Video: Cyclist jumps out of way to avoid being crushed after lorry driver fails to see her

brooksby wrote:

I just wonder where exactly the truck driver was looking when they made that manoeuvre?

Like rcbroughton below, I suspect that, having first glanced at the mouth of the junction and seen it to be clear (and not seeing the cyclist who was either not yet quite there, or possibly obscured behind the A-pillar, or just was not important enough), the lorry driver's attention was fixed and focused on making it across the junction in front of the approaching line of vehicles on the other side queued behind the minivan.

Point taken.  Not exactly best practice, is it?

A cyclist has quite a narrow silhouette, and she has the sun behind her back. There's also the "invisible gorrila effect" that when you concentrate on looking for cars, you don't see anything else even when it is right in front of you.

A professional driver should of course know that in such a situation you actually have to stop and look slowly and carefully. That she might have been hard do see is no excuse, but it is often used as an excuse.

A professional driver should know to drive on the correct side of the goddam road !!! why are we making excuses for this ?

Awavey wrote:

!!! why are we making excuses for this ?

We are not making excuses. If you read my comment instead of just shouting at me, you will see the phrase "is no excuse".

No you are, by diverting attention on to how the cyclist might not of have been completely visible, that's excusing the driver for driving like that & its completely irrelevant how visible the cyclist is, even if they werent there cutting a corner & driving on the wrong side of the flippin road, isnt acceptable for a professional driver in a truck at all, period.

Besides lambasting the driver for a basic error, I think it fair comment to speculate on why the driver may have failed to see the cyclist. It is also fair to consider the layout of a junction that even allows such a right turn "racing line".

a basic error is forgetting to use things like indicators or changing up into the wrong gear, but now we are adding some blame to the road layout as well are we...

Any road with a junction at a bend is like that. Even when the junctions are 'normal' it now accepted practice that drivers will cut the corner into a blind hazard. Everytime I get to the of the road I have to expect some idiot to appear from the left on my side. Just have to remember to press record when I get knocked off.

I think you're talking past each other. When Stephan is explaining how the driver may have failed to see her, it doesn't change the fact that the root cause of why he failed to see her is that he gave himself zero chance of managing those factors by deciding to cut the corner at speed. Far from being excuses, I'd view them as aggravating his criminal negligence and stupidity in deciding to make the maneuver in the first place.

(This is all assuming he wasn't simply looking at his phone the whole time, which I would find entirely plausible.)

Of course the truck driver is responsible to drive safely and legally but it's important to note that from a defensive road use perspective, particularly a vulnerable cyclist, that you should expect the unexpected and be aware of what's going on around you, thus being prepared to respond quickly to a dangerous occurrence.

Expect the unexpected is meaningless.
If you really think any unexpected thing will happen, then the remedy is not to use the roads.
Every single parked car will suddenly pull out into you, no driver will negotiate a bend but carry on and hit you, every time you stop at traffic lights or a junction, someone will hit you from behind. Every single driver will have a heart attack at the wheel and then hit you.

I don't see how the visibility of the cyclist is relevant at all - the driver performed a dangerous maneouvre that would be an instant fail on any driving test.

hawkinspeter wrote:

I don't see how the visibility of the cyclist is relevant at all - the driver performed a dangerous maneouvre that would be an instant fail on any driving test.

That's essentially what I said. But a professional driver should also understand which factors affect visibility and account for that.

Much of our driving test was questions about invisible hazards in a scene, not just about what you can already see but to think ahead.

I agree that thinking about invisible hazards is part of good roadcraft, but this driver isn't even onto step one of good roadcraft. Firstly, the cyclist was clearly visible if the driver had bothered to actually look and secondly, if they'd stayed on the correct side of the road, it wouldn't have mattered if they'd spotted the cyclist or not.

This is just basic skills that the driver is failing.

That goes for speeding, racing the yellow light, etc., that many drivers do every day.. the point is that the cyclist would have been badly injured, even killed, if she hadn't got out of the way; cyclists realising that they can become 'invisible' to motor vehicle drivers under certain conditions, such as sun glare, A pillar, etc., blocking the view of a cyclist, informs the cyclist to take care of their own safety, by being aware that drivers can and do make errors of judgement.

[quote=Joeinpoole

There is a reason why the death rate on NZ roads is double that of the UK despite the roads being fairly empty. 

[/quote]So the helmet law worked then?

HoarseMann wrote:

What on earth is that metal grille obscuring the bottom half of the lorry windscreen?!

Must be some sort of kangaroo wallaby catcher? Is it legal to fit one of those in Aus  NZ for driving around town?

It stops the blood obscuring the windscreen, so he can see who he's running over next.

It's a stone screen.. completely legal in Australia and New Zealand.

ChrisB200SX wrote:

That is terrifying. The truck just smashes through! Regardless of the corner-cutting, the cause is the driver not properly checking what was in, or going to be in, their path.
Really should lose his licence for that. Pure luck it wasn't a fatality.

The cause is the driver have zero lack of regard for anyone else on the road.

The cause isn't the driver not properly checking. Not properly checking is side-effect of not taking the corner at the proper speed on the correct side of the road. This inturn is symptom of not giving a shit about who he's going to kill.  If I take an assault rifle and empty it into a classroom, the children who die won't die because I didn't check that the room was empty first.

Thanks for that reminder. I see that we have no evidence of any intent to prosecute- certainly, it wouldn't be prosecuted in Lancashire as there's no proper amount of blood on the road. I was at least hit, but that cyclist should clearly have been grateful to the driver for not hitting him.