Safe Speed Forums

I generally agree that humps are a bad idea (partly for the reasons you gave: distraction, damage), but in this case I don't think this was the underlying problem. IMO those doors were very weakly secured, and without a redundant lock. A sharp turn, a clutch dump, or a pothole could have had the same result - this was inevitable (especially if it was secured with hanger wire).

The cyclists were more 'overtaking and overtakee' than simply two abreast.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

It looks like some of the the cyclists were two abreast (totally and utterly legal) until they heard that lorry coming, then you can see them scampering for the left side of the road.

Speed humps, yeah hate them. So did Boris' predecessor, he wanted rid of them too.

I do understand though that if you took the speed humps off my road some people would drive down or up it as fast as they could. Was with a friend in a car the other day driving up a road near their house and they said before the speed humps were installed they used to hit 60 going up it.

That's why I support removal of speed humps, a 20mph limit enforced by a network of average speed cameras.

Oh to glide down my road at 10 to 15 mph without having to negotiate speed humps. Bliss.

Well I must say Weepej, I've seen you put some pretty lousy arguments in the past but this one really takes it to new depths! I don't think I've ever seen a more irrational, subjective and hysterical assessment of a piece of video footage. Have you considered a career writing sensationalist, (hysterical, even!) headlines for a tabloid newspaper? It reminds me of the Monty Python witch trial in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (or ,come to think of it, ANY witch trial)!

I've had a quick look through the threads and I don't think I can add much to Steve's arguments. I think the road looks like it slopes uphill a little, so I guess that the speed estimates might (if anything) be a little on the high side. It is with a degree of wry amusmement that I hear all the cries for 20 MPH limits and then when we see a truck driven at about that speed, it's still "homicidal" /aggressive / whatever! I'm also not even 100% sure that video clip was running in "real time" (although if it wasn't, then I don't think it would have been far off).

The angle at which the CCTV camera was positioned makes the road look much narrower than it is. Immediately after the accident, another truck comes up behind the first one and passes it with ease on the side furthest from the camera.

The doors coming open on the skip truck may needs more thorough investigation. Let's not forget that none of this would have happened if the doors hadn't come open. Boris' "coat hanger" statement might have been correct, OR it might have been a non-technical layman's mis-interpretation of the situation. It could well be that there was some "coat hanger-like" bit of metal but it's function may not have been to retain the doors closed. For example, it might have been to retain the bolt that WAS actually supposed to keep the doors closed. Now clearly, whatever it was that was supposed to keep the doors closed didn't do it's job and a thorough investigation ought to be undertaken by competent, rational, dispanssionate and unprejudiced investigators.

My initial thought is that the truck didn't seem to hit the speed hump exactly square-on. That sort of truck body is extremely floppy and I think it might have twisted enough to allow the catch holding the doors shut to disengage from it's receptacle. Pure conjecture on my part - I simply don't know, but it ought to be part of the investigation. If I'm right, it might just as easily have happened at walking pace.
It would certainly be an easy part of the investigation - just get the truck to drive over the hump again at various speeds with someone watching the back. Of course, it could just as easily have been human error- not securing it correctly, but I wouldn't form a screaming lynch mob and burn the driver at the stake until I knew all the facts!

[quote="Mole" The angle at which the CCTV camera was positioned makes the road look much narrower than it is. Immediately after the accident, another truck comes up behind the first one and passes it with ease on the side furthest from the camera.[/quote]

Indeed. My first take on this was similar to Weep's but further viewing of the clip persuaded me that the lorry driver behaved perfectly correctly ( as did the cyclists in quickly single filing). The road is quite wide enough for the overtaking manoeuvre and having decide to do so the driver is correct to do so briskly.

He is probably culpable about his door but, as one who has had a roof rack fall off, I cannot cast the first stone

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

On a purely technical point, presumably the doors came open because the truck's body flexed and the door bolts moved sufficiently vertically out of alignment to pop out of their stays? Does anyone understand what I just wrote?

(I was following a truck along a bumpy road yesterday and watching the door bolts flexing like this, and thought of this thread)

The video does make it looker narrower than it really is, but I still think the lorry driver should've held back considering how close he had to pass to the cars on his right.

Earlier on he's much closer to the cyclists.

Here's a picture of where he stoppes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beatnic/3554014032/

Here's a fuller video.

http://www.wharf.co.uk/2009/05/video-bo ... ow-es.html

The picture shows that he had good forward vision for quite a way. It was a two lane road, why shouldn' he use the second lane? What has the proximatey of parked cars got to do with anything. Are you saying that no motor vehicle should use that side of the road if there are cars parked there or just lorries?

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

It also shows he didn't have to execute the overtaking manouvre in the more confined space as the road was much wider just after the parked cars.

So are you saying that if the lorry had been coming the other way he should have stopped then?

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

That is an extremely good way of determining whether an overtake was justified.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Maybe, if he had to encroach into the other carriageway and get too close to the cyclists coming the other way or the cars on his left (there is often activity around parked cars).

Or read the situation from a distance and slowed so he didn't have to stop instead of driving right up hard to everything.

Most times holding back from a situation and reading the road gets you there faster.

But the fact of the situation is...If his door hadn't flown open nothing untoward would have happened. This could have happened with just the same consequences if the road had been another three feet wider. Lorry drivers cannot hold back/stop at every point where the road is so narrow that "on the off chance" this might happening. There are many, many roads by me where lorry drivers wouldn't dare venture if this was the case.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I'm not suggesting that.

Even if the door hadn't flown open I don't think the truck driver's driving was acceptable.

YES! I had the same thought exactly. It's what I was trying to say in my previous post. I think it's somethign that merits investigation.

(Well, at least it does if we want to establish the cause of the accident and stop it happening again! I mean, we could just burn the driver at the stake to keep the lynch mob happy - it would be a lot cheaper and the crowd do so love the public execution of a motorist)!

Seeing his head on a stake at the entrance to the street might make other lorry drivers think about the way they drive though.

Many I see are driven like rally cars, especially dump trucks and skip lorrys.

I saw a women reduced to tears once because the skip truck that turned into the road she was crossing kept coming at her with the clear intention that she MUST move out of his way. Had she fallen I'm pretty certain she would have been jam.

For the reason of what......?

Overtaking cyclists on a seperate lane of a road? Going so close to parked cars that a door flying open might hit one? Going maybe 20 MPH? Wearing a dirty shirt and having B.O.?

Please, please enlighten us!

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I already have.

The driver is going too fast in my opinion, certainly in the early part of the clip.

He should have held back, and not overtaken at the hazard (cyclists on the left, parked cars on the right).

He hits the speed hump too hard which indicates a level of agression (I don't believe he didn't see it).

He's driving a seven tonne lorry on a 20mph limit road, with a car in the back.

The way one of the cars is parked leads me to think a two way street

Oh by the way - the truck driver can be charged with a few offences other than speeding - which also carry penalty points. Your homework. Tell me what you think I may have running through mind as possibilities. Yes - checking the safety/road worthiness of his vehicle would feature in the investigation.

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The fact that the door came open shows that the vehicle was not roadworthy

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

As I understand it it's a two way 20mph limit street called Narrow Street.

Sadly it's not on streetview.