[Closed] Another dead cyclist in London

Nice to see some common sense from wrightyson on what is understandably a very emotive problem

Balfour Beaty are not the only major in the UK with 360' technology

Tort could in theory, however having the muscle of a act like HSAW is a far bigger impact it was necessary to make HSAW bite

I just quoted balfours as an example of a forward thinking company as I knew someone who worked there and had made me aware of it being introduced. That in my mind is a far more productive way of thinking safety wise than say some of the other big companies who go to ridiculous lengths to make you wear a pair of gloves and safety glasses regardless of your intentions on site.
Very sad for all those involved and that includes the driver.

So.....

Motorists are SOLELY responsible in 70% of accidents including cyclists (DoT research). And of course that understates as very difficult to assess when cyclist is dead.

Trying to show cycling's 'not that dangerous' using annual deaths figure is not necessarily the best to use - medical advances mean more serious injuries are now survivable. Frankly, that horrible phrase 'life changing injuries' terrifies me more than anything.

In any other situation - rail, air, any workplace - every one of these incidents would be properly investigated and changes made. On the road we're just collateral damage - usually for people who are being criminally inattentive if not criminally negligent in their driving.

Danger to pedestrians of cyclists is massively overstated. Stats below are for pedestrian injuries ON THE PAVEMENT, not even on the road.

[img] :large[/img]

Banning them from the roads is never going to happen as they genuinely are the life blood of the industry especially in very built up areas where say arisings can't just be pushed to another area of the site.

They've banned them in peak hours in Paris and the city hasn't shut down. They're simply not safe as currently configured - on site they go nowhere without a banksman at walking pace, yet once out the gate you've got an underpaid driver on piecework. You can make trucks safer with low cabs with more glazing - they're standard issue for bin trucks and should be for any trucks entering the city....

Then you change how the drivers are paid.

http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/cemex-drivers-gets-clearer-view-with-new-20-tonne-econic--tipper
[img] [/img]

Oh. And trucks yeah?

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/100-hgvs-taken-off-roads-in-londons-square-mile-in-crackdown-on-dangerous-lorries-10336095.html

And the people dying?

https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/us-not-them/

The Paris scenario was made clear earlier. There's also some absolute rubbish being spouted about drivers being on piece work when a great many are on hourly rates.
And regardless of what your facts and figures say if you were to remove lorries from London roads during the day the price of construction would rocket due to night work rates.

There's also some absolute rubbish being spouted about drivers being on piece work when a great many are on hourly rates.

And regardless of what your facts and figures say if you were to remove lorries from London roads during the day the price of construction would rocket due to night work rates.

....increased construction costs is a small price to pay for people not dying on bikes. Or to put it a slightly different way - i'm not prepared to have people die to let us build a cheap railway

that's about it isn't it, cycliosts are seen as an overhead cost to the construction industry, cheaper to kill a dozeon or so a year than regulate or modify their industry practices.
As has been mentioned above a few times, plenty of H&S regulations protecting those who work around trucks on site (their 'own people') but nothing protecting us when the monsters take over the public roads.

Balfour Beatty don't use proximity sensor tech on their hired 360s on any site I've employed them on. 8 wheelers are the lifeblood of london construction, been on the A13 this month? They're 40% of the traffic.

They're lethal though, the blind spots are too big to be safe in city traffic. They're built to cost on the same formulaic design as a long distance wagon which has a completely different end use and user. They should look like refuse lorries, there's a design where someone has actually put a lot of thought into eliminating and controlling the risks.

Almost 100 HGVs have been taken off roads in the Square Mile in the first month of a new unit to crack down on dangerous lorries.

The City of London police’s commercial vehicle unit, funded by Transport for London, stopped 136 vehicles in May and removed 95.

😯

^ from the linked article, even if those 100 are a tiny percentage of the total on the roads (it doesn't give overall stats, and rememerb this was apparently only in the square mile) that's terrifying, that ~ 100 lorries had to actually be removed .

Offences included lorries driven without insurance or the correct licence, with unsafe tyres or load, and drivers failing to record how many hours they had been working

^ and that's not even touching on the physical danger they pose due to the design, that is purely due to rules/laws not being adhered to.

So we have vehicles that are inherently dangerous to operate in a busy urban environment, being operated by companies that don't adhere to basic rules governing insurance, and roadworthyness, being driven by people who don't adhere to the basic rules of driving them.

Talk about a cluster****...

RIP to the young woman.

Time to change the law. No tipper trucks on central London roads between 7am and 7pm.

There is a massive amount of development going on and huge numbers of these trucks rumbling around. For every house in South West London having basement excavation done there are numerous trucks taking away the dirt plus large numbers of big projects. This is new, we didn't have these numbers before.

I've lived and/or worked in central London for 30 years. I know the Bank junction very well, it is not a suitable place for such commercial traffic during the day. The are is almost exclusively office, so having trucks there in the evening /.early morning will not impact residents. Implementing this will be easy as it can be made a condition of planning permission.

Well done to the police/authorities for this crackdown. Absolutely no doubt in my mind corners are being cut by the developers/contractors. I would check the licence and insurance details of every single commercial vehicle and if the driver was found to be incorrectly licenced/insured I would impound the vehicle and impost a punitive fine on the owner.

So we have vehicles that are inherently dangerous to operate in a busy urban environment, being operated by companies that don't adhere to basic rules governing insurance, and roadworthyness, being driven by people who don't adhere to the basic rules of driving them.

and this can also be written as follows:

So we have cyclist riding bikes that are inherently dangerous to operate in a busy urban environment, being ridden by individuals that don't adhere to basic rules governing insurance, and roadworthyness, being ridden by people who don't adhere to the basic rules of riding them.

Time to change the law. No tipper trucks on central London roads between 7am and 7pm.

There is a massive amount of development going on and huge numbers of these trucks rumbling around. For every house in South West London having basement excavation done there are numerous trucks taking away the dirt plus large numbers of big projects. This is new, we didn't have these numbers before.

I've lived and/or worked in central London for 30 years. I know the Bank junction very well, it is not a suitable place for such commercial traffic during the day. The are is almost exclusively office, so having trucks there in the evening /.early morning will not impact residents. Implementing this will be easy as it can be made a condition of planning permission.

You are kidding right?

You are kidding right?

I now work near Victoria, absolutely no surprise at the recent death there. Tipper truck again.

On the Crossrail site I can see from the office window there's a massive banner which says 'all harm is preventable"

This philosophy and legal culpability needs to be extended offsite as well as onsite...

On a positive note, I had a little chat with a tipper truck driver this morning coming up from Brixton at Oval. I was to his right-hand side, intending to filter past and carry straight on. I looked up at him and said "you go", he said "no, you go" and let me go ahead, and took it very steady through the traffic. Got the feeling he was very aware of the risks and was taking care to manage them. That said, everyone makes mistakes so it seems daft to rely on the skill of the drivers in the randomness which is London rush hour... you'll never eliminate deaths if that's all we're relying on.

It'd be interesting to hear the views of tipper truck drivers on whether they like driving in rush hour or not, and what they find most challenging... I suspect it's a bloody nightmare!

You can make trucks safer with low cabs with more glazing - they're standard issue for bin trucks and should be for any trucks entering the city....

Then you change how the drivers are paid.

http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/cemex-drivers-gets-clearer-view-with-new-20-tonne-econic--tipper

Reason refuse collection vehicles need the operatives to enter and exit quite frequently without having to climb down lots of steps and concertina type doors allow full height doors on passenger side for egreess in tight situations, where a normal door could not be opened.

They also cost a lot more

[i]It'd be interesting to hear the views of tipper truck drivers on whether they like driving in rush hour or not, and what they find most challenging... I suspect it's a bloody nightmare![/i]

Yeah, is that because the trucks are so badly designed?

I caught a moment on video - I was on bike, massive tipper pulls out from junction on right as I'm nearing, then we almost do the "dance in a corridor" thing, where I'm thinking "has he seen me?" he's thinking "go past mr bike". Was very dodgy, but I could just about tell he'd seen me and was waiting for me to pass on his blind side. All happens quickly on the vid, but was quite a scary moment.

wrightyson - Member

Banning them from the roads is never going to happen as they genuinely are the life blood of the industry especially in very built up areas where say arisings can't just be pushed to another area of the site.

Banning in/around rush-hour is perfectly feasible though and massively reduces the risk. As would banning vehicles without suitable safety kit outright. And in the longer term, developing vehicles that are fit for purpose.

They also cost a lot more

More than a life?

The margins in the industry are too tight for a voluntary code of practice. Make safer trucks compulsory from 2018 and things will change.

that's about it isn't it, cyclists are seen as an overhead cost to [s]the construction industry[/s] society, cheaper to kill a dozeon or so a year than [s]regulate or modify their industry practices[/s] have it impact on everyones lives.

Its a sad fact that free and unrestricted road use is seen by the majority as an essential to life, and not just personally for their own movement but for services that support them. So the lorry that drives your goods to the supermarket, the vans that race around or tight schedules to deliver a box containing 2 chainring bolts from CRC because we get free postage, the tipper lorries that mean factories/offices/homes/services are built 'affordably'.

Things need to change and it needs to be driven by government as they represent us, they should be the action to our voice, we just need to make sure the 'our' bit says the right thing and that means changing the value of life vs freedom of movement. At the moment freedom of movement is taking a hit (cycle lanes, more traffic on roads, increasing costs) and its a challenge to keep pushing.

i think educating people about the risks of riding up the inside of a truck is a better and more relistic solution thn banning all HGVs.

without HGVs the economy would stall to a halt, or rather the road network would. imagine everthing being delivered using couriers... thousands of sprinters more on top of the already large number on the roads.

or how about banning cars on London's roads? how many single occupant motors are there in town? how many of those journeys are under 10 miles? remove the cars and there would be more room for essential transport that keeps the economy flowing.

this is rather unnecessary, IMO. ostentatious and does nothing for anyone other than the individual.
[img] [/img]

whereas this is essential:
[img] [/img]

"Reason refuse collection vehicles need the operatives to enter and exit quite frequently without having to climb down lots of steps and concertina type doors allow full height doors on passenger side for egreess in tight situations, where a normal door could not be opened."
So refuse trucks need low cabs to provide ease of access for the crew and make them safe to be around, but tipper trucks don't need the expense of low cabs as that would only save the lives of pedestrians and cyclists and that would be an unfair expense on industry?

"So we have cyclist riding bikes that are inherently dangerous to operate in a busy urban environment," why is a bicycle inherently dangerous in an urban environment. What is inherent in the design of a bike that makes it dangerous is not an additional factor required to make the bike dangerous?

So refuse trucks need low cabs to provide ease of access for the crew and make them safe to be around, but tipper trucks don't need the expense of low cabs as that would only save the lives of pedestrians and cyclists and that would be an unfair expense on industry?

I think the point was there are practical reasons for the design of bin lorries, tipper trucks dont 'need' low cabs (and they are not high for any reason other than all the stuff under them).

How would low cabs help in situations other than head on? many of these accidents have been cyclists down the inside, and even with low cab you would be relying on the same mirror (and driver using it) to ensure safety. In terms of cost/benefit you are not resolving the problem fully, so its possible other solutions can be developed such as 360 camera with object tracking (as used in some busses i seem to remember?).

Are there certain junctions or routes that tipper trucks could be banned from or instructed not to use? If a tipper truck driver knowingly uses a difficult junction where say, there is no room to swing wide safely and where a safer alternative route exists could that constitute culpability? Either personal or more likely corporate if the driver was not given an appropriate safety assessed route?

That would not really be hard to implement. TfL create an official black spot list, the list is circulated to drivers and contractors who have to avoid them where possible. Sounds like existing H&S laws in that hgv routes would have to be risk assessed., except the companies would have to have duty of care towards vulnerable road users as well as their own staff. Which is pretty reasonable. I'm sure they do the same thing on their own sites or in warehouses.

It is simple - vehicles with huge blindspots are not suitable for use in an urban/sub-urban environment - end-of.

How can they be judged roadworthy for that environment?

If any vehicle is suitable for use on restricted width roads it is bikes, not these vehicles with big blindspots.

second - penalties for stopping in an ASL should be higher.

third - penalties for cyclist flouting the law should also be greater

fourth - they should employ squads of keen cyclists as policemen - with gopros or similar - to chase down perps - whether car or bike - the footage is real-time fed to a bank of 'judges' who pass instant judgement and the bike copper can issue an instant fine or points, or whatever, with minimal overhead and then go on to catch the next perp/idiot driver/idiot ccylist.

fifth - cyclists have to do a competency test before being allowed on the road. Don't see why not - why should someone who is a liability be allowed on the public highway to endanger their own and other peoples lives? It is like allowing old people to keep driving even when they have become a liability.

second - penalties for stopping in an ASL should be higher.

third - penalties for cyclist flouting the law should also be greater

fourth - they should employ squads of keen cyclists as policemen - with gopros or similar - to chase down perps - whether car or bike - the footage is real-time fed to a bank of 'judges' who pass instant judgement and the bike copper can issue an instant fine or points, or whatever, with minimal overhead and then go on to catch the next perp/idiot driver/idiot ccylist.

[img] [/img]

So we have cyclist riding bikes that are inherently dangerous to operate in a busy urban environment, being ridden by individuals that don't adhere to basic rules governing insurance, and roadworthyness, being ridden by people who don't adhere to the basic rules of riding them.

MooPoo!

Cycles are not inherently dangerous, they don't weigh many many tons, they don't have blind spots, they don't have overhangs or manoeuvrability issues and if they do hit someone they stand a much lower chance of causing injury.

There are no basic rules for insurance or licensing to ride a bike, you can argue the toss about whether there should be until you're blue in the face, but there aren't so they are not disregarding any rules there.

Are there rules about recording hours riding a bike and how long you can ride them for? no? thought not, no rules broken there either. Suggest you actually read the article I quoted, it was about why they were taken off the road, it was nothing to do with adherence to highway code or bad driving it was about flouting the legal requirements to operate them.

The last point is somewhat contentious as there are a large number, although not the majority, despite what popular opinion might say who could definitely improve their riding, and that is definitely a worthwhile thing to do and to tackle, and that statement hold true for any vehicle on the road, but don't gloss over the very real fact that a cyclist riding badly, no matter how badly, poses very little threat to other people, and a small mistake is unlikely to lead to them crushing anyone else to death within seconds.

People make mistakes on the road all the time, in cars, on bikes, in lorries and on foot, this is about mitigating the risk and the disproportionate level of risk from certain types of vehicle.

Do you not see the disparity between how they are operated on a site versus, once they leave the gates?

There is masses of procedure and HSE on site, where everyone is aware of the risk, then as soon as they leave the gates they have to mix with many many more users, less aware of the risks and with NO mitigation or procedure to manage that risk. It is treated (rightly so) as a dangerous vehicle when on site, once it's out the gates, it's just another vehicle and it's apparently everyone else's responsibility to stay safe. Not right at all.

TurnerGuy - Member
cyclists have to do a competency test before being allowed on the road. Don't see why not

the logical extension of this, is competency tests for pedestrians.

Motor Vehicles are the reason why transport is dangerous.

if we bought a new machine-tool at work, That occasionally spat-out a red hot piece of metal, at head-height, at high speed. We would not expect the supplier to suggest we send our operators on a 'ducking' course.

the logical extension of this, is competency tests for pedestrians.

if pedestrians routinely displayed the lack of competence that many cyclists do, then maybe.

for instance, if you are cycling in traffic you should at least be able to glance over your shoulder to see what is behind without wavering all over the place - but you see quite a lot of cyclists around where that would be a challenging maneuver.

ahwiles - Member

if we bought a new machine-tool at work, That occasionally spat-out a red hot piece of metal, at head-height, at high speed. We would not expect the supplier to suggest we send our operators on a 'ducking' course.

It's not even that good a metaphor, because it's not operators that would be in danger, it's random bystanders near the machine. And for some reason, you're doing it in a built up area.

quite.

if pedestrians routinely displayed the lack of competence that many cyclists do, then maybe.

for instance, if you are cycling in traffic you should at least be able to glance over your shoulder to see what is behind without wavering all over the place - but you see quite a lot of cyclists around where that would be a challenging maneuver.

The thing is, training is available, and often for free, the difficulty is in persuading people to do it, suddenly making it mandatory is not going to work, so even if you want to get to a situation where it is mandatory, then you'll need a committed drive to get people into training during the transition, which would have much the same effect even if it wasn't mandatory!

And then how would you police it? we don't even have enough resources to police uninsured and unlicensed drivers let alone cyclists as well, who lets remember, do not often kill or seriously injure, so would we end up having even less resource to police the more dangerous drivers?

I'm all for training, and would support any government drive to offer it and increase uptake, but I can't honestly be pro-licensing as it's contrary to the very nature and freedom of a bicycle as a means of transport.

I'm also very wary that it is often used as a catch-all to turn divert the problem away form dangerous infrastructure and vehicles and put the responsibility back on the cyclist when the simple fact is, as stated above that 'Motor Vehicles are the reason why transport is dangerous', training is a good idea, but it is not 'the' solution and must not be allowed to be presented as such.

STATO Low cabs have fewer blind spots to the front and side and so are massively safer for cyclists and pedestrians . If a high cab pulls up on your right you are completely invisible looking through his window you are below his sight line the mirror also goes over your head.

pedestrians ain't that competent it is a rare commute either by car or bike that doesn't involve someone stepping off the path without looking or standing slack jawed in the road waiting for a gap to step into.

And then how would you police it?

Simple - you have those ninja cycle police I mentioned catching any cyclist displaying obvious incompetence and check then 🙂

And suddenly lots of jobs available for decent cyclists...

pedestrians ain't that competent it is a rare commute either by car or bike that doesn't involve someone stepping off the path without looking or standing slack jawed in the road waiting for a gap to step into.

ninja cycle police would get them as well...

.

Petrol-crimes in general seem to be the "soft option" in our legal system, need to be far higher priority than they appear to be

[url= http://www.cityam.com/218627/cycling-campaigneres-organise-flash-protest-bank-after-cyclist-dies-junction ]Protest at Bank 8am tomorrow morning [/url]

if we bought a new machine-tool at work, That occasionally spat-out a red hot piece of metal, at head-height, at high speed. We would not expect the supplier to suggest we send our operators on a 'ducking' course

No but you would expect your operators to go on a course on the safe operation of the machine, would you not? In any work environment, safety is drilled into us, even office workers.

Construction of the Golden Gate bridge started in 1933, Joseph Strauss as overseer of construction made some, at the time ground breaking, decisions based on his desire to beat the forecast number of Deaths for a project that size, He made workers wear hard hats for the first time, and had catch nets set up under workers as He had noted that most of the Deaths on similar projects were people falling from steelwork, Those who's lives were saved by the netting formed an exclusive little group calling themselves "Half Way to Hell Club"...

That all sounds a bit obvious now with 20/20 hindsight and standard practise on all construction sites including these and many more methods of improving safety in that particular sphere but it shows the impact that someone just implementing safety measures rather than debating and/or waiting for various committees and groups to support them can have...

I'd say British road safety design is at about the same point that 1930's Construction safety was at before Strauss and the golden gate, a certain level of deaths amongst Pedestrians and cyclists is all but accepted at present, beating the statistics, "doing better" isn't really prioritised as a goal.

There's an obvious correlation for a several of the cyclist deaths in recent years, ultimately what is needed is a clear decisive measure that will address that correlation directly, it's success will only be measured by a reduction in KSA's on British Roads... it's that simple.
Whatever you do will be unpopular with some interested group or another.

Anyone fancy taking up that crusade?

thought this thread might be due a revival after the results of a recent inquest:

http://road.cc/content/news/157528-cyclist-s-death-down-moment-s-lapse-concentration-says-coroner

[i]CCTV shown to the court showed Baldassa cycle towards the delivery lorry before moving up its left-hand side as it began to turn. Coroner Mary Hassell told the court: “It was surprising to me that Federica carried on cycling when the lorry was indicating and started to turn. I’m afraid I think that is the most significant contributory factor.”
Collision investigator, Paul De Neys, said Baldassa would have been visible in two of lorry driver Marek Sewilo’s mirrors for no more than a second and a half, but pointed out that at that moment, Sewilo should have been looking in front of him. Hassell agreed, saying: “I can’t identify anything to do with the driving of the lorry that was a contributory factor in the collision.”[/i]

very sad, that some cyclists still make such an obvious and dangerous move

🙁

so sad, once pulled a cyclist back from undertaking a bus when it was just starting to turn left, literally grabbed her and hauled her backwards. So easy to do and you should never do it unless you know 100% you can get in front of the vehicle before it moves.

I think it adds to the case for not having large lorries and cyclists mixing in town centers at bussy peak times. What may seem to be an obviosue mistake to one is not to another, small silly mistakes in a public shared enviroment when travelling to work should not result in death.

I do around 10 hours a week on my commute through London and I have to say that I hardly see any cyclists riding defensively.
I feel very sad for the family of this lady but also feel for the guy driving the truck who undoubtedly is having the worst day of his life. Everyone makes mistakes but a hell of a lot of the cyclists I see don't seem to realise that their mistakes can end very badly. Rule one in London, drive like everyone can't see you and even if they do assume that they will still do something stupid..

[quote=joolsburger ]I feel very sad for the family of this lady but also feel for the guy driving the truck who undoubtedly is having the worst day of his life.

The truck driver in the OP? I'd hold your sympathy until you're sure he did nothing wrong.

Awful for the family of the cyclist, the driver and his family as well.

The knee jerk reaction of some on here that drivers are always at fault and x,y and z should be bank d frustrates me. No doubt vehicle design and road layouts must be reviewed, but that won't save a cyclist who makes the wrong decision at the wrong time.

Better cycle and driver training will reduce such incidents, as long as humans are involved, you will never eradicate them.

Attitudes of drivers will not change until we manage to get "[url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability#Bicycle.E2.80.93motor_vehicle_accidents ]strict liability[/url]" implemented in the UK

The chances of achieving this nirvana however...

[url= https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/strict-liability-law-for-motorists ]https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/strict-liability-law-for-motorists[/url]

"very sad, that some cyclists still make such an obvious and dangerous move"

Don't blame the cyclist here. Can't find the piece now but this has a bus stop just before a side road and shortly before a larger junction. Second land is marked as "straight on" so even if truck was indicating cyclist could have reasonably thought truck was turning further on.

This junction has had 77 collisions in the last 10 years. Of those, 29 involved cyclists, three of whom were killed. Council has taken no action to make the road layout safer. Council has been told that the bus stop is dangerously close to the junction but won't move it.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/ @51.518663,-0.1219054,21z/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

The knee jerk reaction of some on here that drivers are always at faul

It is knee jerk reaction but to be fair most accidents it is the drivers fault. In this case it is terrible that due to bad road layouts that this situation can ocur. Yes training but to expect everyone who is poodling about on a bike to be better trained than most car drivers (because that is what would be required, it takes more skill to ride well in traffic than drive) is unreasoble.

I think the opinion of a coroner, who is a cyclist, and who has seen CCTV footage, is probably the one people need to take note of?

Driver training, road layout and strict liability are unlikely to have saved this poor woman, from reading that report.

It may help in other cases, obviously.

You do realise that the inquest is for a different incident than the one in the OP? Save your sympathy for the driver in the OP.

Also do you really think the road layout didn't contribute at all to the one you are now discussing?

Most fundamentally, whatever the coroner might say, there is something wrong here if such a small mistake results in your death. If we put this in an industrial context, it's like having no guards on machine tools, so that a small slip results in losing your fingers (but worse). If we designated these roads as workplaces I'm sure HSE would be shutting lots of them down after all these incidents - to be honest I'm not quite sure why it is HSE can't investigate and prosecute such incidents given the drivers are working and they're quite happy to investigate and prosecute where members of the public are injured or killed due to negligence of people working in other circumstances. The driver being "not at fault" is only in the context of the acceptance we have of this sort of death toll - fundamentally he is still driving around in a machine which is killing people far too easily.

I'm aware which case the report refers to.

Have to disagree about the guards and fingers. Going up the inside of a signalling/turning vehicle per the coroner's case is using the machine with the guards removed.

In that coroner's case, the cyclist made the wrong choice and paid a terrible price. Like misjudging how to pack your parachute. There will always be an element of personal responsibility.

[quote=MoreCashThanDash ]Have to disagree about the guards and fingers. Going up the inside of a signalling/turning vehicle per the coroner's case is using the machine with the guards removed.
In that coroner's case, the cyclist made the wrong choice and paid a terrible price. Like misjudging how to pack your parachute. There will always be an element of personal responsibility.

There were never any guards on the machine. The parachute analogy is a poor one, as in that case there are no outside factors involved (well it's poor for all sorts of other reasons, but that's the main one). HSE doesn't in general accept "personal responsibility" as an excuse for not having systems in place to prevent deaths from minor mistakes in the workplace - I've certainly seen reports where somebody has been seriously injured due to their own fault where the employer has been prosecuted for not having sufficient safeguards in place.

Problem is that using the roads always has to be using the machine without the guards. It can't really be any other way. Make a mistake in the wrong place and it can be fatal. Sitting in your car waiting to turn right, get it wrong and you are T-boned by the bloke coming the other way at 60. You don't deserve to die because of a mistake, but sadly you do.

"I think the opinion of a coroner, who is a cyclist, and who has seen CCTV footage"

I used to think that if someone was a cyclist they were almost certainly fundamentally OK. Having seen the willingness to excuse drivers and apportion blame to cyclists when unaware of any of the fact by people on here I realise it no longer counts for much.

Just because the coroner has ridden a bike doesn't make her immune from the motor centric attitude that is the norm, and which treats death on the roads as acceptable collateral damage.