Should truck drivers have their licences suspended for using mobile phones?‏

[Trevor_P]

What is my choice? Sharing the roads with unacceptably dangerous vehicles whose operators refuse to take responsibility for them? I don't think so. Besides, your advice is useless - following it won't stop people being killed, because the people doing the killing are refusing to change their behaviour.

How do you suggest I modify my driving then? Based on what experience?

 

[theclaud]

It's the old argument. In order to get the goods to the shops in town, do you want one LGor twenty transit sized vans? That's twenty for every truck.
With the associated congestion, pollutio and hand gestures that accompany these.

It's a false dichotomy, even before you get to macro-economic questions about levels of consumption. If a driver alone can't operate a vehicle safely, it ought to be manned by two people. Construction vehicles take great care not to kill people on site, and then go off and kill people on the roads with impunity. Oh, and truck operators might stop fighting simple demands to make their lorries safer by design. And drivers and operators might stop trying to abdicate their responsibility on cycling forums and elsewhere. Is that enough for you to be going on with?

 

[Shadowfax]

Trans: These vehicles are unfit to share our roads, so we expect more vulnerable road users (ie everybody) to simply stay out of the way.

I think you are getting the idea.... its known as common sense ...locally !

 

[theclaud]

I think you are getting the idea.... its known as common sense ...locally !

Ah... "common sense". For when thinking seems too much like hard work.

 

[Shadowfax]

Ah... "common sense". For when thinking seems too much like hard work.

Thinking is overated, have you learnt nothing ?

 

[classic33]

Some of the points have already been raised
http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/were-at-fault-on-the-roads-over-deaths-involving-hgvs.147255/
Here and on trucknet.

 

[Trevor_P]

It's a false dichotomy, even before you get to macro-economic questions about levels of consumption. If a driver alone can't operate a vehicle safely, it ought to be manned by two people. Construction vehicles take great care not to kill people on site, and then go off and kill people on the roads with impunity. Oh, and truck operators might stop fighting simple demands to make their lorries safer by design. And drivers and operators might stop trying to abdicate their responsibility on cycling forums and elsewhere. Is that enough for you to be going on with?

I'm not aware of any operator that doesn't want safer trucks. Nor am I aware of any driver that intentionally goes out to kill people on a daily basis. Improved design has to be usable though. Sticking cameras all over a truck will be useful in preventing damage or injury whilst manoeuvring in tight spaces at delivery points, but their use in everyday driving situations is limited. The time taken to observe and act upon so much info would mean that whatever mirror or camera was looked at first would be rendered or of date by the time the driver decided it was OK to proceed. The six mirrors we have now are right on the limit for providing useful up to date information.

As for abdication of responsibility, surely it makes far more sense for the road user who is ultimately at most risk to get as much education on the topic as they reasonably can in order to avoid the risk?

Simple common sense and not using words that the layman might need a dictionary for.

 

[Trevor_P]

As for the suggestion that trucks be double manned, it happens already. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, the drivers are far more likely to be talking about what is going on in their lives than constantly on the look out for obstacles, pedestrians or cyclists.

This would in fact increase the risk to other road users by providing a distraction. Another idea that has not been thought through properly.

 

[theclaud]

As for the suggestion that trucks be double manned, it happens already. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, the drivers are far more likely to be talking about what is going on in their lives than constantly on the look out for obstacles, pedestrians or cyclists.

This would in fact increase the risk to other road users by providing a distraction. Another idea that has not been thought through properly.

The suggestion is not about providing companionship for the driver - it's about employing someone whose explicit function is to prevent the vehicle endangering vulnerable road users - most importantly by monitoring the nearside and acting as a banksman when necessary. It's also not a suggestion plucked at random but a specific response to the complaints of truck drivers that it is not possible for a driver alone to monitor all his blind spots and be absolutely sure he is not killing someone. That the same people refuse to take the suggestion seriously suggests, like almost everything else they utter on the subject, that the "it worries us as much as it worries you" line is horse sh*t, and that they would rather continue to transfer the responsibility for the danger they present on to those they endanger.

 

[Trevor_P]

Like I said, human nature being what it is....

 

[theclaud]

Like I said, human nature being what it is....

Whatever you imagine you're on about, it's irrelevant. If someone has (for example) a clear and designated responsibility for ensuring the nearside is clear when turning left, we know who is responsible when a lorry turns left across a cyclist or pedestrian. No arguments. If the company fails to employ such a person so that the driver is unable to monitor the vehicle, the company becomes responsible. If the driver kills someone as a result of disregarding the instructions of such a person, the driver is responsible. If your objection is that people are incapable of doing such a job properly, then firstly I think that's nonsense, and secondly it's another argument that such vehicles operated by such people should not be sharing public roads.

 

[ColinJ]

I got held up at a level crossing in Coventry last week and watched a freight train go through. There must have been about 30 or 40 wagons and it struck me that every single one of those was replacing a large truck.

It's the old argument. In order to get the goods to the shops in town, do you want one LGor twenty transit sized vans? That's twenty for every truck.
With the associated congestion, pollutio and hand gestures that accompany these.

What I want is 1/20th of a freight train for 90% of the journey, and small electric vehicles (where possible) for the other 10%!

Oh, and use the canal system to transport anything which is not time-critical!

 

[theclaud]

[QUOTE 3098310, member: 9609"]I don't think you have any concept of how important the lorry is within our society, if we went to some system of a man at walking at every corner of every truck waving a red flag our entire economy would collapse.

I agree much could be done on behalf of the haulage industry to improve safety, but equally other road users need to look after themselves much better than they are currently doing when around these large vehicles.[/QUOTE]

You're entirely wrong. I am quite conscious of the fact that we have created an economy which requires us to move things around a lot, and a very long way. A lot of the moving around of things is utterly pointless except insofar as it sustains the economy that makes it necessary, some of the moving around of things is critical, and some of it is perfectly reasonable but not inherently urgent. Much of it might be done in other ways, as @ColinJ suggests above. No one has suggested the red flag thing, so there's no need to be hysterical. I'd give these sort of arguments more time if people were typically killed by drivers rushing an organ for transplant to a dying child, instead of by people who have just dropped a skip off and are checking their text messages whilst nursing their hangovers, or by people whose bosses demand that they fit in three more loads during a shift in order to maximise their financial advantages at the expense of everyone else's safety.

 

[Trevor_P]

Whatever you imagine you're on about, it's irrelevant. If someone has (for example) a clear and designated responsibility for ensuring the nearside is clear when turning left, we know who is responsible when a lorry turns left across a cyclist or pedestrian. No arguments. If the company fails to employ such a person so that the driver is unable to monitor the vehicle, the company becomes responsible. If the driver kills someone as a result of disregarding the instructions of such a person, the driver is responsible. If your objection is that people are incapable of doing such a job properly, then firstly I think that's nonsense, and secondly it's another argument that such vehicles operated by such people should not be sharing public roads.

The suggestion sounds good at first glance, the problem is that the driver doesn't spend all day turning left where cyclists or pedestrians might be. Having a passenger is a distraction that could cause other incidents to occur. It's like talking on the phone or listening to the radio.

Not only that, but when the designated person forgets is their responsibility and someone dies as a result, yes there is someone to blame, but it still doesn't help the dead person.

Personally I believe of you take the responsibility away from the driver, the situation would be worse, nor better.

 

[Mugshot]

but if you was to stand in the inside blindspot or behind a bus or lorry and it was to hit you is that still the drivers fault even though the only way the driver can possibly see that area is for them to get out of there seat and getting out and having a look ????
i think if you are using a public highway regardless if your on foot or in a lorry it is YOUR responsibility to watch where you are and where others are. its not just the responsibility of others to watch for you, you have to watch for yourself.

Many years ago I worked for a national DIY company, one of the stores I worked in had the goods in on the front of the store which meant lorries having to negotiate the car park. Although there was some segregation and plenty of room the fact remained that the public could be in the general vicinity of large delivery vehicles.
One day there was an artic delivering that having got himself organised proceeded to reverse to the warehouse doors. The vehicle had one of those vehicle reversing beeping gizmos. Unfortunately the elderly gentleman that was walking behind the lorry was not only slow but also deaf. He was run over and crushed, I have heard he was decapitated. Following on from this incident, all warehouse managers within the company received banksman training, and drivers of vehicles over a particular size had to report in store before making their final approach to the back door in certain stores which had a similar back door configuration to the store where the incident occurred.
I'm not sure I could blame the elderly gentleman that was killed as you seem to want to, I feel quite sure that had the driver considered what turned out to be the very real consequences of reversing without knowing what was behind him, the elderly gentleman would have been far less likely to have died on the car park of a DIY store.
I have heard that general banksman training is not necessarily a good idea as different operators use different signals and unfamiliar signs can be confusing and dangerous. @theclaud suggestion of a drivers mate seems rather sensible to me for many scenarios.
I am glad that I had already moved on from the branch before the incident occured, I would not have wanted to have been witness to it.