The London Paper today has a full-page feature entitled: Cyclists vs Lorries: The Deadly Debate. It cites the deaths of four cyclists by lorries this week alone (Lisa Pontecorvo, Nick Wright, Graham Thwaites and Wan-Chen McGuiness), and in order to attempt ‘to understand the difficulties facing each side’, it had a cyclist get behind the wheel of an HGV (aka LGV aka lorry aka truck), and an HGV driver get on a bike.

I’m really hoping the cyclist didn’t actually get to drive the HGV (and merely sat at the wheel), since the idea of that freaks me out for all manner of reasons (mainly because I think it a skill not to be taken up lightly and secondly because it’s an unfair comparison), and there are several points of irritation (I’m always irritated by things - it’s the academic in me), but overall I think the attention the article is bringing to the issue is important at least.
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Posted under advice, general, journalism

Today was a good day for me. I missed the rain on my rides to and work and had a tail wind on my way home. No one was an idiot, apart from this one Mercedes Sprinter van, who was less of an idiot and more just slooooow. Work was easy and my friend is in town on her way to Uzbekistan. All in all, today was good.

I was going to start off this site with random instances of terrible drivers which I’ve been noting over the last few weeks as I’ve been sorting it all out. The John Lewis driver in Crouch End who raised his arms all dramatically and exasperatedly at me, even though I’d waited behind the parked cars so as he could carry on uninterpreted. Or the Mercedes driver who actively swerved into my partner who was cycling in front of me in Newington Green. Or the a list of the myriad cars and lorries who refuse to use their indicators. And so the list grows.

Instead I find that despite my lovely day, another cyclist has been killed by a left turning HGV. See this report for some small details about it, and this clip of the news report.

Whoever you were, RIP.

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Posted under general