newmercman:
I’ve done that oiled steel, it is evil to keep on a trailer, you can’t chain it tight enough because it damages the edges, even with edge protection and straps are not man enough for the job.
I used to build a headboard with two chains in a X pattern and some 6"x6" blocks of wood, it was about all you can do with it, apart from driving like a little old lady lol
We used to haul it almost every day, chains are pretty much pointless. As you know, chains often loosen soon as you get rolling - need to stop and retighten them, you can’t afford that with P&A Sheet. At best you could get three straps over each 5 tonne pack, as you will also know the straps only pass over the top of the packs - leaving a large gap between the sides of the steel and where the straps meet the side of the trailer. The trailers we had didn’t have the hoops you see on general steel trailers, neither did they have the drop in load restrainers - neither of which would completely stop load movement. This means there was alway potential for the load to shift - even when driving like the little old lady. All of the drivers there hated the stuff and all had scary experiences with it. Noon ever wanted to do an emergency stop with that on-board. Literally nothing would stop it in a full on emergency stop from high speed… it would have passed through the headboard and through the cab like cutting through butter with a warm knife.
In the aforementioned incident, I was only pulling out of a junction, If I recall with accuracy, I’d already tipped over half the load, so will have had maybe 10+ tonnes of steel on. I always used the maximum amount of straps and got them nice and tight. That’s pretty as much as you can do. We sheeted all our loads, but that was just weather proofing.
The young lady was very lucky, so was I, and I did try to position myself better and keep a closer eye on my inside after that experience - some junctions dictate the position of the unit - inevitably when turning left there are always going to be some blind spots and we only have the one set of eyes. The main lesson there though is always expect the unexpected… I was in the middle of no-where - a rural location, I had no idea anyone else was around - to coin the phrase (she came from nowhere). What we as drivers think of as common sense, yes the cab is pointing to the left, yes the indicators were on - she never thought for one moment that the trailer would close the gap as soon as I started moving - she thought she was safe. No tear arsing - and yes I do understand your point. The cloggies do ride better, but not all of them, but they do have more rights than cyclists over here. Hit a cyclist in Holland and it’s guilty - that changes the mindset totally… also - almost everyone in Holland rides a bike, so they adopt a different attitude. 
In Holland nearly everyone rides a bike, so they have an idea what bikes will do when in a vehicle.
That leads me to thinking that the only way to make cyclists and lorry drivers aware of each other’s limitations is to get the lorry drivers on bikes and the cyclists behind the wheel of a lorry, can’t see that working out very well 
I still think better policing of cyclists and education for both sides is the way forward.
It’s certainly a good staring point. Although… having worked alongside police for over a decade now, (no I’m not plod) dealing with RTC’s… one of the things I’ve picked up on is the desire of the police to better educate all road users. They realise there is a fine line between education and alienation.
I can’t tell you how much it effects good people with massive characters when they are dealing with the death of another child. Very grim faces everywhere!
I think education is most important to start with, what I do think though is that over the longer term, regardless of how much we educated… we also have to protect those who tear arse around from themselves. It’s just civilised - and we’ve all done things we can look back at and know with experience it was a pretty silly thing to do. People tear arsing around should not pay for their mistakes with their lives, so the infrastructure must change… and yes, I’ll alway refer back to the Dutch system… the second video I embedded earlier ends with the point… words to the effect of: You have to see it to understand how good it is.
Righty… must do some work… I delivered more steel and driven more miles over the past couple of days in this forum - than most truckers do around a canteen table. 
kr79:
Have you any idea how many bikes use the roads in central london or how busy many pavements can be such as where this incident happened. It would be a nightmare.
A lot of the problem is you have you dedicated cyclist who is in to it as a hobby who is pretty clued up but now there are lots of il save money by cycling to work and il hire a boris bike types who have little or no idea what they are doing.
What needs looking at is why is it so often a tipper lorry involved over other types of hgv or buses.
As I’ve said regardless of the exact circumstances in this case there are plenty of places,in fact the majority of places, where it is easily possible for cyclists to use the pavements,such as in the example concerning the video which I’ve posted and/or actual seperate cycleways provided for them.The fact that the majority of cyclists don’t agree with any of that and prefer to carry on cycling on the roads in all cases,often putting ghemselves in danger doing so,helped by their equally stupid cronies in the government,shows that,contrary to nmm’s comments,the majority of cyclists are just a bunch of suicidal nutters and the present problem won’t stop until that situation changes.
As for vehicle types no types of vehicles are immune from being caught up in the issues caused by that idiot cycling majority if you check all the incidents you’ll see that buses and all types of trucks have had their share of such accidents and nothing will change until the attitudes of cyclists change in realising that the roads are a dangerous place and not a cycling playground or race track.
As for this specific case I’d look at it from my point of view if I can’t ride a cycle off the road,especially the types of busy roads in central London,then I don’t cycle I walk.The difference being that I’ve never seen what is an issue of common sense and safety as one of I’ll cycle on the roads because it’s ‘my right’ to do so. Simple.
It would be interesting purely out of curiosity out of all the fatal bike accidents in London how many where bulk tipper/building site trucks. As ones I’ve seen on truck net in photos the truck been same type.
Not surprising, cyclist road deaths have risen 10% from 2011-2012
guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ju … oad-deaths
But what is surprising is this paragraph from the above link:
The increase in cycling casualties has baffled many campaigners, particularly given the generally observed “safety in numbers” effect in which more cyclists on the roads tends to make riding safer overall. Studies have shown that risky or illegal behaviour by cyclists is rarely the cause of serious accidents.
You couldn’t make this up:
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23323353
London Cycling Campaign (LCC) has organised protest rides from a number of different points to arrive in Russell Square later.
LCC head Ashok Sinha said a radical redesign of streets was needed.
Not sure what a ‘protest ride’ involves but i suspect its a group of angry cyclists getting into mischief.
A radical street redesign might help in the long term but more immediate action might be for cyclists to receive some form of education in road safety and awareness.
I had a lycra lout this morning pull up my inside at a set of traffic lights, no real issues as I was in a car but the artic behind me who was indicating left must have been a bit concerned.
Carryfast,
Pavements - they are for pedestrians. Roads are for horses and wheeled vehicles, not all vehicles are powered by combustion engines and might or size is not right. It’s the roads that should be shared properly and not the paths. Having a large truck doesn’t give you priority.
I can tell you with absolute confidence that police around the UK are being told to have much higher expectations of the motorist when there is a collision between them and a cycle, that the bigger the vehicle the more those expectations increase. That if you call yourself a professional driver with a professional or vocational licence, you will be expected to demonstrate you have not dropped your guard or made an error of judgement - that the weight of sympathy is already being moved away from the professional towards the cyclist - you are expected to allow for them. You can jump up and down as much as you want, but that’s definitely the way it is.
Soon enough, we’ll have similar consequences as the Dutch - guilty until proved innocent, but not the infrastructure.
I guess this may be boring to you - but take a few mins to look at what the city planners of Washing DC are saying about Holland:
Boomerang Dave:
Carryfast,
Pavements - they are for pedestrians. Roads are for horses and wheeled vehicles, not all vehicles are powered by combustion engines and might or size is not right. It’s the roads that should be shared properly and not the paths. Having a large truck doesn’t give you priority.
I can tell you with absolute confidence that police around the UK are being told to have much higher expectations of the motorist when there is a collision between them and a cycle, that the bigger the vehicle the more those expectations increase. That if you call yourself a professional driver with a professional or vocational licence, you will be expected to demonstrate you have not dropped your guard or made an error of judgement - that the weight of sympathy is already being moved away from the professional towards the cyclist - you are expected to allow for them. You can jump up and down as much as you want, but that’s definitely the way it is.
I know all that.Which fits in perfectly with my description of it all being a politically driven load of bs in which cyclists are being given carte blanche to do as they like and treat the roads as their private race tracks with motor vehicle drivers being seen as mugs who are going to be blamed every time that the inevitable results of such stupid thinking happen.The idea that cyclists are road users and not just pedestrians using cycles is the root cause of this problem and it’s obviously a case of war with no room for co operation or dialogue.As I’ve said the cycling lobby can jump up and down as much as they want but it’s them who are going to continue to be flattened while truck/bus drivers have to probably end up going to jail.
That is until the mugs driving trucks and buses etc finally decide that they’ve had enough of not knowng if they’re going to end up arrested and sent down at the end of each day and say enough is enough nothing moves until these suicidal nutters riding cycles are removed from the roads and tell their equally stupid green cronies in the government to zb off as well. 
Dipper_Dave:
Not surprising, cyclist road deaths have risen 10% from 2011-2012
guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ju … oad-deaths
But what is surprising is this paragraph from the above link:
The increase in cycling casualties has baffled many campaigners, particularly given the generally observed “safety in numbers” effect in which more cyclists on the roads tends to make riding safer overall. Studies have shown that risky or illegal behaviour by cyclists is rarely the cause of serious accidents.
You couldn’t make this up:
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23323353
London Cycling Campaign (LCC) has organised protest rides from a number of different points to arrive in Russell Square later.
LCC head Ashok Sinha said a radical redesign of streets was needed.
Not sure what a ‘protest ride’ involves but i suspect its a group of angry cyclists getting into mischief.
A radical street redesign might help in the long term but more immediate action might be for cyclists to receive some form of education in road safety and awareness.
I had a lycra lout this morning pull up my inside at a set of traffic lights, no real issues as I was in a car but the artic behind me who was indicating left must have been a bit concerned.
As I’ve said it’s just the same old same old reclaim the streets bs.
youtube.com/watch?v=ozSqnXBLfMs
Carryfast, why do cycles have to be banned from roads?
Why can’t trucks be banned from city centres instead?
You can’t just go round banning things you don’t like, a few other posters have pointed this out to you in recent weeks as well.
chester:
Carryfast, why do cycles have to be banned from roads?
Why can’t trucks be banned from city centres instead?
You can’t just go round banning things you don’t like, a few other posters have pointed this out to you in recent weeks as well.
Great now the loony cycling lot are showing their true colours.Yeah right ban all trucks from all the roads so the idiot cycling lot can re claim the streets in their zb’d up view of the world in which everything revolves around them because they’re all that matters.As I’ve said it’s war in which if the mugs driving the trucks and buses allow things to continue as they are the logical conclusion will just be a case of not knowing wether they’re going to be facing a jail sentence when they start every working day when yet another one of these politically driven suicidal zealots throws themselves under their wheels.
When I worked as a motorcycle instructor we used to tell the student rider the following:
‘Ride defensively at all times…ask yourself what might happen at any time’ and the best one ‘treat everyone else as a complete idiot, as they often are.’
Oh, and this gem ‘what do you want to be? In the right and dead,’ or ‘give way (even though you have right of way) and alive.’
If you mix cyclists and motorised transport, cyclists will get killed. It’s unavoidable. No one can drive/ride perfectly all the time.The only way to stop it completely is to separate the two completely.
The main difference between someone taking a fancy to driving/riding a motorised vehicle and one that isn’t motorised is training. I don’t know a motorcyclist that would dream of riding up the inside of a truck (yes I know some do, but most have the sense, and the training to know not to).
Sadly, unless you segregate cyclists this state of affairs will continue. How many cyclists are fully aware of the difficulties of maneuvering an articulated vehicle, say around a sharp left hand corner at a junction? How many would have an idea of where on the road the truck needs to be to negotiate the corner safely, and where the blind spots would be? My guess would be - most wouldn’t have a clue, unless they are LGV drivers themselves. Thereby making it highly likely they will enter the ‘danger areas’ around the truck, completely oblivious to the danger of so doing.
I would be interested to know how many of the cyclists killed and injured are ‘hobby’ cyclists that take it seriously and responsibly, and how many are money saving environmentalists that haven’t got the sense they were born with!
Carryfast:
chester:
Carryfast, why do cycles have to be banned from roads?
Why can’t trucks be banned from city centres instead?
You can’t just go round banning things you don’t like, a few other posters have pointed this out to you in recent weeks as well.
Great now the loony cycling lot are showing their true colours.Yeah right ban all trucks from all the roads so the idiot cycling lot can re claim the streets in their zb’d up view of the world in which everything revolves around them because they’re all that matters.As I’ve said it’s war in which if the mugs driving the trucks and buses allow things to continue as they are the logical conclusion will just be a case of not knowing wether they’re going to be facing a jail sentence when they start every working day when yet another one of these politically driven suicidal zealots throws themselves under their wheels.
Not once have I called for anything to be banned, as I know and accept all road users to be able to use and share limited space.
I asked you two biggited questions. To give an example how one sided you are. You keep saying cycles to be banned from the roads, and last week you were calling for all tractors to be banned from dual carriageways as well.
So I gave a example of a biggited question in the same tone you use.
Eg Why can’t trucks be banned from cities?
I can use and share roads with anyone, it’s quite clear to anyone reading this thread you have issues with any road user which is smaller and slower than a truck.
chester:
Carryfast:
chester:
Carryfast, why do cycles have to be banned from roads?
Why can’t trucks be banned from city centres instead?
You can’t just go round banning things you don’t like, a few other posters have pointed this out to you in recent weeks as well.
Great now the loony cycling lot are showing their true colours.Yeah right ban all trucks from all the roads so the idiot cycling lot can re claim the streets in their zb’d up view of the world in which everything revolves around them because they’re all that matters.As I’ve said it’s war in which if the mugs driving the trucks and buses allow things to continue as they are the logical conclusion will just be a case of not knowing wether they’re going to be facing a jail sentence when they start every working day when yet another one of these politically driven suicidal zealots throws themselves under their wheels.
Not once have I called for anything to be banned, as I know and accept all road users to be able to use and share limited space.
I asked you two biggited questions. To give an example how one sided you are. You keep saying cycles to be banned from the roads, and last week you were calling for all tractors to be banned from dual carriageways as well.
So I gave a example of a biggited question in the same tone you use.
Eg Why can’t trucks be banned from cities?
I can use and share roads with anyone, it’s quite clear to anyone reading this thread you have issues with any road user which is smaller and slower than a truck.
If you’re not calling for truck bans then what was the question concerning exactly that all about 
. 
It might seem to you that I’ve got issues concerning anything ‘smaller’ than a truck using fast dual carriageways because it’s obvious that part of the obvious mindset of cyclists results from inferiority issues.When the ‘actual’ reason why I don’t think that tractors,or cyclists,should be allowed on such roads is all about the speed differential problem in just the same way that they aren’t allowed on motorways.I also wouldn’t want to drive something like an old truck or in fact any type of vehicle with a max speed of around 25 mph on a motorway or fast dual carriageway for the same reason although there’s no law that says I couldn’t so it’s my ‘right’ but I’d choose to ignore that bs so called ‘right’ in that case in consideration of others and my own safety.
In just the same way that if/when I used a cycle as transport I chose to stay off the roads and use the pavements.The only bigots in this case are those arrogant,moronic cyclists who can’t understand the logic of all that and choose to ride cycles on fast dual carriageways or in fact any road where there is a safe alternative on the pavement often even in the form of ignoring shared pedestrian/cycleways provided for exactly that purpose no surprise all with the support of their equally moronic suuporters in the government and jobsworth equally thick coppers.
Carryfast:
If you’re not calling for truck bans then what was the question concerning exactly that all about .
It was an example to show how self opininated you sound, calling for a cycles to be banned from roads. Why should they! They have as much right as any other road user!
A cyclist can equally call for trucks to be banned from the cities roads.
Myself however as I’ve often stated on thisthread find it pretty easy to share the roads with any other road user. A trait many posters on here find incredibly hard to do.
chester:
Carryfast:
If you’re not calling for truck bans then what was the question concerning exactly that all about .
It was an example to show how self opininated you sound, calling for a cycles to be banned from roads. Why should they! They have as much right as any other road user!
A cyclist can equally call for trucks to be banned from the cities roads.
Myself however as I’ve often stated on thisthread find it pretty easy to share the roads with any other road user. A trait many posters on here find incredibly hard to do.
Having used a cycle for transport ‘and’ driven trucks for a living I can confirm that in most cases it’s absoluteley no problem to ride a cycle safely on the pavement whereas there’s no way that I’d have ever driven a truck on the pavement.
Any cyclist who would prefer to cycle on fast dual carriageways and the roads,as opposed to using the pavements wherever possible,which is most cases,and/or the shared pedestrian/cycleways often provided,just confirms everything which I’ve described in that those cyclists are just suicidal morons think that their present bs ‘right’ to ride on the road is more important than arriving at their destination alive.No suprise that your only answer to all that is let’s ban motor traffic from the roads instead assuming that drivers aren’t prepared to put up with the situation of being victimised and criminalised for just trying to do their job.
Carryfast:
No suprise that your only answer to all that is let’s ban motor traffic from the roads instead assuming that drivers aren’t prepared to put up with the situation of being victimised and criminalised for just trying to do their job.
But he hasn’t called for the banning of motor vehicles!!!
You seem to have it all wrapped up.
Force cyclists (the victims) off the road because they are all suicidal maniacs with a death wish, to make way for HGV drivers, purely because HGV’s are dangerous to cyclists. Amazingly though, you’re not calling for an all out ban of cyclists, you just think these death wish loonies would be better on the pavement with the children.
Why didn’t anyone else think of that?
Come on guys, credit where it’s due etc… he’s onto something here, far too many pedestrians walking along those paths… add bikes and they’ll all walk on the road.
There’s a hole in my bucket - deal Liza, dear Liza…
I think an ideal solution is that all cyclists have to complete an advanced proficiency course and need a licence to use the highways.
It should also be compulsory for cyclists to have insurance when they use the roads and also have to pay a nominal tax (£5 a year should do it).
Course anyone who has a car licence can be exempt from the proficiency course as most of the training should have been covered.
It should also be an offence for a cyclist to ride into a trucks blindspot at junctions or behave in a manner that puts them at risk.
Cyclists need to understand (and I’m sure most do) that the moment they enter the blind spot of a vehicle they are putting there lives in the hands of another person (never a good idea).
Cycling in double file should also be an offence as well as overweight males wearing lycra.
Dipper_Dave:
I think an ideal solution is that all cyclists have to complete an advanced proficiency course and need a licence to use the highways.
It should also be compulsory for cyclists to have insurance when they use the roads and also have to pay a nominal tax (£5 a year should do it).
Course anyone who has a car licence can be exempt from the proficiency course as most of the training should have been covered.
Incredible! Can’t believe someone is in favour of even more red-tape and quangos.
Boomerang Dave:
Carryfast:
No suprise that your only answer to all that is let’s ban motor traffic from the roads instead assuming that drivers aren’t prepared to put up with the situation of being victimised and criminalised for just trying to do their job.
But he hasn’t called for the banning of motor vehicles!!!
You seem to have it all wrapped up.
Force cyclists (the victims) off the road because they are all suicidal maniacs with a death wish, to make way for HGV drivers, purely because HGV’s are dangerous to cyclists. Amazingly though, you’re not calling for an all out ban of cyclists, you just think these death wish loonies would be better on the pavement with the children.
Why didn’t anyone else think of that?
Come on guys, credit where it’s due etc… he’s onto something here, far too many pedestrians walking along those paths… add bikes and they’ll all walk on the road.
There’s a hole in my bucket - deal Liza, dear Liza…
As I said a bunch of arrogant,selfish,suicidal,morons playing the ‘victim’ card when anyone suggests they can’t get their own way,concerning their bs ‘right’ to treat the roads as their private playground.When there’s a perfectly good alternative in most cases available on the pavements.
While the fact is there are plenty of such cycleways already in existence anyway but the ignorant cycling lot refuse to use them because they don’t want the responsibility of having the easier task having to treat pedestrians the same way in which they expect drivers of trucks and buses to have the more difficult task of treating them.
Let me guess I’d bet that you’d be one of those who’d support the status quo in which cyclists continue to use the road here when the council has gone to all the trouble of providing the facilities to get them off the road.All because it’s their bs ‘right’ to use the road and the equally moronic government refuse to enforce such removal of cyclists from the road based on your bs reasoning.
maps.google.com/?ie=UT8&ll=51.40 … 11,0,4.45
So do you support the idea of at least enforcing the use by cyclists of such cycleways where they exist or not .Yes or no.If yes then there’s no reason as to why many other types of pavements can’t be treated in exactly the same type of shared pedestrian/cyclist use way.However I’m betting that your answer would be,the typical raving cyclist supporting,no all to defend their ‘right’ to keep putting themselves in danger by using the roads and then playing the victim card when their stupidity catches up with them.When the only real victims are those drivers who end up being criminalised for doing nothing more than trying to earn their living.