London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

Don't know if anyone has seen this little nugget go up yet over London?



The cyclists look very cool. I think we should all dress like that.

Better than nothing.

it's very good. if i had to criticize i'd say it's just missing the punchline "DON'T DO IT!"

Good use of colour. I think that'll stand out pretty well.

Needs more hi viz.

Spotted one opposite Stoke Newington train station, at the junction where the ghost bike memorial is placed.

Good message, good poster and appropriately placed.

Seriously I quite like it. Not sure it hammers the message home enough.

think it's good. in keeping with other tfl stuff and good use of colour

Would be good if TFL put it on their website as a pdf too, so it can printed and sellotaped to the bike racks at work.

New junction mirrors are a good idea too

^ that's really really good, hope they don't get covered in stickers.

the 'bikes' are in the blind spot, what about the cyclists!

Attached as PDF. Good suggestion

you clever bastard, how do you do that?

The poster is missing the blue cycle lanes putting the riders in that spot.

nah, let people decide for themselves if they want to an hero or not.

Wish I was clever. I get all TfL bike press releases and also I know the guys that work there.

Like that critique ;) Often safer not to be in the cycle lane.

I wonder if anyone will point that out to TFL and the mayor?

I think we have so many "DON'T buy from anyone else before you've checked our prices" or "DON'T miss out on this great offer..." sort of things these days that giving people orders on posters switches them off. Some things work better if you just point out the problem and let them think on it for themselves.

Don't tell me what's wrong with posters!

I like how TfL used images of our forumengers. They must know how widely our reach is.

I can see Corny, with DJ next to him, and two behind Corny is VeeVee............ ;)



But on the whole, a very good advert.

ZING!

my biggest beef with cycle lanes.

think it's time to pop round for some potatoes peeling.

Good poster, works for me.

Yeah, it gets my vote.

There we go.

much more realistic;



(not knowing much about PS, I end up 'painting' the blue lane in, which took a while and look rather shoddy).

Does the job for me, pretty good to be honest.

What is the message . . . . . . the new Cycle Super Highway is subject to the same dangers and should have been designed with this known issue in mind . . . ? (I have not been keeping up with the whole CS thing)?

It generally show that TfL put the cyclists in danger by giving them the illusion of safety of undertaking vehicles, especially HGV.

it's also an possible explanation of why the HGV collision victim were female (whom are more safety conclusive) by trusting the cycle lane, least it's my theory.

Maybe make it personal or directed, that kind of thing resonates with people (?)

Yeah, good points. I like the whole idea.

genius

It looks like a hipster ad for the United Colours of Benetton.

Good poster. Also works for me, aside from the blue lane criticism.

They should have an alternate version, with the strapline changed to say:

"Driving past cyclists - putting them in your blindspot - and then turning left across them at junctions has been fatal."

It is part of the campaign, here's the full press release.

A seven-point agreement that forms a Memorandum of Understanding will be managed by a working group made up of TfL and London's key freight operators, and includes the following actions:

• To identify specific locations and times of the day where loading and unloading activity or commercial vehicle routing might conflict with cycle routes
• To identify training needs for all road users, particularly cyclists and drivers of large vehicles
• To examine road traffic enforcement and engineering measures to find a balance between their enforceability and practicality

Perhaps time for a little guerilla road signage. HGV BLIND SPOT in some prominent bike lanes and black spots.

I was thinking that, with the modified poster showing the bike lane should be enough to show the danger that TfL put people under.

I've got a couple of criticisms...

Firstly it's an articulated HGV, of which there are relatively few in central London. I'd have thought a skip lorry or tipper truck would've been more appropriate (possiblty with 'Keltbray' and lots of skull and crossbones motifs on it), although also more difficult to write a big sign down the side of. Nit-picking maybe, but I'm sure some people are too daft to make the connection between different types of potentailly deadly vehicle.

Also, I'd like to have seen the same concept but from the point of view of a cyclist approaching the back of a lorry. I'd expect that might be more likely to trigger something in the brain in a way that the detached perspective in the actual ad may not.

Good effort tho', B+

More comment here:
http://www.itv.com/london/look-behind-you04620/ until they wipe it.

The real message should go to lorry drivers, what should they do in that situation? Also I agree with Brun's comment about the artic, not only is it less common in London, the poster shows it in an impossible position, at that junction an artic would have to move right out into the junction before turning. The driver should be able to do that in a way which puts all the cyclists in the field of view of his mirrors.

Echoing Charlie's comment, how many HGV are being driven in London? at least 2% as far as I know, a very very small number.

How many cyclists are there? 500,000+ daily would be my rough estimation.

looking at the percentage number of HGV, it'd make sense making sure that they knew the risk of driving in London rather than making sure every single cyclists in London know not to undertake HGV.

The poster also fails because if the lorry has properly fitted mirrors at most 3 of the cyclists may be in a 'blind spot'. All of the cyclists would have had moved through fields of vision or have been there before the lorry arrived. In that situation the driver must know they are there unless he has been on his phone or reading the paper etc. (or failed the eyesight test!)

Blind spot or not if they stop people going down the inside of any lorry it can only be a good thing. Like has been said trusting that the driver has used his mirror's correctly is a big assumption to make, and what for 20 seconds? Plus deciding 'down side of lorry or not' is easier than 'am i in a blind spot down here or not'
But it's preaching to the converted on here, the message seems aimed at those who ride around in a fog of unawareness of the dangers they put themselves in.

I don't see how the blue lanes come into it? They would only confuse the message, and the vast majority of London's famous 'London Roads' have no cycle lanes whatsoever, of any colour.

Maybe the poster should say "keep these lorries off London's cycle routes"

Anything to raise awareness is good.
I still think lorries should have a picture of a mangled bike on the back with an arrow pointing to the left hand side and big letters reading 'DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT' or somehting along those lines

i like the idea of making cyclists aware of the dangers regardless, but that aside, i still think some nutter drivers must be butt-dragged on broken glass so they learn to stay away from bikes. i do know the dangers of approaching vehicles on the inside -- and that should be more clear that buses, rented vans and minicabs represent quite the same danger. what concerns me most is those fucken assholes that think they're better because they're inside a metal cage.

I suspect that the aim is to get cyclists to think about where the blind spot of a large vehicle is and to try not to put themselves there (which obviously differs from being put there by the driver). Yes, all of the cyclist realistically would have had to move through the field of vision to get there, but that doesn't automatically mean that the driver has seen them. A cyclist could move from the field of vision into a blind spot without the driver realising it. Afterall, a HGV driver might be looking somewhere other than at his mirrors before making a manouver from a junction. In fact I would be rather worried if he was looking at his mirrors while pulling out into a junction. There are more things to look at from the cab of a HGV than just mirrors, paper, phone. The time required to move from the field of vision into a blind spot could be as little as half a second. Cyclists should be managing their own risk as well.

That's quite a weak criticislm.

Is it realistic to expect this of HGV drivers when London's cycle routes are placed on major arterial roads? Drivers don't own the roads, and neither do cyclists.

I just noticed the lorry image is of a M reg lorry, so old it is exempt from the latest mirror rules. It is missing a right side class IV mirror and a class VI mirror.

I think that poster is bollocks. It's scaremongering to people who don't cycle not to start.

That really is only half the message. Cyclists need to be aware of and manage the risk as well as lorry drivers. Unfortunately cyclists and lorry drivers are as bad as each other when it comes to interacting with each other.