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Islington to lorry drivers: on your bikesTipper truck (CC licensed by kenjonbro)

Islington to lorry drivers: on your bikes

Safety training for truckers to include urban cycling
by John Stevenson
Fri, Dec 06, 2013 18:31
10

IIslington Council has announced that all lorry drivers working for the council or on building sites in the borough will have to take a cycling course to help make them aware of the needs of vulnerable road users, including cyclists.

The bike training will be part of a Safe Urban Driving training course which all drivers will have to take if they work directly for the council or its contractors. In addition, the council will use its planning powers to encourage independent developers to send their drivers on the course or an equivalent.

The decision comes just days after transport minister Robert Goodwill told the Commons Transport Select Committee that it would be a good idea for truck drievsr to spend some time on a bike. 

According to the Islington Tribune, the council will insist that any developer of a large project - more than 10 flats - has its drivers trained as part of granting planning permission.

Transport chief Councillor Andy Hull announced the policy at Thursday night’s council meeting. In a statement he said: “The safety of cyclists on Islington’s roads is a matter of life and death which the council takes extremely seriously.

“Through this new package of measures, we are pulling the different levers at our disposal to make the borough a safer place, not only for people on bikes but for pedestrians and drivers too.

“We can never eliminate all risk on our roads, but by acting on our fleet, procurement and planning policies we are doing what we can to minimise it.”

He told the Tribune that around 30 percent of all road crashes in Islington involve cyclists, but the six percent of roads under the control of Transport for London account for 47 percent of crashes.

“The council is, therefore, lobbying for road safety improvements on TfL’s roads, and in particular safety improvements for cyclists and pedestrians,” he said.

That means improving major gyratory and one-way systems in the borough including the Archway gyratory where Dr Clive Richards was killed by an HGV in August.

Training lorry drivers he said, was “something we can do now”.

The London Cycling Campaign welcomed the move. The LCC’s Tom Bogdonavich said: “We’re very much in favour of this. Anything that councils can do to make the roads safer for cyclists is to be welcomed.

“It’s an excellent step forward, but it is only one step. Ideally we’d like to see lorries redesigned so they do not have blind spots, by lowering the windscreens to knee height, such as you see in coaches or some rubbish trucks. And, separately, we’d like to see an improvement in infrastructure – including in Islington – to make cycling safe.”

Road Safety
Islington
John Stevenson

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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10 comments

Avatar
teaboy | 11 years ago
0 likes

An excellent start. Other London councils need to follow this lead. There should be a compulsory cycle-training section for all drivers anyway when learning, but especially for the 7.5t+ stuff.

Avatar
Bob's Bikes replied to teaboy | 11 years ago
0 likes
teaboy wrote:

An excellent start. Other London councils need to follow this lead. There should be a compulsory cycle-training section for all drivers anyway when learning, but especially for the 7.5t+ stuff.

+1

Avatar
Argos74 | 11 years ago
0 likes

I like this idea.

Attention Lorry Drivers of Islington:

When you have finished this training module, you may wish to cycle to work, or cycle in your spare time. If so, you have a entered a magical world. Cycling is one the one of the best things you can do wearing lycra. We haz advice on bikes, clothing - hi viz and otherwise, lights and the best kinds of cake.

Avatar
adamthekiwi | 11 years ago
0 likes

Excellent news!

Quote:

Police stopping road users and giving "advice" roughly 50% are arrogant cyclists

And yet most research shows that the "arrogant" (your words, not mine) behaviours for which they are stopped are hugely under-represented in the KSI statistics. Going through red lights (much though I deplore the practice) and failing to wear a yellow tabard or a plastic hat are not what kills cyclists - the vast majority of cyclist deaths are because the drivers of large vehicles fail to see them before driving over them. Some extra understanding for these drivers can only help.

Avatar
giff77 | 11 years ago
0 likes

This is good. While giving the cyclist or motorist a rollicking/fine this in no way means they will change their behaviour. If you put a motorist on a bike and have them interact with traffic they will quickly get the message and hopefully the penny drops.

Avatar
mrmo | 11 years ago
0 likes
Quote:

Police stopping road users and giving "advice" roughly 50% are arrogant cyclists

or maybe the Met have told pc's to stop and fine cyclists?

Consider for a moment that by various studies 70% of accidents are due to driver error. Yes some cyclists aren't saints, problem is drivers when they make mistakes kill people. More specifically some drivers don't realise how dangerous there actions are.

Avatar
Guyz2010 replied to mrmo | 11 years ago
0 likes

Agreed and whilst sadly the idiot cyclists give the remainder a bad name motorist will and continue to kill cyclists and get off scott free.
JUSTICE FOR CYCLISTS!

Avatar
Username | 11 years ago
0 likes

Good news.

HGVs are doing most of the killing and it's sensible to address them first, hopefully other motorists will be addressed in due course.

Avatar
Guyz2010 | 11 years ago
0 likes

Common sense prevails but it's all aimed at vehicle drivers, from what RoadCC have published recently regarding Police stopping road users and giving "advice" roughly 50% are arrogant cyclists. Targeting these few would help as we'll in reducing accidents too.
Flyers attached to bicycles may help?
Before anyone gets antagonistic about my comments I'm a cyclist. Cheers

Avatar
Guyz2010 | 11 years ago
0 likes

Common sense prevails but it's all aimed at vehicle drivers, from what RoadCC have published recently regarding Police stopping road users and giving "advice" roughly 50% are arrogant cyclists. Targeting these few would help as we'll in reducing accidents too.
Flyers attached to bicycles may help?
Before anyone gets antagonistic about my comments I'm a cyclist. Cheers

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