Mayoral candidate supports CTC's safer lorry roadmap

Pidgeon promotes the roadmap 

During an interview with Chris Boardman, Liberal Democrat London Mayoral candidate Caroline Pidgeon recently expressed her concerns regarding HGVs and the need to encourage more people to make journeys by bicycle. Caroline has now declared her support for CTC's lorry safety proposals, confirming that they are in line with her own policies and pointing out that 'cyclists often find themselves fighting for space with HGVs and construction vehicles and feeling scared for their safety. Despite some of TfL's positive initiatives in recent years more must be done'.

Cyclists often find themselves fighting for space with HGVs and construction vehicles and feeling scared for their safety.

Caroline Pidgeon
London Assembly Member and  Lib Dem Mayoral candidate   

Two days left to Take Action for Safer Lorries  

As reported a fortnight ago, CTC has supported proposals from Transport for London (TfL) to require lorries in London to have windows fitted in the passenger side door. We have also called for more ambitious plans to make direct vision lorries the norm, allowing lorry drivers to see cyclists and pedestrians as easily as bus drivers can.

CTC's views are set out in our response to a TfL consultation on extending its Safer Lorry Scheme. The latest consultation, which closes tomorrow (Friday 4 March), concerns proposed glass vision panels fitted in passenger side doors. While these will improve drivers’ direct vision of vulnerable road users on the cab’s left hand side, CTC does not believe the proposals go far enough, and believes the ultimate objective should be the widespread uptake of direct vision lorries.

Direct vision lorries give drivers a lower seating position in the cab. The lorry cab differs from substantially from traditional designs and look more like the front of a bus. CTC is also calling for TfL and all 33 London boroughs to adopt our 'roadmap' to direct vision lorries. This road map calls on the boroughs to initially express a preference for these lorries in all future bids for planning applications and publicly-funded contracts, then moving progressively towards banning lorries without direct vision designs from London's roads.

CTC's online action 

CTC asked its supporters to back its lorry safety proposals by emailing TfL using CTC’s online tool . So far 1,300 people have done so, and there is still time for anyone who has not to show their support for our roadmap via the online tool before the consultation closes on Friday.

Although CTC's action was prompted by a TfL consultation, this is not just a London issue, as a move to direct vision lorries in the capital could then be extended to other parts of the UK, as lorry safety is an issue for cyclists nationally.

Sadiq asks can we 'roll out' direct vision lorries?

CTC is still waiting to hear back from the other London Mayoral candidates. It seems, however, one candidate would support our roadmap as Sadiq Khan (Labour) has recognised the need for some form of plan to 'roll out' direct vision lorries.

Sadiq told Chris Boardman in a recent interview that: 'We've got to think about HGV lorries - a disproportionate number of cyclists are hurt by HGVs, so can we think about direct vision HGV cabs; can we roll these out?

A disproportionate number of cyclists are hurt by HGVs, so can we roll these out?

Sadiq Khan MP
Labour London Mayoral candidate

CTC's response to Sadiq's question is a simple "yes". We can roll them out. CTC has proposed a roadmap for this and sent a copy to his office over a week ago. At this stage, we have still heard nothing back. 

National support

The importance of moving to direct vision lorries for cyclists outside London was something CTC made clear when launching this action. Since doing so, many of the emails CTC has received supporting our proposals have come from cyclists outside London, expressing their concern regarding lorry safety issues in various, often rural areas.

There are two days left to support our action before the TfL consultation closes. CTC would ask any cyclists concerned about lorry safety inside and outside London, who have not already done so, to use our online tool here to respond to the consultation and support our lorry safety roadmap.