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The London Cycling Campaign has launched a petition calling for the removal of all dangerous lorries from the capital’s roads.
Launching a three point campaign, the organisation is calling for:
A rush hour lorry ban
40% of cycling fatalities involving lorries occur between 8am and 9.30am. It’s time to get lorries off London’s roads during the rush hour.
‘Direct Vision’ lorries
It’s hard for the driver in a traditional lorry cab to see what’s in front of their vehicle. It’s time to get lorries with restricted vision out of our city and only allow in lorries with “direct vision” design.
Stronger enforcement
Operators must never be allowed to put profits before lives by allowing unlicensed, untrained lorry drivers, or unsafe vehicles, to operate on our roads.
In the first six months of 2015, all bar one of the eight deaths of a cyclist involved a HGV, which notoriously have blind spots in which a large part of the driver’s field of vision is obscured by poor cab design.
From September, the Mayor’s Safer Lorry Scheme will come into force, but this is widely believed to not go far enough toward combatting the issue, only requiring lorries to carry basic safety equipment, which most already do. Cyclists will still be expected to share the same road space despite the visual gap of the driver.
To sign the petition, click here.
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40% of cycling fatalities occur during the morning rush hour
In the last round of police checks, 95 of 136 lorries were taken off the road for non-compliance with safety or legal regulations
