Reading cyclist dies following collision with pedestrian

Miller wrote:

The cyclist was extremely unlucky. Quite some parallels with the Charlie Alliston case here. What an absolute travesty of justice that has been. Wtf is wrong with this country, public life seems so stupid now.

Jst what I was thinking

dottigirl wrote:

"Helmet would not have saved life of cyclist who died after colliding with a pedestrian in Earley"

http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/reading-berkshire-news/helmet-would-not...

Thanks for posting an update on this, Dotti. Depressing to see similar language "ploughed into" as in the Charlie Anniston case.

StoopidUserName wrote:

It annoys me when they describe cyclists as 'going too fast'.

 

Another way of putting it is they were traveling at half the speed of the average car (or much less) but that doesn't apportion blame as well.

It doesn't matter what the actual speed was, if he was unable to stop in time because he didn't have a clear view of the road ahead he was going 'too fast'.

RedfishUK wrote:

According to the report the accident happended between Parkers and the CoOp in the picture above,

And the cyclist would have been coming from the dual carraige way  around the traffic island.

On streetview it doen't look like there are crossing lights on the traffic lights on Church road, but the traffic lights for traffic would have been red.

Assuming the cyclist was given a green light or filter light, they would have expected the road to be clear

Seems like a badly designed junction

I've yet to see anything that says whether the cyclist had turned left or right into Church Road - both are possible.

There aren't any crossing lights on Church Road.

I've been going through that junction or way or another for years and it hasn't changed much.

LastBoyScout wrote:

There aren't any crossing lights on Church Road.

As we discussed in the earlier thread ( http://road.cc/content/news/219639-cyclist-life-threatening-condition-fo... for those who missed it), this appears to be the crux of it.

If he were coming from either way, if you have a green light, you wouldn't reasonably expect pedestrians to be just there - you'd think they had a crossing.

And on Street View, you can see them crossing. Look at the woman in the middle of the road here, about to step into the path of a car:

https://goo.gl/maps/Gp3BhnYUScz

That one image sums it up. It's a stupidly flawed road layout which leaves all road users vulnerable. 

This one has really upset me. Something like this could happen to any of us here, to anyone. RIP to the lad.

dottigirl]</p>

<p>[quote=LastBoyScout wrote:

And on Street View, you can see them crossing. Look at the woman in the middle of the road here, about to step into the path of a car:

https://goo.gl/maps/Gp3BhnYUScz

Look at the car, failing to yield to the pedestrian who has priority.  [Highway Code: 170]

Internet Pawn]</p>

<p>[quote=dottigirl wrote:

LastBoyScout wrote:

And on Street View, you can see them crossing. Look at the woman in the middle of the road here, about to step into the path of a car:

https://goo.gl/maps/Gp3BhnYUScz

Look at the car, failing to yield to the pedestrian who has priority.  [Highway Code: 170]

Regardless of who had the priority, it was unwise of the pedestrian to have started crossing when the cars were already moving, although it's hard to tell exactly which point of the phasing the lights are at and whether she thought she was crossing between phases.

Those lights have slightly odd phasing - Wilderness Road and Church Road both go green at the same time, but Church Road turns red before Wilderness road to allow right turn from Wilderness Road (there's a greed right turn arrow on the lights). Once Wilderness Road turns red, the Westbound Wokingham Road lights (coming from the left in that pic) turn green. There are 2 lanes at the lights and many people turn right without bothering to indicate, so maybe she got caught out starting to cross.

Internet Pawn]</p>

<p>[quote=dottigirl wrote:

LastBoyScout wrote:

And on Street View, you can see them crossing. Look at the woman in the middle of the road here, about to step into the path of a car:

https://goo.gl/maps/Gp3BhnYUScz

Look at the car, failing to yield to the pedestrian who has priority.  [Highway Code: 170]

 

How do you know that the driver hasn't stopped?

Beatnik69 wrote:

How do you know that the driver hasn't stopped?

True.  It's also possible that the car was going straight across, in which case the car would have had priority.

LastBoyScout wrote:

Regardless of who had the priority, it was unwise of the pedestrian to have started crossing when the cars were already moving, although it's hard to tell exactly which point of the phasing the lights are at and whether she thought she was crossing between phases.

Agreed, it may have been unwise, because we can't rely on drivers to observe the Highway Code.  But criticising the pedestrian here in this way is a lot like blaming cyclists for all left hooks.  They shouldn't, after all, expect drivers to drive responsibly in accordance with the rules.

Christopher TR1 wrote:

Nice how they mention that the cyclist had no helmet on and was going at "high speed". Another witness might have seen it totally differently: Pedestrian steps out in front of cyclist.

Very sad.

You literally have no idea if that's the case. Maybe the pedestrian was already in the road quite properly, and the cyclist came round too fast? Again, you don't know, so i'd say it's unwise to make the assertions that you do above.