Female cyclist killed by cement lorry in Oxford

My initial reaction to a future dearth of new professional drivers is 'so what'. Perhaps that will force more companies to move cargo by rail. The ones that don't may be forced to invest properly in recruiting and training drivers into a career that they can be proud of. Perhaps driving standards might increase as a result.

I see the reduction in young people taking up driving as a wholly positive thing. We'll be relying on them to start speaking up for proper public transport and cycling/walking infrastructure.

I checked back on the Evening Standard site later - was going to register so I could reply - but other commentors had already ripped poor Pam to shreds, so I left it alone

But @pualfg42, I can only agree - the attitude where 30 seconds of a drivers time is worth more than the safety of anyone else is very worrying

m_s_r, that's the kind of comment that really gets on my nerves and an attitude that's all too prevalent. In making safe manoeuvres, we probably only delay traffic by a matter of seconds yet people take umbrage. I despair when the need to get home 5 minutes quicker takes precedence over the safety of all road users.

Just saw this comment in the London Evening Standard in the story about the death of Brian Dorling - fair makes your blood boil!

Quote:

My deepest condolences to the family of Brian Dorling on the loss of their loved one. However, I am inclined to agree with Terry that cycling on the main roads in London is tantamount to madness. Whenever I am travelling on a bus in Central London, which is frequently, and I see the cyclists weaving in and out of the traffic, I fear for them. I know there are both considerate and inconsiderate cyclists, but when one deliberately (and in my opinion arrogantly) stopped right in front of a Victoria bound no. 73 bus at a red light, positioning himself right in the middle of the front of the bus so that the bus driver had to wait for him to move before he could move the bus, I thought what a nuisance that a busload of people trying to get home from work were being inconvenienced by one person who thought the road belonged to him. I don't know how the bus driver kept his cool.

- Pam, London, UK, 31/10/2011 12:50

Clearly not an IAM member

They should make it an employer liability to assess driver's suitability e.g. eye and mobility tests for HGV and PSV. If employers, including agencies were given this level of responsibility, with the threat of corporate manslaughter prosecution, I'd expect we'd at least reduce some of the risk.

Another point you might note is the age of the driver in the Oxford crash. We are coming up to a cliff - edge in the age profile of professional drivers - bus/coach and HGV, just as we also have a trend in manufacturing. 'Snow of the roof' is a widespread phenomenum, with many companies reporting they cannot recruit suitable candidates to train-up.

There are a few exceptions - Brompton bicycle is one refreshing factory, where a good balance of ages can be seen, with an healthy abundance of young faces. But here (naturally I suspect) the lack of a driving licence or the ability to afford a car does not seriously inhibit the ability of the workforce to get to work, nor their ability to drive inhibiting their ability to do work which involves travelling. Yet when I asked the CPT (the bus industry representative body) they did not have an immediate figure on the age profile of the industry workforce or a prediction of any recruitment shortfalls.

When you look at the fact that the mumber of 17-25 year olds holding a driving licence has halved over the past decade and now only a quarter of those in this age group can officially drive a car, and even fewer can afford to do so, the pool of experienced young blood to fill the shoes of retiring HGV and PSV drivers is shrinking, and many companies are hanging on to their older drivers for longer, or switching to the use of agency drivers, who will have to 'learn' the vehicles they are tasked to drive, and where the driver history can be clouded by the fragmented arrangements of having a vehicle operator, who is not the direct employer of the driver and a driver supply agent who equally may be employing self-employed drivers who are on their books for spot work.

The haulage industry is more fragmented than many suspect, with most vehicles operating in livery not actually operated or driven by employees of the big brand names on the trucks themselves. Most of the big stores for example have one or more of the big logistics operators signed up, and some degree of control of standards, but the construction industry has a myriad of small operators contracted to supply trucks in livery, with drivers. Unlike buses there is no requirement to have a clear standard place and format to put the registered details for the owner of the vehicle for any person requiring these to record them, or report a vehicle defect.

We also have a vast divergence - on a site the operation of trucks requires a risk assessment of the operations being carried out, and a work plan describing the provision of staff to manage the safe movement of the truck in a confined space with a lot of pedestrian activity from other workers on the site. Go out of the site gates and onto streets where trucks operate in confined space with a lot of pedestrian and cycle activity, and you don't have to provide any such detail - although some responsible clients and through them their contractors have taken this on board.

To see how other transport industries deliver you might consider reading a few of the Rail and Air Industry Investigations into both crashes AND near miss incidents. Sadly delivery of similar thoroughness for road traffic would demand a vastly greater resource than the rail and air industry to cover just fatalities, let alone learn from the near misses.