disruptive methods or with signing petitions (Sorry but Johnson will ignore the fuck out of them while paying lip service to make you think he cares), and start causing as much disruption as possible.

The time for "peaceful" protest is over: people (pedestrians and cyclists) are being killed on our streets on an all too frequent basis and nothing is going to change until there is a paradigm shift in how our transport systems are organised and being "peaceful" and "nice" just doesnt cut it anymore.

Have a look on u tube on the close shaves cyclists get with motorists when they jump out of their cars trucks taxis ,they have no thought on their actions ,to them cyclists are a hindrance not human beings that can be hurt/killed etc the law needs to change and fast kill someone with a gun and your a murderer use a vehicle and seems fair game..