London Cycling Campaign

The London Cycling Campaign has designed a new lorry to help combat cycle accidents, known as a Safer Urban Lorry. This design is based on construction lorries, as three quarters of cycling fatalities in the Greater London area involving lorries, were from the construction industry. The drivers of these vehicles most frequent response following a fatality is that they didn’t see the victim before the crash.

This bike friendly lorry has been designed with a lower seating position, lower ground clearance and much larger windows at the front and side. All of these changes will enable the driver to have a better view of cyclists.

London Cycling Campaign haulage expert and former lorry driver Charlie Lloyd said:

“Our Safer Urban Lorry design is a challenge to the construction industry to use vehicles that help reduce the terrible number of people on bikes and on foot who are killed by lorries.

“The restricted view from the cab of many of today’s construction lorries means the driver often has little or no idea who or what is in their immediate vicinity, which is totally unacceptable."

Safer Urban Lorry features:

Lower driving position

The seating position is 60cm lower than in a conventional construction lorry, providing a better view of what is happening around the vehicle.

High – visibility glass panels

The windscreen and side windows are much larger than current construction lorries, again giving a better view of things happening around the vehicle.

Lower bumper clearance

Reducing clearance between the underside of the lorry and the ground height helps lower the height of the cab and the seating position.

Sideguards

Sideguards increase the chances of a cyclist being knocked away from a lorry in the event of a collision instead of being dragged under its rear wheels.

Early warning cameras

This technology provides a 360 degree view around the lorry, ensuring the driver is aware of pedestrians and cyclists at the sides and rear of the lorry. 

London's cycling capital

Cycling in the UK has increased all over the country, this has been more noticeable in some areas than others. However, census data has shown that in Hackney more people commute by bike than car and the London borough has the highest bike rider ship in the capital.

Statistics taken from the census showed that 1 in 7 Hackney residents use their bike as their main method of getting to work. This is the highest in London, at 14.6%, with Islington coming in second at 9.6%.

There are many factors that are thought to have encouraged the popularity of cycling in Hackney:

· The borough is flat and within good distance to areas of employment.
· The population has risen by 44,000 over the last 10 years.
· The population of Hackney is largely the young and fashionable.

One of the biggest factors has been the council’s willingness to redesign junctions and one way streets to include cycle lanes.

Overall cycling in London has increased by 109% since 2001. Statistics have shown that the City of London is the only other London borough where more people cycle than drive to work. 

With such positive figures for cycling in Hackney, hopefully more boroughs will follow suit to encourage cycling, making it safer and more accessible for people to get on their bikes. 

Tour de France Yorkshire Depart gets government funding

The Government has announced that they will be awarding £10 million to the Tour de France Grand depart in Yorkshire. The funding from the central government was awarded after weeks of lobbying by ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ and the Yorkshire MPs. This funding that has been awarded, but the money will only be received when ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ can show that they plan on making this event have national scope, with a solid plan to Capitalise on this huge event.

A report in the Financial Times explained that current plans for the Yorkshire Depart are not strong enough to deliver a world class event. 

It said “We would like a more joined-up approach to the organisation of the world's biggest cycle race which will ensure we maximise the benefits for Yorkshire and the other parts of England that the race will pass through”.

Hopefully this will be the event to remember that we have been promised. 

Should cyclist discrimination be a crime?

We've all heard the stories about cyclists being treated unfairly, especially by car drivers that they share the roads with. Suffering from abuse while on the roads and many being injured in actions caused by careless driving. 

Campaigners are calling for discrimination against cyclists to be treated as a crime.  The campaign which has been launched in Cambridge is calling for a clampdown on abuse towards bike riders, including comments posted on social networking sites and websites.

The number of people cycling in Cambridge on a regular basis is higher than the rest of the UK, with 52% of residents riding their bike at least once a week.The Cambridge cycling campaign told the Get Britain Cycling inquiry that being labelled a ‘cyclist’ was one of the biggest reasons why people choose not to use bikes. The Campaign has said that cyclists should be treated in the same way as ethnic minorities.

Cambridge’s MP, Julian Huppert, has welcomed the campaign “Hatred of cyclists is not just extremely unpleasant and unnecessary it is dangerous because it causes conflict which can cause accidents.”

However Eddie Stadnik, chief officer of the Cambridge Ethnic community forum, said that he was not convinced that this was something that could be protected against discrimination.

This campaign is calling for more investment to increase the level of cycling paths and reduce speed limits to a default of 20mph in urban areas.

Information provided by the Cambridge News.