The Hub isn’t a follower of BBC’s The One Show, finding its middle-of-the-road, magazine format randomness unappealing. However last night’s topic of HGVs and cycle safety caught the attention.Indeed, for exactly the reason above it was fascinating to see just how mainstream the cycle safety debate has become by dint that it was featured on the show, alongside Gary Barlow and Miranda Hart (exposed as a cyclist that has been known to jump red lights, no less)!
The show introduced the topic with an interview with a cyclist that had been recently trapped under a car and saved by bystanders who lifted it off her (!), however it soon turned its attentions to the recent tragic deaths in London adopting the simplistic line that trucks killed the majority of these cyclists, so should they be banned?
Thankfully, a video short where Cemex driver - Andy Orrett who works out of the company's Angerstein Wharf site in Greenwich - invited a London cyclist into his cab (before later venturing out on a bike with her), provided balance and did our sector a lot of favours.
It also highlighted two key areas of debate around cycling safety when a cyclist came down the truck’s left side into its blind spot and through a red-light.
This was education, and the suggestion cyclists should be given training so that they don’t go down the nearside of trucks, especially at junctions where they may be turning.
Infrastructure was the other.
Quite fairly the cyclist in the cab pointed out that the cycle lane runs through the junction, so in terms of the visual instruction it is giving to cyclists, it is effectively saying ‘this is where you should be’ at this point, which from a safety point of view around trucks is simply wrong.
After the video, the conversation moved to a poll, which alas, was framed as: trucks are killing cyclists so should they be banned in peak times in UK cities?
Encouragingly, the audience vote was effectively split when it was revealed at the end of the show, hopefully signalling that this issue can be best dealt with by all parties working together rather than blaming any one group.