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news
Akis Kollaros (source GoFundMe)Killer tipper truck driver who didn't indicate or check mirrors jailed for 20 weeks
The mother of a cyclist carelessly killed by a tipper truck driver who neither indicated nor checked his mirrors said that she hoped lessons could be learnt from her son’s death.
Robert Taylor, from Dartford, Kent, pleaded guilty at Wood Green Crown Court to causing death by careless driving of 34-year-old cyclist and music producer, Akis Kollaros.
Last year we reported how around £6,000 was raised in just one day through a crowdfunding site to help repatriate to his native Greece the body of Mr Kollaros, who was killed when he was hit by a tipper truck in east London.
More than 300 people, many of them cyclists and including friends and clubmates of the London Dynamo rider, plus others who never met him, donated money through the website, GoFundMe.
Judge Noel Lucas, sentencing Taylor, gave him 20 weeks in prison and a driving ban for 12 months.
Handing down the sentence he said that had Taylor checked his mirrors and indicated when turning left there was "every chance the accident would have been avoided”.
Mr Kollaros' mother, Maria Kollarou, who flew in from Greece for the hearing told the BBC after the sentencing: "Nothing can bring back the son I loved so dearly.
"I sincerely hope that lessons have been learnt from this tragic incident and that cycling on London's roads will become safer as result of Akis's death.
"I wish to offer my support to people who have faced similar situations and hope that we can, together, find a way to ensure that such incidents do not occur again."
Judge Lucas added: "I want it clearly understood by those who drive vehicles of this type that they must take the greatest of care whilst driving in the streets of London to avoid precisely this type of accident."
The collision caused "head injuries that were instantaneously fatal".
Prosecuting Tom Nicholson said: "Had he indicated, his new vehicle was fitted with sensitive safety equipment - these activate a camera on the near side of the vehicle.
"There were also sensors that would have detected movement and when the indicator is depressed there is audible warning equipment - warning of a left turn."
Defending Taylor, Michael Procter said: "He is devastated by what has happened. He will live with this for the rest of his life.”
Last February we reported how an estimated 300 people turned out for a vigil and die-in to commemorate cyclist Mr Kollaros.
Coordinated by campaign group Stop Killing Cyclists, the vigil included the placing of a ghost bike near the spot where Akis died, and speakers including Tom Kearney who was hit by a bus in 2009 and ended up in a coma.
He said: “It is so important to remember and honour these people and to inspire us to change the conditions so no more of these have to take place.”
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I think the main thing that should change is the size of lorries in the UK, especially cities. Japan manages to deliver all its goods in cities in signifigantly smaller and lower lorries. With the whole cab lower the driver stands more of a chance to see the cyclist. Shorter and with no articulation also makes for safer roads
Banning large lorries would have three affects
i) a couple of pennies extra on everything you buy
ii) billions of pennies saved in less deaths and accidents (not including less tailbacks contributing to money wasted on delays)
iii) more jobs for the economy with more drivers required for more smaller lorries
Right ... so there is broken glass, or a pedestrian or anything else for that matter ... like a left turning vehicle in your way but you are going to carry on cycling because you are riding on blue paint and therefore have the right to proceed. Good luck with that, but don't expect any sympathy from a jury of your peers when it all goes tits up.
The basic principle of road use is proceed only if it is safe to do so. Once I have checked that it is safe to do so, whether behind the wheel or on two wheels, my vision will be directed forward while I make a manoeuvre, not backwards into my mirrors. If you blindly cycle into my near side because you think you have the right to do so because you are on magical blue paint, suffer the consequences. If I am on two wheels, I will pick myself up and batter you for being so daft.
If there is no ASL and a stationary vehicle is indicating left at the lights. I will wait behind it in primary position, because I am not an arrogant twat who thinks that my desire to make progress ought to be accommodated by all and sundry.
If there is an ASL that isn't already full and I judge that there is enough time to get there before the lights change, I will filter otherwise I take the position I just described above. If I misjudge it and am still filtering up the side of a vehicle as the lights change, if anything happens it is my misjudgement and my fault.
In that clip, the lady in yellow and especially the guy in green are such spectacular candidates for a Darwin award. You do novice cyclists no favours at all by condoning such fuckwittery as acceptable cycling to be expected by other road users. It isn't. It is suicidal.
My last word.
Who said I condone their behaviour?
You miss the point entirely. It's precisely because they are novice that they're making those mistakes. There's a serious flaw in an infrastructure that cannot accomodate the mistakes of the most vulnerable.
From the original:
http://beyondthekerb.org.uk/2016/03/14/the-rise-of-the-idiots/
Twat.
My last word.
As long as humans drive lorries (or any vehicles with significant blind spots) there will be accidents like this, particularly in cities. Harsher penalties and better training/fail safe systems may reduce these incidents, but fundamentally it's still them against us. We can yell as much as we like but they'll win everytime.
It seems the vehicle in this case had swung right near the junction (without indicating) giving Akis (who was following) the impression he could pass on the inside.
Having swung right, the tipper then turned left, without stopping at the junction, and the rest is history.
Obviously the onus is on the driver to indicate, but I urge all of us out there to just keep the hell away from lorries and high sided vehicles. Assume they want to kill you. It really doesn't slow you down that much to keep your distance. If you ever have the chance to get in the cab of a lorry, take it. It's terrifying when you witness first hand how little they can see-TFL demo
And don't be shy when you see your fellow cyclist filter up the left side of a lorry at lights -I've seen this even when the lorry is indicating! Often the cyclist has no idea of the blind spots and the possible consequences.
I really wouldn't want my family to suffer the way Akis's family has.
A few problems with this. The onus is not only on the driver to indicate, but to also check that no-one is in the fucking space he's about to drive in to.
There is one issue I get mad at, and that is when cyclists get blamed because they failed to compensate for someone else's screw up.
On a multi lane road at any set of lights vehicles queue. No-one thinks twice about it, and if a lorry in the right hand lane decides to turn left and crushes a car in the process, no-one thinks to blame the driver in the left hand lane.
There's a consistency of logic here. If motorists queue at lights, guess what, cyclists will too.
EXPECT THEM TO BE THERE!!!
What's so fucking hard about that???
The space he is about to drive into is forward which when turning left means looking out of the windscreen for pedestrians who might be about to try and cross the road you are turning into, vehicles coming the other way etc ... all of which means that you can not be checking your near side mirror for chancers while you make the turn. Lorry drivers, like the rest of us have only one pair of eyes. I expect a driver, cyclist whatever to check that the nearside space is clear before initiating a turn. If someone rides, drives, walks into that space while you are making the turn, the accident is their fault.
What about a single lane road? Or a roundabout? Do you think a car driver would get much sympathy for getting squished trying to squeeze through the extra room that an artic needs when taking a left or negotiating a right turn at a roundabout? I see that type of accident fairly frequently and my thought is always, "stupid twat driver". Whether in a car, bike or on foot, these are large cumbersome vehicles and the visibility from the cab isn't great. Have some consideration, hang back and give the driver a chance to see you.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=leW8Mx1GciE
If sadly I ever find myself on a jury looking at footage like this in a dangerous driving trial, the answer is not guilty in less than a minute. The driver, clearly signalling his intention in the footage, did very well to avoid an accident created by selfish idiots with no sense of either self preservation or consideration for the needs of other road users. One or more of those idiots could easily have been missed in the mirrors and been killed, and if so it would be entirely their own fault.
Cyclists are not only allowed to filter but motorists are told to expect it (rule 151). The lorry driver in your video did no more than the HW code obliges him to do.
The the term single lane is a reference to the vehicle using the road, not the road itself. Cyclists can and do ride two abreast on a "single lane". There's no such thing as a single lane road any more than there is defined priorities as to who may use the space in the lane.
I'll repeat what I said. Vehicles queue at lights. That cyclists will queue too is as predictable as the tides so there's no excuse for not expecting it. There's blue paint all over that road that has two explicit messages.
1. To cyclist - RIDE HERE! (yes I know its lot legally binding, but that's the message).
2. To motorists - EXPECT CYCLISTS TO BE HERE! (that's legally binding , paint or no paint).
If that not the case, why put the bloody paint there?
Find me any road space explicitly demarcated for motorist use that says "use this space, except when you shouldn't"
Of course you are allowed to filter. That does not mean it is always appropriate to filter. Filtering up the side of a vehicle that has its indicators on when you cannot be certain to be ahead of it and visible before the lights change is inconsiderate and utterly stupid. If you run into trouble doing something so daft, it is your own fault. That is my view and I believe the overwhelming view of road users.
Two cyclists queued in the video. The rest tried to jump the queue with potentially disastrous consequences for themselves and the poor driver having to compensate for their utter stupidity.
When safe to do so! Do you think that common sense and basic road craft ought to fly out of the window because you are riding on a bit of blue paint?!
I do not and will not compensate for anyone trying to undertake me as I am turning left. Blue paint or not.
The entire road network. Read Rule 167 for example. The idiots in that video would do well to read it too.
Ah back to the "use this space, except when you shouldn't" rule.
In order for law to work it must be consistently applied. If the law says my behavior is legal, I'm entitled to beleive I can do it. The problem with discretionary rules is that what's right and wrong can be made up on the go.
Oh, and BTW, "common sense" is no more than an opinion that we haven't bothered to subject to critical scrutiny. Or as Einstein said "that collection of prejudices that we have accumulated by the age of 18"
The lorry was stationary, none of those cyclist undertook it. You do know the difference between filtering and undertaking?
All of those cyclists without exception filtered, and then queued. Their behavior was consistent with what every motorist was doing, and expects to be able to do. Furthermore, they are the vehicles going straight in the lane, and have priority in that regard. The lorry is turning across their path, and is obliged to wait.
Rule 167 applies to overtaking. See previous comment on undertaking and filtering.
In this specific case as I understand it, had the truck driver indicated first he would have triggered external and internal safety systems which may well have saved Akis's life
Either way, in the first instance it's not about who gets blamed retrospectively. It's about who gets killed. Regardless of whether the HW code entitles ourselves and motorcyclists to filter, doing so up the inside of a high sided vehicle absolutely puts your life in the hands of a stranger driving a lethal weapon with a massive blind spot and probably in a rush. It's almost totally avoidable on our part unless they've overtaken you first. Until lorries are completely safe in this regard I will always avoid putting myself in this situation regardless of what the law claims we are entitled to.
On this I completely agree, and experienced cyclists know this, but not everyone is an experienced cyclist. What is safe and unsafe practice is far from intuitive, especially when cycling infrastructure guides you into doing things that an experienced cyclist wouldn't do.
CS blue paint, cycle lanes and ASZ feeder lanes all guide cyclists into the areas that are not illegal to use but are high risk, specifically with lorries. Not everyone by definition can be an exprerienced cyclist, that comes from time on the road and surviving your mistakes. If a cyclist gets killed or injured because he or she filters on the left of a lorry, they should not be blamed, and it's downright arrogance to do so.
There are all these people talking about cyclists shouldn't put themselves in harm's way, but if an HGV pulls up alongside me, or directly behind me well then they're the one putting *me* in harm's way...! It's all very well all these 'cyclists stay back' stickers, but let's have a bit of quid pro quo here: if I'm there first then I want the truck to stay back.
You should take primary position when at a junction, make it impossible for a left turning vehicle to pull alongside you. A vehicle behind you? What is the problem? If a bus / lorry whatever is in the queue where do you expect it to wait except directly behind you? The fact that it braked in time and didn't run you over means that you have been seen and therefore safer.
Sometimes with the best will in the world you find yourself, or some twat driver places you in a terrible position at a junction. When in doubt, dismount! Walk through the junction or wait for the next cycle of lights before proceeding. Too many cyclists seem to forget that they have that option to extricate themselves IMO.
This is great advice. I do this regularly now on my London commute. It's quicker, safer and can be done considerately without irritating pedestrians of the 'bloody cyclists' mentality.
Also remember than if you filter pass a stationary lorry into a ASZ and stop in front of his cab he can not see you through the windscreen. When the lights change he will not see you. If he gets away before you, you will be run over. These strips of blue paint and ASZ's are easily misinterpreted as some sort of a safety bubble. I wish TFL would be more proactive informing people on bicycles (not just 'cyclists') of this. Links posted on the back of buses to a YouTube campaign would be a start.
Thanks.
Even bimbling at 30% of my power (I do not want to arrive at work a hot, sweaty mess), I am so much faster than the surrounding rush hour traffic there is absolutely no need to take risks, squeeze through gaps, run red lights, ride on the pavement and all the other antisocial bollocks I see far too often on my commute. That must get in front mentality is lethal behind the wheel and suicidal on two wheels.
I agree with your views on CSH and ASLs. Normal rules apply. Left turns, petrol stations, etc still need to be ridden with the exact same level of caution, blue paint or not. Unsegregated CSHs are an embarrassment that only serve to lull the inexperienced into a false sense of security. I would tear them up in a heartbeat.
Not to dispute the point about lack of visibility from a lorry's cab, but that video is bullshit as the mirrors are set up hopelessly and in fact probably intentionally badly.
I think it's more that the (articulated) lorry in that demo has already started turning left, so their left mirrors show the side of the truck when they are set up to show a better view when pointing straight ahead.
Here's a different point of view, with a tipper truck, showing that if a driver has all their mirrors set up properly, and uses them all, actually there isn't much they can't see: http://mccraw.co.uk/sorry-mate-i-cant-see-blind-spot/
(But not all lorries have a full set of mirrors, and drivers don't always use them properly, and even if they do they can't look in all of them at once and keep an eye on the road ahead, so you should still be very careful about going up the inside of a lorry, even if you don't think it's turning left. Not that it will help much if a lorry overtakes you and turns, and the driver then suggests that since they didn't notice you, you must have come up their inside.)
But don't worry, this fatally dangerous driver will only be off our roads for 12 months...... it isn't the prison sentence that seems lax, it is the driving ban. It seems impossible to get a lengthy driving ban in this country, no matter how bad a driver you might be, and no matter how much damage you do
An interesting contrast would be operators of fork lift trucks - if a driver of a fork lift truck is involved in a fatal accident due to their or someone else's negligence (e.g. poor maintenence or training for the driver), there are massive fines, lifetime bans and prosecutions for corporate manslaughter. If it happens on a commercial road vehicle, a slap on the wrist.
On which fucking planet was this an accident?
RIP brother.
Accident gets used both for "thing that wasn't deliberate" and "thing that just happens and couldn't have been foreseen or avoided". People conflating the two is a real problem, but used by the judge who sentenced the offender, not by someone defending them, it's fairly clear it means "not murder" here, not "not something they should be punished for".
What's an average sentence for causing death by careless driving of a car driver/passenger? I think it would be useful to know before we all go off the deep end.
Of course, if there's a demonstrable bias in sentencing then it's something that could be used.
I think that's a fair question. Though it is possible there _is_ a bias in sentencing, which would be a particular issue that would be useful to know. On a related note, it has been found in at least one study that vehicular crimes in general have been getting shorter sentences, at the same time that sentences for other crimes have been getting longer.
But personally I think the general issue is how its just accepted that potentially lethal machinery should be operated, often at excessive speeds, in the vicinity of unprotected vulnerable people. Same thing with that Glasgow truck running a crowd of people down on the pavement when its driver blacked out. We need more separation all-round, and not just for cyclists, and more recognition of the fact that those operating these machines need to be more thoroughly checked for competence and health conditions.
Prevention is surely more important than punishment?
It's not always the judges fault for shit sentencing. They have some discretion, but have to act within the sentencing guidelines and rules. They also have to consider avoiding the risk of appeal if the sentence is too harsh because it will affect the victim or their family further causing yet more anguish and trauma.
What this shows is how totally not fit for purpose the offences of causing death by careless and death by dangerous are. They are absolutely useless offences and need replacing as soon as possible.
Careless is momentary in attention such as gazing at something interesting for 1 second too long when the traffic in front has stopped at a red light....
Dangerous is being in control of a 32 ton tipper truck in a busy city centre with all manner of vulnerable people around you whilst you drive like a cnut, choosing not to use your indicators or your mirrors before turning across a cyclist and pulverising his skull.
The problem is the CPS know these offences are shit and will only take to court what they feel they can win with a jury under a judges direction.
This tipper truck driver should have gone down for 15 years and banned for life. And he should serve all those 15 years, not get out in 6 to 7. You get out of prison on time for good behaviour and being a model prisoner and not a day sooner.
I wonder what evidence there was, that this guy just admitted it and pleaded guilty... As we all know from past cases, if he'd have just said that the sun was in his eyes or that he just didn't know how he missed seeing the victim, then he would have probably just walked.
"He is devastated by what has happened. He will live with this for the rest of his life.” At least he's got the rest of his life, more than he gave his victim, and only a 12 month ban. What a sick joke.
so the camera is dependent upon the driver turning the indicators on? Madness... should be on all the time and a display screen slightly above his eyeline...
The judge deserves a sentence of 20 weeks just for handing out a joke of a sentence.
Am I the only one getting fed up with defence lawyers sating how "devestated" the driver is and how "they will live with this for the rest of their lives"? At least they get to have a life.
Exactly, if they drove like they did to pass their driving test, there would be no 'devastated for the rest of their lives'.
More evidence that fancy equipment & bicycle helmets don't magically make the roads safe for everybody.