An Italian prince who was killed near Knightsbridge tube station in October 2016 cut in front of the HGV that hit him immediately after overtaking it. After hearing that the German lorry driver would not have been able to see Filippo Corsini, senior Westminster coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox gave a conclusion of accidental death.
The London Evening Standard reports that Corsini was on his way to Regent’s University where he was studying International Business. Approaching Scotch Corner just before 12.40pm he overtook Thomas Dose’s truck.
Brian Morey, a black cab driver, told the hearing: “I noticed he was pedalling extra fast. He was on the outside of the lorry and sort of just got ahead of it.
“All of a sudden he made a left turn across the front of the vehicle that shocked me. Because of the angle, of course the lorry would catch him. It caught the back of his bike, which went up in the air and threw the rider to the road.”
Corsini was pronounced dead at the scene.
Morey added: “The bike disappeared under the front of the lorry but by this time I could not see the rider. It had obviously gone over him. I don’t think the lorry driver had a chance.”
Serious collision investigator PC David Keen found no problems with the lorry and said Dose had rested appropriately before driving through London, having arrived in the UK from Holland the day before.
He said Corsini had been very close to the lorry as he overtook, having moved closer to avoid a pedestrian kerb.
Corsini was riding a fixed gear bike with no front brake.
Keen said: “He could have potentially slowed or stopped, but his ability to do that was down to the bike he was riding.
“His bike had fixed gears, no front brake and in order to slow down he had to use resistance in his legs to slow down. That is the only braking mechanism.
“Bikes should have two means of coming to a stop. One was the resistance through the legs and there should be an additional conventional brake on the front really for it to comply with regulations.
“The nature of the cycle could have been what made it more difficult to slow compared to if he had been on a more conventional cycle.”
Wilcox said the driver’s attention would have been on the road in front of him as Corsini passed.
“It was highly unlikely that Mr Dose would have been looking that direction and if he had, he could not have seen him,” she said.
She gave the medical cause of death as multiple injuries and gave a conclusion of accidental death.
“As [Corsini] approached [Dose] he would have been very close to him to avoid the raised kerb in the pedestrian area in the middle of the road and was in a position where he would not have been visible to Mr Dose.”
She added: “Then Mr Corsini, for reasons only known to him, overtook and accelerated past the HGV and went in front of him.”
47 thoughts on “Italian prince on fixie overtook HGV immediately before fatal collision in London”
“Serious collision investigator PC David Keen found no problems with the lorry “
I’ve thought of a couple:
-$hit visibility
-Prescence in central London
Deeferdonk wrote:
How else do you expect goods to get into central London? Horse and coach?
superfly_nz wrote:
Just in vehicles that don’t have massive bind spots so their drivers have no idea if they are killing people or not…..i don’t think that’s much to ask.
How did goods get into cities before the advent of HGVs with cabs based on construction site vehicles?
Zjtm231 wrote:
How else do you expect goods to get into central London? Horse and coach?
— superfly_nz Just in vehicles that don’t have massive bind spots so their drivers have no idea if they are killing people or not…..i don’t think that’s much to ask. How did goods get into cities before the advent of HGVs with cabs based on construction site vehicles?— Deeferdonk
PC Keen’s investigation of the lorry would have determined whether the driver had adeqaute vision (in the way of mirrors suitable for the lorry), but there will always be blind spots in any vehicle. It’s up to the cyclist to make sure they aren’t in them, especially when the vehicle is moving.
This is a tragic event but totally avoidable. The cyclist made a poor choice, whether it be through speed or not making himself visible enough, or just plain recklessness, but let’s not blame the lorry who in this case did nothing wrong and had every right to be there.
superfly_nz wrote:
TR-3B
Thelma Viaduct wrote:
Like 🙂
superfly_nz wrote:
Rail perhaps, there are a few stations after all.
Grahamd wrote:
The only real problem is that the rail network is congested enough during the day, and the only feasible time to use it (and have a train at a station long enough to unload), would be effectivily the very late to early hours. And that wouldn’t go down too well with the thousands of local residents of London who live nearby these inner city stations.
Otherwise not a half bad suggestion, I think the rail is definitely under-utilised when it comes to goods transfer.
superfly_nz wrote:
Well if high cabbed heavy goods vehicles and coach & horses are the only 2 types of vehicle that exist, I suppose a coach and horses is the most suitable for the task of delivery in this environment.
Deeferdonk wrote:
In fairness to the police officer, I think the point is that neither of those were crimes.
Maybe they should be but that’s a different issue and not the officer’s responsibility.
Duncann wrote:
who said they were crimes? They are problems.Erectile disfunction is not a crime but I’m sure PC David Keen would consider it to be a problem.
I can’t see here why the lack
I can’t see here why the lack of brake is relevant as he was hit from behind.
Also the lorry driver didn’t realise he was being overtaken by a guy on a bike… that’s quite a long time not to check your mirrors.
dafydd_llywelyn wrote:
But we don’t know where the cyclist came from and there are a lot of areas near/around lorries where you can’t be seen.
Why did the cyclist perform a ‘left hook’ ?
dafydd_llywelyn wrote:
According to the taxi driver witness he was on the outside of the lorry, and then swung in in front of it (to avoid an island). I think what is being suggested is that in that position, with an unexpected obstacle ahead of him his options on a normal bike would have been to either go for it or slam the anchors on. The latter would have been the safer option but being on a fixie made it impossible.
It was a foreign truck, with the driver presumably on the left which probably didn’t help matters.
Very sad, I’m sure we’ve all been in situations at times where we’ve thought ‘oops’ afterwards but ridden away.
Yrcm wrote:
didn’t briggs do something similar in front of Charlie Alliston, Alliston was accused of manslaughter and should have avoided her according to every man and his dog, why is this not the case here? Why do motorists not get the zero leeway that people on bikes are seemingly getting, why are the operators of proven to be killing machines not forced to give leeway for others errors just as Charlie Alliston was convicted over because of the perveption he didn’t despite slowing sigificantly, doing what the vast majority do and swerving to avoid?
Two sets of rules, same old.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
OT:
I had my own near-Alliston moment the other evening. Two lanes of traffic going down a hill; left one for going straight on, right one (with queuing traffic) for turning right. I’m going right, but I know there’s an ASL at the traffic lights at the bottom of the hill so I go down in the (empty) left hand lane. Pedestrian on my left kerbside further down: watch her as she steps into the road (without looking), crosses my lane, pauses before going between the queuing traffic in the right hand lane, steps as if to pass between the queuing cars, but then – just as I get level with her, passing behind her in an otherwise empty traffic lane – she turns and dashes back to the kerb (again, without looking). If she’d done that probably less than a second later, we would have collided at speed. If I’d have been driving a car, she would have run into the side of my vehicle.
Yrcm wrote:
I don’t see from the article(s) how fast the lorry was going relative to the cyclist and thus how long the manoeuvre would have taken – it may have been very few seconds. Regardless, the onus is on overtakers to ensure they can do so safely – which it doesn’t appear the poor chap did.
The lorry driver does have to check his mirrors but he can only look in one direction at a time so would prioritise more attention ahead if he only going straight ahead. Would be different if he was switching lanes or turning but there’s no suggestion he was.
It’s also uncertain from the details given whether the lack of a front brake was important here – it might have allowed the rider to abort the manoeuvre safely. Maybe not – we can’t say specifically (although it’s sensible from a safety and legal perspective to have one).
Interestingly last night I
Interestingly last night I had some chap have a pop at me for some ‘crazy’ riding.
That crazy riding was track standing in a primary position at a set of lights behind a van, and accelerating away from the lights quickly. This rapid get away meant that I was still within say 20 foot of the van as speeds reached about 20mph and the van had to yank its anchors on.
This meant I had to yank my anchors on, which I did.
The car behind me felt like I was ‘being crazy… and what did I expect?’ I was not sure what he meant, but he didn’t want to get into it.
Anyway, my point is, actions that we all feel are normal and appropriate (I positioned myself so I didn’t get squeezed out of the lights, and acelerated hard to avoid being rear ended), to non-cyclists can easily be perceived as reckless and unusual.
Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
I had to look it up so not looking down my nose at you but I see the RAC says that thinking distance alone at 20mph is 6 metres (almost 20 feet) and braking distance the same again. On that basis you should have been further behind the van so you wouldn’t have to brake so hard.
Of course there may be other factors, if you have a car right up your tail (i.e. not 6+6 metres)…
Duncann wrote:
If he had left twelve metres behind the van (or even six) then I would imagine that gap would have been filled up by another car overtaking him and sitting far less than six metres behind said van…
brooksby wrote:
Yes, I’m not disagreeing – there are a lot of compromises to be made in the real world.
“I noticed he was pedalling
“I noticed he was pedalling extra fast”
Extra how?
“He could have potentially slowed or stopped, but his ability to do that was down to the bike he was riding”
It doesn’t appear he was trying to slow or stop so what has this to do with anything?
“Bikes should have two means of coming to a stop. One was the resistance through the legs and there should be an additional conventional brake on the front really for it to comply with regulations”.
If he had a rear brake he had 2 means.
“The nature of the cycle could have been what made it more difficult to slow compared to if he had been on a more conventional cycle”
The nature of the lorry means that the driver couldn’t see what was in front of him compared to if he’d been in a roadworthy vehicle.
So many experts giving so much mis-leading information. Scary!
C’mon, we’ve all seen silly
C’mon, we’ve all seen silly idiots on fixies dicing with death …
Valbrona wrote:
Absolutely, and road bikes, mountain bikes, bmx, hybrid and on and on.
Not sure anyone has suggested that the blame doesn’t neccessarily lie with the rider on this occasion, just the worrying rhetoric around his pedalling style, the incorrect assumptions about 2 braking systems and forms of transport with restricted visibility being accepted as normal…
alansmurphy wrote:
I don’t understand what you mean. Can you please explain what the “incorrect assumption” ist?
The relevant regulation is the “Pedal Cycles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1983” in 7.1.b.i (my emphasis):
7 – (1) Save as provided in Regulations 8 and 9,
(b) . …every cycle … the height of the saddle of which is 635mm or more … shall:
(i) if it is so constructed that one or more of its wheels in incapable of rotating independently of the pedals, be equipped with a braking system operating on the front wheel…
(ii) if it is not so constructed that one or more of its wheels in incapable of rotating independently of the pedals, be equipped with two independent braking systems one of which operates on the front wheel…
(Regulation 8 and 9 ive exemptions for some special cases historic bikes, bikes temporarily brought to the UK, none of which seem to apply here).
Stephan Matthiesen wrote:
That’ll teach me for scanning, I thought there were just 2 systems required and not the specification as to which wheel.
alansmurphy wrote:
I don’t understand what you mean. Can you please explain what the “incorrect assumption” ist?
The relevant regulation is the “Pedal Cycles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1983” in 7.1.b.i (my emphasis):
7 – (1) Save as provided in Regulations 8 and 9,
(b) . …every cycle … the height of the saddle of which is 635mm or more … shall:
(i) if it is so constructed that one or more of its wheels in incapable of rotating independently of the pedals, be equipped with a braking system operating on the front wheel…
(ii) if it is not so constructed that one or more of its wheels in incapable of rotating independently of the pedals, be equipped with two independent braking systems one of which operates on the front wheel…
(Regulation 8 and 9 ive exemptions for some special cases historic bikes, bikes temporarily brought to the UK, none of which seem to apply here).
The main conclusion to be
The main conclusion to be drawn from this, which seems to have escaped both the police and the coroner seem to have missed, is that HGVs should not be allowed on the roads until the driver can see what is happening.
I’m sure this will be addressed in the forthcoming government inquiry into cycling and road safety. And there goes another pig on it’s migration flight.
Whether the lack of a front
Whether the lack of a front brake was a contributory factor, you just know that the mainstream media is going to have a field day with this.
Alessandro wrote:
The only possible connection Icould draw there may be others but he was behind the lorry, moved out to avoid the pedestrian kerb and suddenly found himself about to hit the lorry. A front brake may have let him slow down at that point. Instead he had to swerve round the lorry which had tragic outcomes when he swerved back in front 🙁
He gambled on fixed odds.
He gambled on fixed odds.
I’ll get my coat.
I wouldn’t drive a car
I wouldn’t drive a car through london, let alone ride a bike. Anyone on a ‘fixie’ riding with/through traffic are thick as pig s#1t. Darwinism in action.
Thelma Viaduct wrote:
I commute fixed from one decent sized City to another usually with rush hour traffic, filtering, track standing (as much as I am able) and using ASL’s. I don’t see why you think that my intelligence is below those riding with freewheels. I have a front brake for use in emergencies, because it is required by law and for when my knees have had enough of pushing back against the force of my pedals. I ride to the limits of my abilities and those of the machine I’m on.
This idea amongst some parts of the cycling community that fixie riders are some form of sub-species not fit for the human race is the same as the grief that some parts of the driving community give to cyclists as a whole. Next there’ll be complaints that fixie riders don’t pay VAT on rear brake pads.
As has already been mentioned, there are idiots on fixies, on Bromptons, on £5k Colnagos, on wheelbarrows. It’s the person, not the machine
Oh and it’s “anyone on a fixie …. is“
I guessing a number of
I guessing a number of people haven’t seen this video.
https://youtu.be/Y9E1_1M-qhU Yrs, it would be better if lorries had more visibility, but a number don’t, so cyclists have to deal with what is on the road and appreciate some limitations of other users. There’s 2 basic rules with lorries, don’t go down the left hand side and don’t stop in an ASL if a lorry is behind you ( or ends up behind you if you filtered forward), it’s highly unlikely they can see you from the cab.
This one’s for car drivers
https://youtu.be/nJ-4noCT5rg
I have seen that video, badly
I have seen that video, badly adjusted mirrors and an eye line that seems to be about level with the top of the steeing wheel.
I drove into, around and
I drove into, around and through London for about 10 years from the mid 90s. As in any extremely busy urban environments you have to be extra vigilant, ensure you don’t just check once and that you bring your speed right down.
Blind spots are no excuse, shifting the blame/onus onto the vulnerable is BS. Governments/those in power around the world have been doing this for since forever so they have to do less to keep people safe.
In any other environment HGVs and vehicles with big blind spots (i.e. a fundamental flaw that was signifacntly detrimental to safety) would simply not be allowed to be used until modifications were made and even then the operators trained to the very highest std and retrained regularly.
Shifting the onus of safety for only one group using the roads is a sign of agenda driven thinking, when that group is vulnerable and is killed and maimed with virtual impunity from penalty and/or blame then the system is even more flawed than the original fault itself.
And again as mentioned earlier, all the very subjective negative wording/descriptives of what he was doing up to the point of impact against the deceased were accepted (unlike Briggs) and used as a blame stick when it actually is very subjective and seen through the eyes of people who themselves are fundamentally bias in their interpretation or simply dont understand what happened or what someone else was actually doing.
The police even state that they did not expect the driver to be using his mirrors – why when this contravenes all the rules and ignores traffic coming past/filtering as what happens regularly and particularly in places like London, the constable went on to make another statement about brakes and slowing down which adds yet more negativity against the deceased.
Why did the MET police not say similar when Briggs was playing frogger in front of Alliston? Why did they not say she could have applied her foot brakes and waited until it was safe to cross, why didn’t plod and the judge state that if she had just used the crossing point only a few metres away instead of crosssing at a tight spot with a parked lorry (giving Alliston/other road users barely any room to get past similar to the case here) she would be alive today, why didn’t they blame her for making a manoeuvre that left the other person no chance to stop in time (that being the final step back into Allistons path which was falsely represented as being able to due to not including thinking time/ordinary bike in the evidence).
It’s all so easy to spin things whichever way you want and not apply rules/laws the same and seemingly get away with it.
There are a lot of criticisms
There are a lot of criticisms here of the lorry driver, I am both a cyclist and class one HGV driver, and spent time driving in London. I offer the following points:
1. Approx 20% of the population live within the M25. Without trucks how do you propose you get the enormous amount of goods required to sustain that densely populated area?
2. Trucks are fitted with 6 mirrors to the point they actually create blind spots, perfect visibility is impossible, in the moment you check one mirror, somebody can be doing something stupid in another.
3. The cyclists brake set up were illegal and manner of riding raised issues with witnesses. Any death is unfortunate, however riding dangerously on a bike that does not meet legal requirements, is not the fault of the driver.
alanf1968 wrote:
There is one post saying the driver should have checked his mirrors more, I can’t see any other criticism of the driver? There are a few comments on hgv visibility and the type of vehicle being allowed in central London.
There are a lot of criticisms
There are a lot of criticisms here of the lorry driver, I am both a cyclist and class one HGV driver, and spent time driving in London. I offer the following points:
1. Approx 20% of the population live within the M25. Without trucks how do you propose you get the enormous amount of goods required to sustain that densely populated area?
2. Trucks are fitted with 6 mirrors to the point they actually create blind spots, perfect visibility is impossible, in the moment you check one mirror, somebody can be doing something stupid in another.
3. The cyclists brake set up were illegal and manner of riding raised issues with witnesses. Any death is unfortunate, however riding dangerously on a bike that does not meet legal requirements, is not the fault of the driver.
There are a lot of criticisms
There are a lot of criticisms here of the lorry driver, I am both a cyclist and class one HGV driver, and spent time driving in London. I offer the following points:
1. Approx 20% of the population live within the M25. Without trucks how do you propose you get the enormous amount of goods required to sustain that densely populated area?
2. Trucks are fitted with 6 mirrors to the point they actually create blind spots, perfect visibility is impossible, in the moment you check one mirror, somebody can be doing something stupid in another.
3. The cyclists brake set up were illegal and manner of riding raised issues with witnesses. Any death is unfortunate, however riding dangerously on a bike that does not meet legal requirements, is not the fault of the driver.
alanf1968 wrote:
1. How many goods are so large that they require an HGV to be driven into the city? It has long been suggested to develop transport hubs outside of the city which then transfer the goods into smaller vehicles. In-fact this is almost exactly what Fed-ex or UPS do as standard.
The reason it doesn’t happen with supermarkets or retailers is the focus on economies of scale, putting profits before safety. If HGV’s had been banned from the city long ago then I imagine this type of hub would have been developed organically. Extra large items that require an HGV could be escorted into the city as oversize vehicles are on the motorway. These should be driven by a highly trained driver with a mate.
If you combined this hub idea with electric vehicles you would make signiificant strides in cutting London’s horrendous air pollution and to a lesser extent noise pollution (a big cause of stress in a city) all while creating jobs. Of course this would create complexity, impact profits and indirectly push up prices but what matters more? Safety and quality of life or private profits.
2. See the point above. These vehicles should simply not be allowed in busy urban centres unless for exceptional reasons.
3. His lack of brakes didn’t cause him to get hit by the truck, from the sounds of it, it was a stupid manouvere which then put him in one of the multiple blindspots of a left hand drive truck, driven on one of the busiest streets in teh capital. It may not have been the drivers fault but the system that allows unsafe vehicles on city streets is more than complicit in his death.
I understand your position and it’s nice to hear that there are HGV drivers that cycle, however your persepctive is stuck in the status quo – things are what they are and that’s that. It’s clear to me for reasons of safety, quality of air and life in general that HGV’s should not be allowed in city centres. We should be calling for changes in policy where social concerns are not give second billing to the needs of private enterprise.
Firstly, it’s always very
Firstly, it’s always very saddening to hear of any death, particularly someone on two wheels. I just want to point out the number of death in London we hear about caused by left turning lorries.
Some people are giving the driver a hard time for not checking his right mirrow enough yet there are always posts here about lorry drivers not checking their left. At a busy urban junction with pedestrains, cyclings, taxis and cars all over the place, if you arent turning right, your right mirror is not the priority. If he was moving slowly and the fixie rider was caning it, he might have had less than a second to see him and then react.
That driver has to continue to make a living from driving a lorry I would have thought. Can’t be easy for him after seeing that.
arrieredupeleton wrote:
Isn’t the whole point that He Didn’t See Anything…
arrieredupeleton wrote:
Less easy for the family that just lost their child/brother/grandson … all because he couldn’t be arsed to look in his mirrors, sorry I mean because the police didn’t expect him to look in his mirrors and that continually those in power allow large vehicles to have blind spots.
If we are to say certain groups must give leeway to vulnerable road users then this must apply to all and particularly more so for those that present the greatest harm, that being HGV drivers, he didn’t so should have being guilty, except our weak and totally missing the point police/government decreed he “could do nothing”
What a crock of shit!
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
You are presuming he didn’t look in his mirrors simply cos the police didn’t expect the HGV driver to. Luckily lots of people have higher standards than some Met police officers.
Bikes of all kinds can move extremely quickly and as they are allowed to filter if you aren’t use to bikes being everywhere – and some drivers are not – then you will miss bikes. Added to that HGVs and buses brake slowly. So even if he saw him if the driver was going at 30mph the victim stood no chance.
Bluebug wrote:
I agree, a few posts here that seem to amount to cyclsits can do what htey want and everyone else should accommodate that. Even as a car driver, on a multi lane road, you still have to take care around lorries.
I still don’t understand why the cyclist overtook and turned left when it does not seem a safe thing to do and which gave the driver no chance to react.
I’m reading the report as the
I’m reading the report as the cyclist overtook the lorry on the right hand side, getting very close alongside it due to the presence of a traffic island in the middle of the road. The implication may be the resulting proximity contributed to placing him into a blind spot for the driver of the lorry? But that aside, it seems the cyclist no sooner cleared the front of the cab before veering across it’s path by making a sudden turn to the left.
Whilst I agree the absence of brakes for this particular incident don’t sound relevant, the manoeuvre is utterly reckless by the cyclist, giving the driver no chance. Even if he had spotted him overtaking he wouldn’t have expected him to duck across his front bumper.
Of course it is very sad someone lost their life by making what I presume was a fatal misjudgement. I cannot see how the blame could be placed on the driver in this case.
I do find talk of re-designing cities and improving the way goods are moved about as a constructive way of suggesting improvements.