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Cyclist and lorry (copyright Simon MacMichael)Lorry drivers the best road users, cyclists the worst, says haulage firm boss
The director of a Devon-based haulage business claims lorry drivers are “the best users of the road – cyclists are the worst." But in 2001, more than 20 of his firm’s drivers were fined after admitting falsifying tachograph records and ignoring rules on working hours.
Bill Hocking, who runs Barnstaple-based William C Hockin Transport, made his comments about cyclists in an interview with the North Devon Journal.
He told the newspaper: "They need educating. If a 44-tonne lorry is indicating left and a cyclist decides to skip past on the truck's inside, the cyclist is going to be dead.
"There's no use blaming the HGV driver – cyclists need to stay back. If you can't see the driver's mirrors he can't see you.
"A lot of cyclists behave dangerously," he said. "Our drivers tell stories all the time about cyclists behaving like idiots.
"Whenever a cyclist is run over by a lorry, the driver gets blamed, which is wrong,” he insisted.
"HGV drivers are the best users of the road – cyclists are the worst."
However, a series of court cases in 2001 resulted in 22 drivers from William C Hockin pleading guilty to having falsified tacograph records.
A report from Commercial Vehicle in April of that year details how 19 of William C Hockin’s drivers appearing in the dock in 2001, where they were fined a total of £18,780 plus costs.
At the time, the company operated 30 vehicles. Three more of its drivers were fined in July 2001 after admitting similar charges.
The prosecutions resulted from a police raid on the company’s offices following a tip-off, with Tony Ostrin, representing the Vehicle Inspectorate, telling magistrates “there was evidence of fuses being pulled, tachograph clocks being altered and false starting and finishing locations being entered on the centre field.”
Tachographs are used in vehicles including lorries to record information related to driving time, speed and distance to ensure that drivers and their employers adhere to rules related to drivers’ hours and rest breaks, and they can also provide valuable evidence in the event of a collision.
Last September, a judge sentencing a lorry driver to eight and a half years for causing the death by dangerous driving of two cyclists who had just begun a charity ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats said he “had almost certainly fallen asleep” at the wheel.
Prosecutors said that Robert Palmer had not had adequate rest periods and had falsified his tachograph records prior to the crash that killed Toby Wallace, 36 and Andrew McMenigall, 47, in July 2013.
Joao Lopes, the driver of the vehicle involved in the crash that claimed the life of Eilidh Cairns as she rode to work in 2009 was jailed for four years in 2012 for causing the death by dangerous driving of 97-year-old Nora Gutmann as she crossed London’s Marylebone Road the previous year.
The court heard that Lopes had been driving without glasses, in breach of the conditions of his licence, and that the tachograph on his lorry had been tampered with.
Lopes with never charged in connection with Eilidh Cairns’ death, but was found guilty of driving with uncorrected vision, leading to his licence being temporarily revoked.
Eilidh’s sister, Kate Cairns, has campaigned since her death for improved safety measures on lorries to protect cyclists and other vulnerable road users through See Me Save Me, which is co-ordinated by the charity RoadPeace.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- wtjs 12 min 55 sec ago
As you know, because I keep harping on about it, the police claiming to have taken action means often that they did nothing at all or sent the joke...
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You must be pretty dim, then! Either that, or you're lying in some doomed attempt to pursue a vendetta against Garmin. They don't care what nutters...
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Already various cyclists and groups on bluesky....
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Nothing surprising about the police refusing to act against offending bus drivers! Doesn't matter how good the video, or how clear the registration...
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According to their website:
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Rijfussell! As in my coutry used to say: you hit the nail on the head!
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48 comments
The way he sees it *should* be the reality. Drivers of largest and most dangerous vehicles should adhere to the highest standards of driving and we should tolerate somewhat lower standards for the drivers/riders of the smallest and least dangerous vehicles.
In reality I suspect that the standard of behaviour is much more similar across all road-going modes of transport than it should be.
Dashboard cameras... on all cycles and vehicles.
Strange but every day I see, car, van, bus, coach and lorry drivers using hand held phones or, phone held under the steering wheel so nobody will know you're texting.
Not yet seen a cyclist using one on the move
With front and rear facing cameras, got lots of interesting footage.
People like to winge about cyclists jumping red lights. Should see how many vehicles do. Most I've spotted in one go was 6 in Leeds.
Actually I've seen quite a few cyclists on the phone while riding, usually for calls but a few seemed to be either texting or checking the Internet.
Second that - come to think of it, i'm struggling to think of many everyday activities i've not seen people attempt to do whilst on the phone...
And in fact it's legal to use one while cycling...
I've seen it, but it's very rare compared to drivers.
'Legal' should never be confused with 'wise'...
True...
A wonderul piece of non-journalism by the North Devon Journal.
@cyclingDMlondon.
Your problem is that you ride in London, my experience, in the providences is that cyclists don't generally run red lights, most definitely less than your general mortists. Also pavement cycling is generally just children / young adults who are doing it as their scared of the roads.
Your idea that a cyclist can "bully" a pedestrian is laughable, if a cyclist hits a pedestrian they are just a likely to be injured. I'm not saying that there isn't a general hysteria, but it mainly just your average daily mail reads who are taking 5mins off having a go at immigrants.
Tide is changing. Dashcam for fleet drivers is on its way.
http://www.carcamerashop.co.uk/fleet-dashcams
fleet operators are turning to fleet dash cams to help them manage and maintain their vehicles and drivers. High-definition footage of any incident helps to ensure that insurance claims are dealt with swiftly and favourably, whilst helping to limit the amount of time damaged vehicles are off the road.
ROSPA
http://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-services/road-safety/employers...
Dashcams Dashcams are normally fixed to the dashboard or the rearview mirror to record the road ahead. Some also have a rear-facing lens for interior or rear-view recording. Some have a motion detector which enables recoding if something happens when the vehicle is parked. Dashcams can provide evidence of what actually happened in an incident or accident, and help drivers and companies to defend themselves against accusations or insurance claims. Of course, they also show how the driver of the dashcam vehicle was driving.
Quicker the likes of TfL and Local Authorities make this relatively cheap (and I assume tamper proof) devices mandatory for their drivers the better.
I heard the number 10% of vehicles on road now have cameras, no idea if accurate.
However, it needs to be pointed out that while TfL buses have multiple external cameras recording all the time, it doesn't stop a (very small minority) number of their drivers being utter c***s anyway.
@OldRidgeBack
best recent encounter I've had with a lorry?
my friend Louis and I out were riding in Regent's Park. We pulled out of the park and back down Parkway toward Camden Town.
The lights were red as we pulled into the ASL just past the Odeon Cinema. It's very clearly marked with thick white lines and a big bicycle symbol.
Several seconds later a large lorry drove into the ASL, stopping only 2-3 feet to the left / behind my friend Louis. We both looked at the lorry driver, he was busy talking on his phone, but not so busy that he didn't notice our attention and actually kissed his lips at us several times.
I advised my friend to unclip from his pedals and we both got off our bikes and walked onto the pavement before this psycho lorry driver could cause us to be victims of a fatal RTC.
The fact he was proudly displaying this behaviour whilst driving a clearly marked company vehicle was mind-boggling, it was a real shame neither of us was wearing a helmet camera or thought to get our phones out of our jerseys and photograph this dangerous driver.
Lorry drivers are so good, they can safely overtake a cyclist within an inch of their elbow, at speed, on a bend, whilst not crossing the centre line. I also love it when a lorry overtakes and the loose flapping ropes along the side, nicely tickle your neck as it passes by. Lorry drivers are also very litter conscious. They only throw rubbish out of their cab window, when they are alongside you, knowing that it will conveniently bounce off your shoulder and onto the verge. I can't think of anything negative to say.
You missed out saying they'll do all of this while talking on a mobile phone, like the dullard who roared past me and my son on Saturday.
I think a large part of the problem is the sensationalism of the "us vs them" attitude that the media loves to drum up. And unfortunately this site is part of that problem - recent stories being aptly described in the comments as clickbait.
But we all love it really, don't we? Any chance to have a rant about the injustices of it all, perceived or real. This is a long thread, and although it contains many good and well made points it's typical of the stories that generate the most reaction.
With the exception of the headline grabbing "HGV drivers are the best users of the road – cyclists are the worst", he's actually right.
I will never understand why people go up the inside of a big vehicle whilst stationary at the lights, especially when it's the first vehicle in the lights queue - because firstly, you should overtake things on the right-hand side and secondly because of the almighty drafting effect you get from riding behind the bus!
I'd argue he has a valid point, which also then raises the spectre of the argument 'what constitutes a 'cyclist'?'. However painting his drivers as whiter-than-white, especially with his previous record, removes some of the shine from this particular shite.
There's that massive elephant in the room again. It's become almost blasphemous to admit to what we all secretly know to be true: that cyclists are c**ts.
Spot on - truth is that things are not going to improve unless we focus on improved behaviour from all road users. People are variously negligent, incompetant and psychopathic and it is going to take a combination of changes in education, the law and it's application to make some progress. The regular rants about motorists makes victims of cyclists and will solve little. It is a response to fear and we have all been there. As it stands, in over 30 years of cycling I've seen no fundamental change in behaviour - it's possibly worse with the advent of the mobile phone. Anyone any ideas of how we deal with cyclists who err?
Well, we should probably start dealing effectively with drivers who time and again prove they shouldn't be driving... that'd be good.
The killing and maiming is one-sided, and you want to deal with the errant parts of the group/s being maimed and killed?
Seems a bit strange to me.
I totally agree with you regarding dealing with drivers - my view is that prison is only appropriate for psychopaths i.e. demonstrated lack of empathy / antisocial behaviour. Dangerous driving, mobile phone, alcohol drugs use are examples. However I think the routine use of bans and re-tests is important. It seems reasonable that if you have caused an accident you should have to prove that you are capable of safely driving in the future. It is less contentious than prison but for many would be very serious and I suspect that people would start paying attention.
The point about dealing with cyclists is things need to be even handed if there is to be an overall improvement. Some of the video of cyclists flying through city traffic (I use to do love this in my 20's) frightens me to death and does not help with relationships with other road users.
He's saying we should get our own house in order before starting war against everyone else.
I know, and of course its utter nonsense, as that 'house in order' meme always is when applied to a group who don't share a house.
Not sure a phrase that originates from the Bible is a meme but like it or not we are a collective group on the road.
No we aren't.
Sorry - No 'we' aren't.
Are you seriously going to argue this point on the grounds that you don't understand a figure of speech?
I think FluffyKitten understands very well what a figure of speech is, but this 'house in order' thing is just that and not a law, not a rule, not a gospel. Nor is it something you'd even want tattooed on your butt.
What it is, though, is a pathetic and hackneyed attempt to apply collective responsibility for the actions of a minority of people who misuse a particular mode of transport to a wider group who happen to choose the same mode.
Why do motorists as a group never have to 'get their house in order' before more new roads are built, but it always required of people on bikes before anything is done to make cycling safer and more convenient?
That faint 'whoooshing' sound you're hearing is the point missing you by a mile...
The British approach to improved safety on our roads has always been to improve behaviour through education - for the past 40+ years we had that, while the Dutch set about building protected space for cycling and traffic calming where modes came together or conflicted.
Now they've got a mass cycling culture and safe roads, while we have - no change, as you say.
Remove the desire, opportunity or necessity to err by providing protected infrastructure that doesn't put them in conflict with other modes?
ceeeeaaaant
Lovely piece of driving / parking from this HGV driver this morning in Kentish Town, NW London
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