“The council would have done more if their lorry killed a dog”: Widow blasts “inhuman” local authority which claimed that cyclist husband killed in collision with bin lorry was “100% to blame” for death

Gus T wrote:

I find it strange that the police can provide an exact speed for a bicycle that doesn't have a speedometer but not for a vehicle that legally has to have a tacho. 

Not that I'm inferring collusion between Police Scotland and the Council involved.

There is nothing strange about it whatsoever ... if the rider is running cycle computer. 

The computer literally keeps a record of the exact speed the bike was doing at every point in the ride and it is very very easy to extract that data afterwards. That is, after all, one of the most basic features of a modern, GPS, cycle computer. 

Does a tacho in a commercial vehicle do the same thing? Even if it does, are bin lorries required to use one? I thought they were for longer distance vehicles in order to ensure drivers stick to driving time limits etc. 

Certainly the tachometer in my car just tells me how many revolutions my engine is making which does not in any way tell me what speed I am going. 

There is nothing strange about it whatsoever ... if the rider is running a cycle computer. The computer literally keeps a record of the exact speed the bike was doing at every point in the ride and it is very very easy to extract that data afterwards

Well, there is! The police steadfastly refuse to accept any evidence from a cycle computer of any type as any evidence whatsoever- they take that stance as a dodge to forgive any vehicle overtaking any cyclist travelling at any speed and crossing unbroken white lines while doing so, even when the manoeuvre is performed in a dangerous position. The cyclist is, by definition, travelling at less than 10mph. If they're dreaming of doing the cyclist for furious cycling, or whatever else they've read about in the Daily Bias, then the cyclist is travelling at whatever speed suits them

https://upride.cc/incident/ku15ekc_royalmailbigvan_dwlcrossclosepass/

You will not be surprised to the learn of the police opinion that the driver's view of the road ahead was the same as mine!

You're confusing Civil and Criminal cases.  Different rules on admissability apply.  Case law prevents anything but a calibrated device being admissable in a Criminal case, whereas in a civil case the burden of proof is lower and anyway does not lead to a criminal conviction for a road traffic offence.

This "apportionment of blame" is only a feature of civil cases as a method of determining/limiting the payout.

You're confusing Civil and Criminal cases

No I'm not. The great majority of these cases never get anywhere near being any type of case because they're automatically binned by the police. The point I am making is that most police opinions and statements made by the police in such cases are lies or are simply made up. The offence I showed below was an offence independent of the speed of the cyclist- they just use 'we don't know the speed of the cyclist' as a dodge. The Royal Mail driver was on the RHS of a vehicle on the RHS of the road before a blind RH bend.

The previous road.cc article on this story (linked above but repeated below for convenience) reports the lorry's speed as 11mph. https://road.cc/content/news/cyclist-killed-bin-lorry-crash-deemed-58-re...

Why has a very specific speed been quoted for the cyclist?

Yes, this is odd when the police believe in only 2 speeds for cyclists: too slow, as they're always travelling at less than 10 mph when it comes to it always being legal to overtake them by crossing single and double unbroken white lines, and too fast when there's anything to do with allocating blame to a cyclist

Presumably because the bike speed recovered from his bike computer was very specific, whereas for the lorry it would have been an educated guess (or do they have an accurate tacho in bin lorries?).

If there was CCTV on the bin lorry, I would expect speed overlays etc. or at least a calculation based on scene analysis. Makes me wonder if there was no CCTV or dashcam. If so, how reliable is this 'appropriate' speed estimate and is it based only on witness testimony?

HoarseMann wrote:

If there was CCTV on the bin lorry, I would expect speed overlays etc. ...

Not sure about that ... for most of their time on the road, bin lorries are travelling very short distances at very low speed. Having speed overlays and records seems like overkill for a vehicle used in that way. 

I find my bike computer lags behind where I am depending on several factors, at least one being how many connections it has at the time to the sattelites. I have been sat at a traffic light and my bike still shows a speed being measured. So it would nice how reliable they thought the measurements could be. (Although he was obviously going to fast to stop at the distance he could see.)

I was looking at cameras installed on Bin Lorries. Not all have got them but the search did lead to this story. Unfortunately the council / binmen didn't report anything to the police over these people driving stupidly fast along the pavement (paging Wheely) and then deciding a roundabout is also not for them. 

Sorry, it's getting a little off-topic, but sometimes karma strikes... enjoy:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D9QehY4i89o

Yep, I have seen that before. Of course no mention on whether the Police actioned the poor driving. 

Sriracha wrote:

Sorry, it's getting a little off-topic, but sometimes karma strikes... enjoy: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D9QehY4i89o

Oi mate, you can't park that there you know

hawkinspeter wrote:

That verdict makes no sense. How can a cyclist be more at blame for an incident for simply travelling at 16mph than a lorry that's got poor road positioning? Taken to its logical conclusion, that means that a lorry can be entirely on the wrong side of the road and any forward movement by a cyclist would be taken as them partly causing the collision.

Agreed - to a point.

The collision occured on "a blind bend". Usually this means a bend around which you can't see what's coming.

In another thread, its argued that cyclists can't break a speed limit as they have no speedometer (although some do, of course) and are exempt in law. But this incident illustrates that road speed limits, except as legal maximums, are irrelevant to true safe speeds in various circumstances. What matters is whether a speed you're doing is safe in the circumstances. You don't need a speedometer to estimate this.  If you do, you shouldn't be driving or cycling.

To be safe when going around a blind bend, you need to be able to stop if you very suddenly come across something as you go around such a bend. I regularly ride roads with such bends and, despite the "inconvenience", sometimes slow to a crawl. On occasion albeit not that many, I'm very glad I do so as there's a careless drivist coming the other way too fast. I have time and lack of momentum to enable a hug of the hedge or verge.

In this case, it's unclear what the bin lorry was doing. Presumably it also was going too fast for the bend and also on the wrong side of the road, since the jury awarded some blame.

Could the cyclist have been more careful too? We'll never know without a lot more detail than is typically found in newspap blabber. But perhaps the jury had those details and so made that decision? And perhaps the fact that the cyclist was hit and killed is indicative.

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Personally I think that bin lorry drivers (or drivists of any huge and heavy vehicle) have far more responsibility in preventing "accidents" than does a cyclist or a ped. The bin lorry is, of itself, far more dangerous than a cylist. Even if the cyclist in this case could and should have been going slower for his own safety (and perhaps the safety of a ped like those around here who walk down roads with no pavements) the bin lorry driver was the one with the potentially lethal weapon. A 50-50 responsibilty therefore seems unfair.

But a better outcome would be for there to be no "accidents" and no court case of this kind as a result. As a cyclist, I'd rather be alive than wish thunkfully for my rights to have every drivist perform their duties as such flawlessly. So I take appropriate care, which seems to be abnormal. So far, so good - lots of prangs avoided in 64 years of cycling on the roads by avoiding the many, many antics of incompetent carloon drivists.

Perhaps too many of us trust to wishful thunking about what's (not) 'round blind bends and other such potentially hazardous cycling situations?

There's a world of difference between encountering an obstacle around a blind bend (e.g. a fallen tree, a jogger etc) and having a vehicle driving towards you on the wrong side of the road.

From the previous article on this, I had a look at the collision report. Assuming the location is correct, this is the view the lorry driver would have going into the right hand bend, followed by the cyclists view into the left hand bend.

What struck me is the warning sign to expect cyclists and the road being so narrow, a bin lorry would almost completely fill it. With a wall to the side, there's nowhere to go. You would have to crawl around there in a lorry at no more than walking pace.

Thanks for finding this.

Once again reminding us there are several possible speeds which might be considered "appropriate" and most of these are not fixed. There's the marked speed limit which applies to your vehicle (if any). There's the speed appropriate to the conditions for your vehicle (absent any others). Then there's the appropriate speed taking *that* into account AND the possibility of encountering other vehicles. (I guess in an ideal world allowing for them just choosing the "legal" one rather than something suitable).

IDK if this is suitably considered in legal cases? It doesn't always seem to be appreciated on the roads. Not sure what the teaching is but waaay back IIRC my driving instructor emphasised the limits being like a "never exceed" speed in a plane, not a target "cruising speed". (Although he did note that the examiner would be expecting a demonstration that I was aware of the current speed limit so to "make progress" during the test...)

Ideally the bin lorry should get someone to guide it around that. Not really a good road for a wide vehicle to use, though bin lorries don't have much choice about routes.

I'm inclined to think that the safe positioning on that bend is 1m from the RHS, as that will massively increase the view and there is an escape route.

Plus it needs a honk on the Hornit first.

hawkinspeter wrote:

There's a world of difference between encountering an obstacle around a blind bend (e.g. a fallen tree, a jogger etc) and having a vehicle driving towards you on the wrong side of the road.

There is - and unfortunately the vehicles driving towards you on the wrong side of the road are far more common, around blind bends, than fallen trees.

Given that this is so, I personally get very wary of blind bends, especially on the narrow back roads. If I have to give way to the possibility of mad speeding carloons in order to stay in one piece or alive, I'll do so. Many cyclists regard this as unfair or unreasonable so don't take the possibility into account - until a car eats them one day as they claw, too late, at their brake levers. (Let us say a "phew" for the speedy bend-taker cyclists who never get caught by one).

This is not to forgive the carloons, who should rightfully be prosecuted and banned forever from their tin boxes. But that'll be too late for a mangled-me. Also, no one seems to be prosecuting carloons much, even when they do perform a mangle of a cyclist, ped, horserider or your granny's cat.

In short, pragmatism trumps righteousness in the effort to stay unmagled and alive.

**********

PS Funnily enough, I managed to avoid bike-spearing a runner around a blind and quite sharp 90 degree downhill bend only a few weeks ago, by going cautiously. I traverse this bend a dozen or so times a year, on a regular circuit, but only this once encountered a hazard. It's always tempting to go rather faster 'round that bend, as I approach it at around 25mph before slowing right down to 10mph or less.

But what if I had whizzed it? 95 kilos of man-beast and touring bike into a slight yet rapidly-approaching wee woman ....... . 

25.7 kph.

Probably a world where your average juror considers double figure speeds on a "push" bike to be the stuff of legend, crazy fast.