Safe Speed Forums

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7598674.stm

Was the bus speeding?

Or, has the pedestrian just become available for a Darwin award?

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

Dunno, but it was been driven very badly. And it was occupying the cycle lane. No wonder cyclists feel the need to ride on the pavement

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I've only been on here a couple of days but it would appear that dbcwaley is a closet eco-fascist leaning Corporate Nazi. This accident was clearly not the bus's fault, nobody expects a brainless teenager to leap over the barriers, there is no law which states you can't stray into a cycle lane with no cycle in it and the bus was not even half in it anyway.

Since you are new to the forums I will excuse your breach of rule 11 which bans ad hominen attacks with the sanction of being banned. But now you know and I will not be so forgiving in future. Also you should be aware that calling some one a Nazi in public is libelous. With a less easy going person than me that could land you in court.


As one-time the father of one it is exactly what you would expect them to do

Although I agree the action of the injured youth was unpredictable there were two other boys foolishly standing in the cycle lane and the bus passed them much too closely. My reading of the situation is that though the bus driver was not directly responsible for the accident, he was not making sufficient allowance for the fact that he was passing a school at chucking out time. And had he not being partially occupying the cycle lane the accident would have been avoided



Please have the good sense to look in your Highway Code before making such dogmatic statements. Paragraph 140 states "You MUST NOT drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a solid white line during its times of operation" The use of the word MUST in the HC means that this mandatory not advisory and the relevent law is quoted as The Road Traffic Regulation Act of 1984 (sections 5 & 8]

It is not possible to tell from the video what type of lane or its operating times are. But, if you are a driver, your ignorance of motoring law perturbs me.

Merry Christmas.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

When you were a kid, were you a little-goody-two-shoes who never jumped over a set of traffic barriers, and who took the long way round each time?

Yeah, right...

I’ve done it myself when I was younger but I’d have made sure there was nothing coming the other way before I jumped over the barrier. I valued my life to much then the same as I do now.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Dixie, you're a risk taker who never gets caught out. But it's odd that you take any risk at all. I mean, what's the point, when you know the outcome?

Whilst I do not think the full blame could rest on the bus driver's shoulders he has done nothing to make it better.

The maroon car by the bus is going slightly left in his lane I believe due to the black right turning car ahead and the silver one behind.
That might be a contributing factor in the bus being left and on the red cycle lane. The bus driver will be 'used to' driving on the red too, so the predictability of this situation is gone.
The boy might also have not expected a bus to be in the lane and "might" have assumed the bus further away, although I do suspect that he did not even look at all ... or was he wearing large frame glasses and never saw the bus (in his blind spot) ?

I think the red roads do nothing to help the interaction of traffic on the roads, it helps to try to allow space for different traffic, but it provides hierarchy where non truly exists. This false hierarchy makes one type of traffic believe an assumption of safety that does not exist.
We need interaction and courtesy to all traffic levels.
Could the boy have thought a safe red area existed ?
I think that he failed to think - unless he was being chased by the other chap, sadly my video is stopping right after the accident and I cannot see the 'follow through (yet) ...
The boy needs to be responsible of his actions.

The bus driver has failed to slow to allow for ALL the potential hazards, but is he 'rushing' to catch the lights, and keep to his schedules ?
He ignores the 3 people in the cycle lane and chooses to drive closer to them and further into the cycle lane (was the car to his right contributing - very possibly), but he failed to keep things safe. Was he looking at the car and not looking ahead?
He certainly failed to allow for all the kids about, and to drive into to the red area was bad. He should have been going a lot slower, to allow for any one of the hazards that he was facing.

I agree that the catapulting kid across the barrier gave the bus driver nothing that he could have done to avoid it at that very moment but he should have already been driving to allow for many more possibilities, he only seemed to be responding to the cars, and not the pedestrians at all. Or does he drive to the bus code of, 'better to hit one person, than brake and hurt many people on the bus', policy ? And if he was, has that affected the way in which he observes or 'treats' pedestrians ?
There is some warning of the boy and with his higher vision he should have been looking around and slowing with that many kids about. It looks like the boy is running in a straight line (from the school exit?) from prior to the camera picking him up ...

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

The boy chasing actually starts to vault the barrier and aborts when he realises what has happened

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Good one! The kid hit the window of the bus, so had the bus not been there I think he would have landed in the road, not the cycle lane. The ped exing is fenced off, he choose to ignore it and paid the price. As he hit the side of the bus, if the bus had been going slower he would have hit the front of it, probably going under the front wheels.

I don't feel sorry for the kid, if he is alive I hope he has to go in his wheel chair and apologise to the bus driver. Cyclists have good reason to be miffed about having to ride around idiots in the cycle lane too.

on 4th and 5th look it does look like the bus driver was trying to scare the muppets in the road, if they were on the pavement or the ped exing where they were supposed to be, they would be fine. Why would anyone walk along in the roadcycle lane when there is a perfectly servicable pavement to walk on? I can understand that if a group of kids where walking on the pavement and one steps off for a couple of paces and gets hit, then yes, the driver should have been expecting it, but if you take a running jump at a fence to get on the road, you get run over.

Had that have happened when I was at secondary school, our deputy head would have read us the riot act.

That is not acceptable behaviour by any driver, let alone a professional one. If you were tailgated or cut up by a HGV "to teach you a lesson" you would be complaining.


Because they are teenage boys. Teenage boys tend to have a reckless disregard for danger far beyond their experience and judgement. As adults we have to make allowance for this and teach them better ways.


It would have been the head who did it at our school. If that had been my son he would have got the riot act from me and Judy too


If they hadn't already been mown down by a bus in the lane

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

It was an observation, I was not saying what he did was right

In Southend there is a round about that kinda links the high street to another part of town, it's quite busy, so an under pass has been kindly installed by the tax payer. I've used it, it feels light spacious and safe, obviously people don't use it and choose to walk around the roundabout which then puts them on the wrong side of the fence, like those kids in the cycle lane. I'm never quite sure why the traffic should give them any room. A space area has been provided, they select not to use it and take their chance if you ask me.

If the bus had been 1 foot further to the left would it have made much difference? Hitting the side of that bus was probably the least worst outcome. I'll bet that crossing is less of a problem now after that kid kindly demonstrated what happens when you arse about in traffic.

There is a dichotomy between those who regard the driver of a motor vehicle as a privileged and dangerous person who has an absolute duty not to injure others, however foolishly they behave; and those who think that, in some circumstances the driver entitled to behave without any regard for road users who do not conform to his way of thinking. No, not a dichotomy, more a spectrum.

And, whilst I find these fora very informative and have a high degree of sympathy with the primary message, I am perturbed by the number of members who are nearer the second end of the spectrum than than the first.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

It's afact in life though that WE ALL learn from our mistakes!

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

It's often been said that road accidents are usually the result of two parties making errors of judgment at the same time. Clearly the youth shouldn't have vaulted the railings, but on the other hand the video suggests the bus driver was travelling too fast in an area of high hazard density.

It should also be pointed out that the cycle lane is bordered by dotted lines, so it isn't specifically illegal to enter it.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

If we survive them. If at first you don't succeed then give sky-diving a miss.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Now for the Police view of it.

http://www.ukpoliceonline.co.uk/index.p ... opic=30099

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

It's not a very intellectual group, to say the least. They could attract better people for those wages.

Maybe the job that they do gives them a "realistic" view on life!

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.