I saw a really bad accident today. Was waiting at the traffic light as I saw a concrete lorry drive over (literally) a cyclist turning left on Cheapside.
I know a lot of us are quick to go on how cyclists do stupid things etc, but this one really shook me. It’s all happened in a blink of an eye. The lorry driver could not have seen the cyclist, but I’m not sure if the cyclist was undertaking or just in the wrong place. Either way, it doesn’t matter, it’s somebody’s loved one, and maybe some basic road safety training would have saved him.
So whatever two-wheeler you’re on, be careful. And until the government introduces a CBT for cyclists, if you know somebody who’s starting to cycle, spend some time sharing some of the things a lot of us take for granted because we have done at least some basic training.
Anyway, just needed to share …
Oh, and praise to the emergency services and cops. Cops were there in minutes, roads was cordoned of immediately with no drama and emergency services were very quick to follow. The police even told me to take it easy and not ride the bike if I didn’t feel right, which was very considered I thought, I was half expecting to get a boll***ing for leaving the bike in the middle of the road.
That is horrible. Stuff like this brings you up short as it brings home to you how fragile and temporary life is. It puts all our petty concerns and worries in perspective and gives the old ego a knock (which isn’t always a bad thing) as you realise that you can be here one day, and gone the next.
I’m fine. Bit shaken, but that’s all. My thoughts are with the victim (I fear the worst, but I’m not sure, didn’t want to ask), friends and family. And oddly enough, also with the lorry driver, he was very shaken and looked sick.
It’s a huge wake-up call. The rest of my commute was about half as slow as usual
Sounds awful, so many accident are easily avoidable when you’ve had even the slightest bit of training. Hope you’re feeling better after being witness, good point about the lorry driver: its often not just the victim that sufferers, especially after genuine accidents…
A couple of years ago I saw a jogger running across the road get hi by a concrete lorry. I went to the Fire station just down the road to try and get somebody who knew 1st aid to come and help. I was sure he must have been dead but he was OK, not even anything broken.
It’s not good seeing any kind of accident, take it careful on the way home.
saw a bus take a cyclist in moorgate a few years ago, the lasting memory is of the pool of blood, it was everywhere, the bus had run over him and you can guess what happened to the poor man…
Dries mate, really sorry to hear this- poor cyclist. Hope you are feeling okay. From what you say you didn’t see much of what caused the accident but I think you should give an official witness statement if you haven’t already as something might be important. It’s difficult but if the lorry driver was in the wrong he should be held to account- there are too many blase drivers out there who don’t check their mirrors before they manoeuvre. Hope cyclist survived.
That’s pretty shitty news for all me thinks.
I was riding over waterloo bridge towards Big Ben the other day and clocked that the road parallel to the river heading east was blocked on my right. I saw a red blanket on the ground near the curb a bit down the road. I asked what had happened, the officer told me that a old lady had been knocked down by one of the BMW bikes with the pants windscreen thing. The lady was dead at the scene and biker take to hospital.
He/she was just commuting from work when he knocked her down and killed her. It was not as graphic as your post but you could see her shoes had been taken off and we sitting half under the scarlet coloured blanket. Not a phone call I would like to make to my friends and family about the end of my day let alone there ladies one…
I think your quick to lay blame on the lorry driver when you were not there, like drie says, she is not sure who’s fault it was so it could just as easily have been the cyclists fault.
Please don’t put words into my mouth. Re-read my post. I’m not laying blame. I said ‘if’ the lorry driver was in the wrong, I didn’t say he was. I don’t know the circumstances of the accident- I was only suggesting that Dries give a witness statement as it could be important for both parties if there is an inquest into what happened.
I’ve got to go to the police office later this week for a witness statement. I was looking right at it as it happened. I’ve been playing it over in my head but try not to make anything up as I don’t want to be a judge of this. All I know is that there’s no way the lorry driver could have seen the cyclist when the accident happened. I don’t know how the cyclist got in that place, whether he was undertaking or whether the lorry overtook him, but judging on where he was on the road my feeling is that the cyclist was on the wrong side of the lorry as they set off from the traffic lights. I don’t know if the lorry had his indicators on.
Either way, a lot of us (me including) are quick to say cyclist do silly things or drivers don’t take enough care, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. It happens so fast and shows that even a very short lapse of concentration or one little misjudgement is all that’s needed to get into a hairy situation.
I asked the police about the victim this morning when they rang and he said that this morning the guy was still fighting, so let’s hope he’ll pull through.
This is something of an ongoing problem… a cyclist was killed on London Wall by a truck that was turning left in to a junction prior to the lights at jct with Moorgate. The cyclist was attempting to undertake the truck and the driver didn’t see them in his mirrors.
The City responded by putting up signs warning cyclist not to pass Lorries on the left at the junction in question. There’s also a campaign for the lorries to have better mirrors.
Whilst it’s very sad that people have been killed trying to undertake trucks, I have to say that I think you’d need to be mad to try and do it. There are also signs on the back of most of them saying don’t pass on the left, I might not see you.
A cyclist collided with my car when I did a right hand turn through a line of static traffic, there was no way I could see him hurtling (he’d just come down the hill) down the gutter alongside the static traffic.
I’m not anti cyclist but they frequently undertake maneuvers that I would never consider on a motorbike… regretfully the lack of 3rd party cover for cyclists more often than not means that in insurance terms it’s always your fault and not there’s.
Only yesterday I saw a huge lorry turning left at Bayliss Road/Waterloo Road. Despit the stupidity of it, and the big sign on the back saying not to do it, several cyclistsand a motorcyclists deliberatly squeezed through on the left to undertake the lorry as it was turning. Lemmings!
I remember one time I was turning left off the Embankment into Savoy Place. I had been signaling for several seconds, had moved to the left, and had slowed down for the tight corner. Checked my mirrors, did a shoulder check - nothing there, began to turn and a cyclist at speed tried to get into the 10 inches between me and the kerb going straight ahead. I narrowly avoided the suicidal ****!
I once saw a cycling paramedic nearly kill himself in Covent Garden squeeze between a turning lorry and a steel bollard. Several drivers and pedestrians called out to the cyclist to stop but he didn’t. The stupid thing is that if he was on an emergency call (which I assume he wasn’t as his blue lights were not flashing), it would have been quicker to jump off the bike and run it round the pedestrian side of the bollard.
well i only yesterday saw a cement mixer along chiswick high road and i heard it have a voice recorded message playing " warning large vehicle turning left" maybe this is what they will be fitting to all lorries, lets hope so, but i cant help thinking sometimes we all take chances, sometimes we pull it off othertimes we are not so lucky…
