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Broken bike (CC licensed image by garryknight, www.flickr.com)Boris bike rider killed in collision with tipper lorry in London this morning
A female cyclist in her 30s has died this morning after a collision with a tipper lorry in London - the third London cyclist to die in a collision with such a vehicle this year.
A picture in the London Evening Standard shows that lorry involved appears to be a tipper truck, a type of vehicle that has proved particularly lethal to the capital's cyclists in recent years.
The Standard reports that the woman was riding a London Cycle Hire 'Boris Bike', making her the second cyclist to be killed while using one of the ubiquitous rental bikes.
The victim was later named as Claire Hitier-Abadie, 36.
The Metropolitan Police reports that officers were called at 07:59 to reports of a cyclist in collision with lorry on Victoria Street, SW1, near to Victoria Palace.
Officers, London Ambulance Service and London Fire Brigade attended and found an unresponsive woman in her 30s. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Officers from Westminster are currently investigating. Enquires continue.
Leon Daniels, TfL’s managing director of surface transport, said: "We are deeply saddened that a female cyclist using a Barclays Cycle Hire bike has lost their life after a collision with an HGV at the junction of Victoria Street and Bressenden Place this morning.
"We will assist in a full investigation by the police into the incident and our sympathies are with the family and friends."
In January this year 29-year old physiotherapist Stephanie Turner died in a collision with a tipper lorry in Seven Sisters, and earlier this month 34-year old Akis Kollaros, was killed in collision with a tipper lorry in Homerton High Street.
In April 2013 climate scientist, Dr Katharine Giles was killed in a collision with a tipper truck on Victoria Street at its junction with Palace Street.
The first cyclist to die while riding a Boris bike, Philippine De Gerin-Ricard, was also killed in a collision with a tipper truck in July 2013.
From September London's Safer Lorry Scheme will ban lorries from the city's street's that are not fitted with safety equipment such as sideguards designed to offer some measure of protection to cyclists and pedestrians - the scheme is particularly aimed at construction lorries cush as tipper trucks which are currently exempt from having to fit such equipment.
On Monday the Metropolitan Police launched the latest phase of its Operation Safeway road safety campaign in response to a threefold year-on-year rise in the number of road deaths on London's streets in the opening weeks of 2015.
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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55 comments
she has a name:
Claire Hitier-Abadie, 36, died instantly following yesterday's tragic crash
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2961905/Cyclist-killed-tipper-tr...
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2961905/Cyclist-killed-tipper-tr...
She also was a mother to two young children. Think about that before you make any more posts.
Tipper truck drivers are often incentivised in a way that encourages them to take risks and the vehicles are not suitable for use in an urban environment.
RIP to this lady and condolences to her family.
RIP.
The slaughter continues.
Sympathy to the family
It's time there are moderators on this site to get rid of the bigoted and hate comments posted by small minded idiots in threads like this one
My condolences to the victims family and friends. May she rest in peace.
(And please, show a little respect!)
that is the theory I have heard too, and it is an interesting line of speculation.
From a purely personal anecdotal evidence, just from reading a cross section of reports from these tragic events, it does seem that its the riders trying to ride 'safely' that make up the majority of the victims, and not those jumping red lights and swerving through traffic.....
You can look up your local stats here for 1999-2010:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15975720
Oxford has a lot of people cycling and has 4 fatalities in 20 years. 3 female & 1 male - 1 lorry, 2 buses, 1 other vehicle.
London's figures look horrendous!!!!
Perhaps the HSE should investigate as these recent deaths could be considered construction related too.
Tragic
Very sad but not unexpected.
Every other mechanical object that requires a licence to operate, also requires a refresher course, why not cars etc? Singularly one of the most dangerous machines ever invented due to the fact that IQ and common sense have no bearing on bumpkin bum Fcuks getting a licence to operate one.
As for the law makers, well their to busy fiddling with expenses (insert something else) and slapping each other with wet fish. 'Plebs' us, are an inconvenience to them. Cyclists (commuters) no money, cars etc tax tax tax.
Condolences to the cyclists family:-(
Well I agree with the sentiment. But it's not practical. There's already a queue waiting for driving tests. There's round about 1.5 million driving tests in all categories each year. Don't worry a lot are re-tests obviously. In addition there are 34 million driving licence holders. Even if you re-tested once every 10 years then the total would rise to 5 million tests and that's if there were no re-tests of the people 3.4 million people being reviewed each year.
Mass re-test is also pretty wasteful, There are people that hardly ever drive or only need to drive very few miles and when they do it's not in major built up areas and they're not a problem, never had a problem. On the other hand there are some absolute hooligans out there who could pass any driving test you threw at them with flying colours any day of the week and twice on a Sunday. So they'll pass the retest like butter wouldn't melt and half an hour later will be hooligans again.
My point is that it wouldn't be that effective. But what would be effective would be a much lower threshold. 12 points may lose you a licence but how about 6 triggers a re-test at your own expense. You haven't been banned but you have been asked to show you are fit to drive again. At age 70 do not allow people to self certificate. They'll need a doctor to sign them as fit to drive each year. Lots more of that sort of thing
What we need is much more visible and rigorous enforcement. Put the money there instead and allow traffic officers to be partially financed by fines. We want them active.
Slightly off-topic, apologies. In that incident in Bath the driver was 22 years old and had only recently passed his HGV test. The minimum age for HGV learners is 18.
Is it just me that thinks that the minimum age should be raised to at least 21 and probably at least 3 years of driving experience before HGV licences are issued. As a poster noted above, try sitting in an HGV to see how visibility is reduced. Road sense takes many miles and many different driving experiences to master, so why allow newly qualified drivers to train so early and drive such big and dangerous vehicles so young?
Most of the press seems to report him as 19, but yes, off topic. Although I agree with your sentiment in regards to experience.
Most of the press seems to report him as 19, but yes, off topic.
On the other hand, buses and lorries and cars have no problem with coming alongside you in a queue leaving just that much room, and overtaking with not much more.
Anyway, bl**dy tipper trucks! Menace to society.
The driver of a lorry for the same firm that owned this lorry, was involved in a fatal collision with Brian Holt (male), whose (criminal) trial was postponed today:
https://twitter.com/RossLydall/status/568390800402464768
https://rosslydall.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/crossrail-driver-expresses-s...
I've posted a few times following incidents involving tipper trucks that there are certain firms running fleets of trucks with particular issues with regard to safety. I'd be curious if there is a deeper investigation of the hiring policy of this firm or of the general condition of its trucks.
Why do people continue to ride up the inside of trucks such as this? Or any vehicle for that matter?
You can't be oblivious as to how dangerous it is and you can't be oblivious to the reports outlining that cyclists do die under the wheels of vehicles whilst performing this move yet cyclists continue to die when vehicles turn left and they're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
From what I've seen reported in many of these incidents it's a case of the driver overtaking the cyclist and turning in on them, nothing to do with cyclists going up the inside of lorries!
Perhaps because that's where current cycle "infrastructure" (ASL and feeder lane) directs you. Perhaps because bikes travel faster than motor vehicles in London, so if you didn't go up the inside you'd not get anywhere. Perhaps to get to the ASL that's meantbto give a head start with them lights changing before you get there. Perhaps because the truck overtook the cyclist and turned.
Safe space for cycling is needed, plus safer trucks. Not victim blaming.
Blind spots on HGVs of any description are horrendous, and as for artics with the cab turned.....
Even with all these extra mirrors that are required nowadays.
Those stickers that say, 'If you can't see my mirrors....' should really say, 'If you can't see ME in my mirrors....'
when I done my HGV training I was taught when passing vulnerable road users to keep an eye on my mirrors to make sure they got through my blindspots safely. But there was nothing on vulnerable users passing me as it's not an automatic assumption.
This is obviously terrible news I have never seen a city (and I have been living in few places across Europe) with such a huge volume of lorries and tipper truck traffic.
On a different note this year during the charismas holydays we took my 3 years old soon to visit a firehouse. Among other vehicles they had a truck which they use to move very heavy machineries. I have asked whether I could try to seat into the cabin and I asked the fireman to walk around pretending to be a Cyclist/Biker. I was literally shocked when I realised the magnitude of the blind spot. First at all it is not a spot but a sizable "zone" that can be measured in square mt.
1) On the left hand side you would need to be at least 3 mt away from the side of the cabin to be seen (head only) assuming that the driver is looking that way.
2) On the right hand side that would be 1 mt but again the driver must watch that way or he wouldn't notice you.
3) further down back the carriage of the truck, looking into the left and right rear mirrors....you have no chances!!!
3) in front of the cabin the blind zone is about 2mt although you are a bit more easily noticeable.
The bottom line is that if you are too close to a big truck you have very little chances to be "noticed" and the driver must make a conscious effort to look out fro cyclist/Bikers.
If you had the opportunity I'd strongly recommend to try to get behind the driving wheel of a truck to give you the real feeling of how dangerous they are.
This is obviously terrible news I have never seen a city (and I have been living in few places across Europe) with such a huge volume of lorries and tipper truck traffic.
On a different note this year during the charismas holydays we took my 3 years old soon to visit a firehouse. Among other vehicles they had a truck which they use to move very heavy machineries. I have asked whether I could try to seat into the cabin and I asked the fireman to walk around pretending to be a Cyclist/Biker. I was literally shocked when I realised the magnitude of the blind spot. First at all it is not a spot but a sizable "zone" that can be measured in square mt.
1) On the left hand side you would need to be at least 3 mt away from the side of the cabin to be seen (head only) assuming that the driver is looking that way.
2) On the right hand side that would be 1 mt but again the driver must watch that way or he wouldn't notice you.
3) further down back the carriage of the truck, looking into the left and right rear mirrors....you have no chances!!!
3) in front of the cabin the blind zone is about 2mt although you are a bit more easily noticeable.
The bottom line is that if you are too close to a big truck you have very little chances to be "noticed" and the driver must make a conscious effort to look out fro cyclist/Bikers.
If you had the opportunity I'd strongly recommend to try to get behind the driving wheel of a truck to give you the real feeling of how dangerous they are.
Wasn't it also a tipper lorry that killed that poor little girl and 3 others in bath? Something to be said about the driving standards of those behind the wheel.
So sad.
The continued killing of cyclists by tipper tricks is becoming a sick joke and is making traffic enforcement and our legal system into an absolute mockery.
Every politician, mayor and associated crony can stick their shiny flagship projects - until driver behaviour and killer vehicles are addressed we cannot take them seriously. The fact that none of them are outspoken about this shows exactly the value they place on the lives of cyclists.
Looking out of my window now at the tent next to the tipper truck in question along a road I commute on every day is massively sobering. Take care out there guys cos no-one else is going to.
Can't speak for these drivers, but mine would be not having to live with the consequences and it's served me quite well so far. I can't imagine what it must be like living with the fact that I had taken another's life in full knowledge that it was avoidable. Vary few collisions are accidents.
Why are tipper trucks disproportionately more likely to kill cyclists? Is it something about the design of the vehicle or, as I suspect, something to do with the typical type of person you'd find driving one?
A bit of both. As previously mentioned the lorry's are highly manoeuvrable and can be driven much like a van, by your typical type of person who drive vans.
Lots of men are killer by tipper truck drivers. Akis Kollaros was killed just 2 weeks ago. And don't blame the victim, please.
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