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I love your optimism:
"Once complete (which, admittedly, will take years), this will virtually eliminate cyclist left hooks from lorries"
This assumes all lorry drivers are benign towards cyclists.
adroit-
The assessment is based on the very simple observation that most riders who have been killed or seriously injured and on whom I could find information were quite short. Very, very few taller people (above 5'6") seem to be affected by this sort of incident.
Now, I'm not saying that proves anything (it's not a scientific assessment and I'm not claiming a correlation, let alone monocausality), but it is a common thread among victims of the 'standard' crash pattern of left hooks, seemingly irrespective of the degree of driver error. I also haven't found any other factors that were common to all the victims. But, of course, the information available is limited (on many victims there is no information at all) and much is estimated. I'm still confident that this is a key factor--and I've spent years trying to understand these crashes, having many meetings and conversations about them.
Needless to say, these measures would not completely eliminate dreadful driver error, and of course, as jontea says, drivers should check their mirrors, but if for whatever reason they don't, I'm convinced this can be more useful for prevention than any other measure.
Obviously, you could still get a Dennis Putz character. There could also be a 'road rage' incident or some other reason for using a vehicle as a murder weapon. However, the vast majority of drivers have absolutely no connection to any of those scenarios. Virtually nobody wants to kill or injure, least of all people driving for a job. Initial feedback from drivers has reportedly been very positive.
It's also worth emphasising again that the ultimate goal is to re-equip the lorry fleet with purpose-built bin lorry-like models:
http://lcc.org.uk/pages/direct-vision-lorries
Two of this type are now commercially available.
So, yes, I'm optimistic about this. There are still going to be riders killed by drivers of other motor vehicles, and as I said, it will take years to replace the fleet, but ultimately I think the companies will see the value of this investment even from a commercial perspective as well as an ethical one.
Oliver Schick
I'll bump a few lorry threads with this very welcome news.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/row-over-plan-for-compulsory-glass-panels-in-lorry-doors-to-protect-cyclists-a3168596.html
It's the most welcome development that direct vision lorries are now coming closer to reality, as these measures (and the even more welcome, later step of gradually replacing the lorry fleet with lower lorries (like bin lorries) where possible).
Once complete (which, admittedly, will take years), this will virtually eliminate cyclist left hooks from lorries.
Obviously, a newspaper has to try and construct some kind of row here, but the cost to businesses is going to be very small indeed compared to the harm that can be avoided, and all drivers who have tried driving one of the new lorries or one with a partially transparent door have been said to have loved it.