Near Miss of the Day 486: Lorry driver cuts across cyclist at roadworks in "terrifying" overtake

One thing I've noticed during the current run of "protected bike lanes" with wands or cones.  I'm not convinced that they particularly help cyclists, but they certainly illustrate how cr@p a lot of drivers are!  How hard can it be to not hit a big orange reflective plastic stick?  If you do use one of those lanes - at least, in my neck of the urban woods - you have to be prepared to dodge fallen wands/cones all the time...

Well as shown in Brighton, they might have been deliberately targetted rather then accidently hit. 

I know the ones that popped up in my neck of the woods ,drivers,particularly in lorries, target them,or pay little attention to not hitting them,after all its barely going to leave a scratch on a tipper truck.

FWIW they do benefit you cycling in them, as you just get that physical separation and guaranteed space gap,I know less confident cyclists like them alot,and even us been there seen that got the scars from it cyclists appreciate them too

All the ones in Bristol city centre are barely wider than my hybrid's handlebars and go right over loads of sunken trenches, manhole covers, etc. Very claustrophobic to ride in, but if you don't ride in them then you're seen as fair game, I think...

No - I think that a lot of drivers just can't cope with keeping their line!

JWT Commercial Ltd. 3 miles up that road...

Whilst I understand a bit of lets look at it another way rather then drivers being psycho, however your "possibility" doesn't explain why the lorry was in the other lane initially if he didn't know a cyclist was there. It wasn't a SMIDSY, more of a MGIF with added not caring if he has to clean his trailer off afterwards. 

and any restriction to the drivers view is mainly because he is to close to the first truck, thats what creates his blind spot.

its bad enough seeing them really close on Motorways, where there houldn't be vulnerable road users, bu on a more urban road i is madness

Spot on

I was giving a possible explanation, not justifying the driver's behaviour. I think the first driver may have been doing a MGIF, his brake lights came on just after he had overtaken the cyclist and the second driver was just following MUCH too closely.

There's 4-5 seconds between the rear of the first lorry and the front of the second.  That's plenty of time.  Also, both were in the outside lane - presumably because they were overtaking the cyclist they could see in the inside lane.  No excuse at all.

Regardles of when he identified the cyclist, a clear case of where the driver would have been better to strike the cones than risk actually killing someone if he felt he couldn't slow in time. 

But that would mean acknowledging that you'd been driving badly, so better to risk someone's life, and hope that you get away with it

Says something when a cyclist's life is worth less to a driver than a road cone.

No roadworks going on either.

("It's possible that the cyclist was obscured by the first lorry and only "popped" into the field of view of the second driver after he had been overtaken, the driver could have been looking at the row of cones to his right, there is also a blind spot to the front and left of the cab. He made no attempt to do an emergency brake or swerve. A simple case of "I never saw the cyclist M'Lud")

Does the lorry driver have a permanent "BLIND SPOT?"
And, is his focus only required on traffic cones and neglect everthing smaller than his lorry or NOT in cars and vulnerable?

This is the point I was making.

It is reasonable to assume that the driver was looking at the row of cones accross his lane which then reduced the road to a single carriageway as he approached them (too fast).

Clinically speaking our central (foveal) vision occupies a field area of 2 degrees about 4x the diameter of the full moon, although for practical reasons this is often expanded to 8-10 degrees. However you look at it central vision only covers a very small area. Outside this area we a into increasasingly low quality peripheral vision.

So the cycllist would appear on the driver's left in his peripheral vision and rapidly move into the vehicles blind spot. There is also a phenomenon called "Windscreen Zoning" which means that drivers are often reluctant to use the bit of windscreen closest to the edges. This has the effect of making the blind spots larger than they are.

As someone said the driver had some time to see the cyclist, but not if he was looking in another direction.

All this is only a theory, but it is distinctly possble. Four seconds is also about the length of time kit takes to answer a mobile phone. We will never know what happened inside that cab. Any way the driver is an incmpetent ****.

In answer to your point "Does the driver have a permanent blind spot" the answer is YES we all have two, one in each retina. Sorry I'm not having a go at you, just being a pedant.

eburtthebike wrote:

I initially thought that was a good result, £1000 fine for the company, but what about the driver?  

Spot on. The company will soak that up without it touching the sides. eg How much is their weekly tyre wear bill?

The driver was the one who drove the bloody thing - why is he protected?

Me too! Saw the truck and thought 'I've seen worse' and then the second one lurched into view. 

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

Company was fined £1000 makes me think they didn't supply driver name to the Police. 

shouldn't be possible with HGVs every driver has their own tacograph charts. Firm must know exactly who was driving at all times.

wycombewheeler wrote:

shouldn't be possible with HGVs every driver has their own tacograph charts. Firm must know exactly who was driving at all times.

Maybe they knew but refused to disclose. £1,000 + costs is right in line with a prosecution for failing to provide the driver information,so looks like that is a good call. 

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