London Fixed-gear and Single-speed SJS Cycles

I am sad to read about another pointless death of a cyclist on London roads. ANOTHER HGV and ANOTHER female cyclist. And NOTHING on the news about it?

I have written an email to the BBC. This is news. This does matter. Fuck swine flu.

I will also be writing to the mayor. I am not clear on all the facts and statistics on cyclists killed recently in this type of accident and it would be good to include this info. Does anyone have a link to this information or a standard letter we could all send?

I feel for the family and friends. This is so sad...

EDIT: I have just read the rest of the thread and seen the link to the "Dear Boris" thread. Will check this out before writing.

Absolutely - it's a very nasty junction indeed. I go through there every day and it's definitely the nerviest bit of my commute.

RIP - this is incredibly, incredibly sad and it's just hard to imagine why these incidents are passing unnoticed. Thanks to everyone who posted relevant email addresses... I'm off to write to Boris, Beeb et al.

RIP. Condolensces to the family and friends.

NO NO NO! Not another life lost! Condolences to the family.

What ever happened to the spoke card campaign to warn the Cyclists of the dangers!?
Yes these lorry drivers drive like idiots, but one way to avoid all these losses, is to educate people
against the dangers!

This NEEDS to STOP!! Another sad day.

I am so sorry to hear about this, another life taken by a truck. My condolences to the family and friends.

I wrote to Boris after Eilidh's death - and I did get a response, outlining a few things that he was doing. I may write again - this time I will ask him to make cycle safety one of his priorities, as Oliver suggests. This has got to stop.

Absolutely tragic.

I see far too many bleary-eyed HGV drivers in the morning. Huge generalisation, perhaps, but I swear half of them have spent most of the previous night on the piss and then spend the following day driving around in a hazy bubble. Not on.

To be fair to the Mayor, a lot of the things that need to be done about lorries are not the responsibility of his regional government but a nationwide issue. For instance, the LCC has been calling for the UK to adopt Continental-style mirrors on all HGVs, not just post-2000 HGVs. Charlie will be able to add more detail.

However, the Mayor needs to realise what a high level of concern this is causing London's cycling community so that he can communicate this to the Government. The best way of demonstrating this strong shared feeling is not an organised letter writing campaign or petition, but individuals writing their own private letters. So get scribbling and inundate him with your missives. And tell all your friends.

[advertising]As ever, if you want to support the LCC in our campaigning, join now. You don't have to get heavily involved if you're a member, although of course we'd love it if you did. :)[/advertising]

Rest in peace

Have just seen this really sad news
Thoughts go out to her family and friends
Rest in peace x

Her name was Catriona, according to a relative posting on stockwellnews.com

RIP

I agree with Oliver (except the part about the LCC - ;-) ) - individual letters are much better than a petition.

FWIW, here's a letter that I wrote last year:
http://www.movingtargetzine.com/article/written , if you are really struggling.

Got this email at lunch about this, terrible, and I hate to say it, but the fatalities are mostly women, this one looked like she knew how to ride, the pics show she was wearing cycling shoes, surly she must of known the dangers of passing on the left?

http://www.thelondonpaper.com/thelon...side-oval-tube

For anyone who doesn't have a strong stomach i suggest not looking at the pictures... awful.

That is horrific. Has to be said though - you take you life into your own hands if you try undertaking trucks / HGV's / buses etc on the inside. Mental behaviour.

Not saying that is what happened in this case (although it looks a bit like it) - but I see it everyday and it makes me cringe.

Regardless - RIP whoever you were.

Pluck

None of us witnessed this terrible accident so we do not know what happened. Idle speculation and sweeping generalisations serve no useful purpose so let's not make ill-informed comments on what happened.

Quite.
We do not know that this poor woman undertook the truck. She might have done nothing of the kind.
RIP Catriona.

And she was wearing a helmet and Hi-Viz. Hardly fucking inconspicuous was she? Where the hell was the lorry driver looking?

Quite so. But looking beyond this horrible event, I have lost count of how many people I still see undertaking lorries at intersections so the message is clearly not getting through to enough people. There is more work to be done to educate cyclists at large regarding how to ride safely on the road (as well as all of the work regarding HGVs, etc).

There was a brief report/pic on this in 'thelondonpaper' tonight

just found out she was a friend of a friend, they(including her husband) were riding last weekend making plans for the Etape du Tour next month.
i never had the pleasure of meeting her but i don't think i will be able to use that junction without remembering the loss of another cyclist to a left turning lorry.

I left some flowers and a note at the railings to the left road tonight have ridden past just after the accident on monday morning. RIP and our thoughts are with her family and friends

Okay, I'm sorry but, spoke card? I frankly highly doubt that this is the most effective way of warning cyclists of the dangers, especially in small prints on a spinning wheel, and if it happen to be on the right way up in full view of everyone else, I still doubt they'd decided for a moment to read the spokes card.

+1

+1

Time to leaflet HGV blindspots to all London Evans/Cyclesurgery/LBSs and mandatory leaflet with Cyclescheme/bike purchase... Not enough being done :(

very sad to hear another cyclist died.

The spoke card idea was always debateable. Unfortunately, those who think spoke cards are "cool", have also thought spoke cards were a good idea in communicating to the public.

Not only have I, and now Ed, and others tried to make others aware that spoke cards cannot be read, specially when in motion, so what are we then communicating? The colours?

Sorry, Ed put it politely, but I'm not. We're talking about people getting killed, and action being taken to reduce this. A campaign where 99.99% of people cannot possibly see what we are saying is not helpful.

There were loads of ideas floating about in other threads, but why people keep returning to an idea which does not deliver the message, is strange to me.

The sign/motif at the top of this KiwiCycles page, was created here, on Lfgss. That is quite brilliant. http://www.kiwicycles.com/links.htm

No disrespect meant to Donut!. Its that particular concept I'm against, not people pooling ideas.

The following were posted on the Stockwell News website:

http://www.stockwellnews.com/2009/06...t-at-oval.html

My partner was the driver of the Lorry which was in the accident on Monday where sadly a woman cyclist died. I have read all the posts about this and some have been quite upsetting as a lot of comments have been way off the mark. My partner had not been drinking all night, he was safely tucked up in bed at 9pm watching TV with a cup of tea. He is an experienced HGV driver of 20yrs and has never had an accident. The cyclist came up on his left side and has sais he simply did not see her,he did check his mirror but she was in his blind spot. I have researched this and a lot of accidents have happened this way. He was arrested, this would be normal practise after an accident of this nature, the police are now conducting an investigation. He is traumatised and our lives will never be the same again. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family at this terrible time.

Julie

That was a very brave post. Thank you for making it.

Julie - thank you for contributing. I hope your partner recovers from his trauma. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone.

To everyone else - can we please stop speculating on what may or may not have happened when tragic events like this occur. It must be awful for those involved to read such threads so let's not exacerbate things by apportioning blame without knowing what actually happened.

Sadly people die on Britian's roads every day and we should all - be that pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and drivers - do what we can to minimise these deaths.

Agreed. A sad situation for all involved.

As most people have said it is a tragedy for all involved when these collisions occur and you wouldn't wish it upon anyone.

Julie, I would like to echo andyp's sentiment and extend my sincerest condolences to the family and friends of the cyclist. RIP.

Ed & Ga2g, I think the theory behind the spoke card thing was seeing it as a means of distributing info by putting them in the wheels of bikes locked up, etc. in the hope that the riders would read them when they came to get their bikes. Not as a method of delivering info whilst cycling, but this is probably a discussion for the relevant thread.

Deepest sympathies to everybody involved. Thoughts go out to Catriona's family and friends.

So very sad.

Ride safe everyone.

Julie; thankyou for your contribution. It does however show how frightening the situation with HGVs is; if a driver with 20 years' experience can end up in this situation having apparently done everything right then clearly until major changes are made cyclists will continue to die. What mirrors were fitted to his vehicle? How much training or warning had he had specific to the risk of not being able to see cyclists on his left? Has the company he works for done anything at all on this issue?
Given the situation I wouldn't really ask you to answer these questions on an internet forum but they are the questions that need to be asked and answered at some point.
Your partner is the one who now has to live with the consequences of a systematic failure by government, local and national, and by private companies. To say nothing of the far greater consequences for the family of the woman who died.
Maybe the best that can come out of this is the realisation that cyclists and HGV drivers have a common interest. The more the two are able to communicate and work together the sooner some progress might be made.

This is awful news.
An incredibly brave thing to do by Julie - my thoughts are with your family as well.

I don't think there's anymore to be said about this on this thread. there's a thread by guerillaphotos and another one for contacting boris. I think they might be better positioned for discussions of what we can do next.

My old man used to drive HGVs, so I spent a lot of time in the cab as a nipper. There's a kind of front blind spot on HGVs, if you're not far enough forward for the driver to see you through the windscreen but not far enough back to be seen in the mirrors. Cyclists who pull up right on the kerbside, so the lorry pulls alongside, can be forgotten by the driver - especially at a really long set of lights, there's any number of distractions. Or, if they're not studying their mirrors the entire time they're sat at the light, cyclists can sneak up the inside unnoticed and then be sat in that spot unseen.

If you can't trackstand and you don't want to unclip, a lot of people stop by leaning on the railings, rather than plonking themselves in the middle of the lane under the driver's nose so they can't be missed. I see people doing that every day. Sooner or later *one* of them has to come a cropper.

I'm not saying it happened in this case, it's just what can happen.

Not really the place for this ^^^

RIP to the rider xxx

I personally think that is excellent. Not knowing the history behind this, was it created to be made into stickers etc?

I for one would love to get a big version of that made up into a sticker and just slap it on the back of my bag. Sat at the front of some lights, people are definitely going to see it and just cycling around too

Sorry if this is what it was originally created for

@ Dave ^^ Then where is the place for this? Neatly out of sight where no one takes any notice? It's very very easy to lay all the 'blame' (for want of a better word) on the drivers, but it is also of the utmost importance that the implications of riding up the left hand side of a large vehicle are clearly and repeatedly stated. It is no coincidence that such a vast majority of these deaths and injuries have occurred in worryingly similar circumstances.

Radius this thread is to give your condolences to the rider and her family.

Not to speculate on what might or might not have happened.

Her relatives are reading this

Start a new thread

I am very saddened by her death and can only offer my sympathy to her family, and apologise if it sounded like I was making assumptions, but remain true to what I said in my previous post, even if this wasn't the case in this incident.

The one thing Boris can do is start tearing down railings at junctions.

+1 it's not black/white about bad drivers and good cyclists.

Julie - just to echo what others have said, that was a very brave post. My sympathies for you and your partner as well as the friends and loved ones of the cyclist. May the truth come out.

Guys,

you might want to look at I've started over on CycleChat. It's just one idea about how we can work towards preventing 'accidents' like this in the future. Feel free to pop over to offer help/ let me know what you think etc.

Good idea Mags, I managed to miss that on CC :)

Very brave post indeed, I still don't understand why people pass down the left, or get ahead of vehicles, I for one make sure the driver can see me, it's a survival instinct?

I hope your partner can come to terms with this awful event.

None of this speculation is particularly helpful, and will almost certainly be upsetting to friends and family. We do not know what happened here! Please, as Andyp and others have suggested, keep these opinions to yourselves or post in the threads about general cycle safety. RIP, and my condolences to all affected by this terrible and sad accident.

Very sad reading all of this - makes me realise how fragile life is. I can't add anything more than has already been said - be safe everyone and condolences to all affected. Those pictures really brought it home too.