Cyclist Down in Tokai

[Sepia]

My bleeding heart!

 

Vehicle hits cyclist and said cyclist was not riding recklessly.

Guilty in my book, no question!!!!

EVEN if the workman took up some of the space (should have closed the road), even, even, even if it was a one way, whatever.  

 

Another cyclist down, hit by a vehicle! Guilty.

The amount of cycling related accidents with fatal outcomes is not acceptable.Time stricter rules were applied.

 

RIP to the cyclist and peace to the family. 

[(Deon)]

The guilty verdict imposed by social media is based on the facts as known. There were eye-witnesses and nobody has come forward to support your or MTBeer's alternative version, or have they?  I read all comments as "if this is what happened then the driver is guilty" and in any event who cares what people think. It won;t make the driver guilty if he is not. Everything indicates the rider was minding his own business when the truck passed and killed him. If there are indeed eyewitness accounts which support your supposition, please send them on...

 

*I see the PPA is following this one up. No doubt the actual real conclusive facts will eventually come out...

There was another eye witness, driving behind the truck at the time. My point is let's see what comes out first. When I walked passed and saw the activities in the area, I quickly realised that anything could have happened. Who knows, the driver could have been negligent.

 

I've been caught out in a vey similar situation to what I described earlier, which is why I presented it as a possible scenario..

 

I know how I drive and i would never in a million years put anyone's life in danger because of impatience. Luckily slamming on the brakes and some evasive manoeuvres helped avoid disaster. 

[i24]

My point is let's see what comes out first.

 

I wish we could trust our law enforcement authorities to "do the right thing". I would be happy to accept the court's verdict - provided all the facts are collected and presented to the court. The trouble is that unless there is a big public noise, the facts often do not reach the court.

 

Bottom line, if the road is narrow due to road works, if there are workmen on both sides and there is a cyclist (or a horse cart, or a homeless guy pushing an overloaded stolen supermarket trolley), the truck driver MUST slow down to the speed of the cyclist, and follow until it is safe to pass. As cyclists we need to make some noise so this does get to court, and the above can be re-iterated in a court judgement.

 

PPA are you listening?

[DuPs]

Rip

[City Cycling Athletic Club]

 

WAS NOT A PNP TRUCK.

 

 

Liebentrans.

 

 

 

....

 

Iiebentrans drives for pick & pay. if im not mistaken they are the only company to drive for them.

[Mamil]

This is the essence of it. Had an experience of this descending Constantia Nek into Hout bay - a huge municipal truck followed me at a safe distance along the flatish section until the circle at the bottom. I was over on the left doing between 38 and 45 - he could have overtaken by squeezing past - he didn't. Gave him a big thumbs up and a thank you wave as we parted ways. It cost him a minute of time maximum.

 

A real pleasure. It's this kind of driving that keeps everyone alive.

 

 

 

Bottom line, if the road is narrow due to road works, if there are workmen on both sides and there is a cyclist (or a horse cart, or a homeless guy pushing an overloaded stolen supermarket trolley), the truck driver MUST slow down to the speed of the cyclist, and follow until it is safe to pass. As cyclists we need to make some noise so this does get to court, and the above can be re-iterated in a court judgement.

 

PPA are you listening?

[marko35s]

Iiebentrans drives for pick & pay. if im not mistaken they are the only company to drive for them.

Which makes it a Liebentrans issue rather than a Pick n Pay issue.

 

Sent from my ALE-L21 using Tapatalk

[Mamil]

Legally perhaps - but from a PR perspective and from a moral one too -- perhaps there is some onus on Pick 'n Pay here to do something in the public space wrt road safety for cyclists. If I had a couple of million lying around I'd definitely launch a campaign -

 

 

 

Which makes it a Liebentrans issue rather than a Pick n Pay issue.

Sent from my ALE-L21 using Tapatalk

[Wannabe]

Quite inaccurate report, but here goes.

 

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/cyclist-dies-after-slipstream-destabilises-bike-20170423

[Headshot]

Quite inaccurate report, but here goes.

 

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/cyclist-dies-after-slipstream-destabilises-bike-20170423

 

Typical rubbish online journalism.

 

I'd like to understand the science of being sucked into a slipstream and hit by the same truck. To create such a powerful flow of air the truck would surely have had to be travelling at a relatively high velocity? Slowly passing a cyclist at 60km/h or less would not did it surely?  Then there is the actual slipstream. Isn't that behind the truck? If so how does it cause the cyclist to be sucked off his bike and hit by said truck.

 

I will say that I have heard that fast moving trucks do cause turbulence and possibly could destabilize a cyclist they pass, but again that's trucks on a highway passing cyclists say doing the TDA, not on a normal road at slower speeds.

[Sepia]

Typical rubbish online journalism.

 

I'd like to understand the science of being sucked into a slipstream and hit by the same truck. To create such a powerful flow of air the truck would surely have had to be travelling at a relatively high velocity? Slowly passing a cyclist at 60km/h or less would not did it surely?  Then there is the actual slipstream. Isn't that behind the truck? If so how does it cause the cyclist to be sucked off his bike and hit by said truck.

 

I will say that I have heard that fast moving trucks do cause turbulence and possibly could destabilize a cyclist they pass, but again that's trucks on a highway passing cyclists say doing the TDA, not on a normal road at slower speeds.

I agree.  Truck would have to be doing a high speed, towing a trailer and have very high sides.

These are the vehicles which could "make you lose balance" if on an open road.   In town, no....

Seriously bad reporting.

[PhilipV]

Typical rubbish online journalism.

 

I'd like to understand the science of being sucked into a slipstream and hit by the same truck. To create such a powerful flow of air the truck would surely have had to be travelling at a relatively high velocity? Slowly passing a cyclist at 60km/h or less would not did it surely? Then there is the actual slipstream. Isn't that behind the truck? If so how does it cause the cyclist to be sucked off his bike and hit by said truck.

 

I will say that I have heard that fast moving trucks do cause turbulence and possibly could destabilize a cyclist they pass, but again that's trucks on a highway passing cyclists say doing the TDA, not on a normal road at slower speeds.

Actually it is possible at about 60 clicks. I've ridden into the side of a bus before due to this. Fortunately a bus has solid sides and I popped myself off using my elbow like in a bunch. Buy on a truck it has pointy sharp bits and overhangs that could clip a bar causing the cyclist to fall underneath the wheels.

It doesn't need a lot of sideways suction to clip a bar.

It could also have happened going really slow where the cyclist caught up to the truck and tried to overtake the truck and then clipped a bar (highly unlikely.)

My honest opinion, as a logistics operator, and with experience of trucks, if the truck driver was being more careful and didn't squeeze past the cyclist while overtaking, it could have been a different story. Probably would have been...

[carbon29er]

It is unlikely that a truck travelling through road works would have sufficient speed to cause the rider to be "sucked in" as described by the policeman in this case IF the driver of the truck had observed the one metre passing law.

 

As said above by PhilipV, the most likely scenario is the driver tried to squeeze past the bike rider, sadly, with fatal consequences.

 

We see this behaviour on the roads daily.

[Capricorn]

Typical rubbish online journalism.

 

I'd like to understand the science of being sucked into a slipstream and hit by the same truck. To create such a powerful flow of air the truck would surely have had to be travelling at a relatively high velocity? Slowly passing a cyclist at 60km/h or less would not did it surely?  Then there is the actual slipstream. Isn't that behind the truck? If so how does it cause the cyclist to be sucked off his bike and hit by said truck.

 

I will say that I have heard that fast moving trucks do cause turbulence and possibly could destabilize a cyclist they pass, but again that's trucks on a highway passing cyclists say doing the TDA, not on a normal road at slower speeds.

 

it's possible as a general rule because of bernoulli's principle, which essentially states that for a fluid to increase speed, its pressure must decrease. how does this happen between a cyclist and say a truck?

well, the truck displaces the air ahead of it. this air passes along the sides until the back of the truck where it recombines with the air displaced past the other sides. that's the low pressure turbulent mixing bit, which is the cause of aerodynamic drag on objects passing in any fluid.

 

A cyclist does exactly the same thing: displaces air which then runs around the cyclist to rejoin behind the cyclist.

Trucks are typically faster than cyclists, so if a truck runs past a cyclist, the first act of the displaced air is to push the cyclist away from the truck.

Then, as the flow flows down the longer side of the truck, the air passes between both the cyclist and the truck. The relative air speed increases by the contribution of the truck's speed to the cyclists speed.

By Bernoulli's principle, the increased air flow causes the pressure decrease, in turn causing the lighter objective to be drawn into the space between the truck and the cyclist.

 

What i'm not stating is the degree to which the cyclist can be pulled in. I've had buses pass might close by at really high speed, and I only experienced the initial shove away from the bus not the pull back in. The relative increase in speed does depend on how close the cyclist was to the truck at the moment he was 'sucked in'. that said: note how close the yellow lines are to the edge of the platform at a train station. I've stood very close to that edge well past that yellow line when a train blitzes the station. That initial buffeting away from the train is really strong, but i didn't get sucked into the sides as it passed. So i don't put much faith in the pressure being low enough to pull in a cyclist. They'd need to be going at a massive rate of knots to decrease the flow pressure sufficiently to feel significant pull.

 

However, there's another possibility that in the moment the cyclist felt the truck was too close, he instinctively leaned toward the truck to avoid  a collision as we often do in when ppl can't hold their lines, but unfortunately imbalanced and fell under the wheels.

It's still no fault of the cyclist, as what the hell is the truck passing so damn close by that the cyclist felt the need to reach out to prevent imbalance.

[Irons]

Really sorry to hear this. Things are rough out there - was in PE last week and got surprised at the lack of appreciation for the 1m rule / law / guideline.

 

Any organisation in SA with a significant presence on the road usually has 1) vehicle tracking, and 2) some sort of drivecam, which covers a recorded view of the front, sides and the driver.

 

Having a look at this footage will give you some conclusive facts, but getting it out of PnP will not be easy.

[i24]

Actually it is possible at about 60 clicks. I've ridden into the side of a bus before due to this. Fortunately a bus has solid sides and I popped myself off using my elbow like in a bunch. Buy on a truck it has pointy sharp bits and overhangs that could clip a bar causing the cyclist to fall underneath the wheels.

It doesn't need a lot of sideways suction to clip a bar.

It could also have happened going really slow where the cyclist caught up to the truck and tried to overtake the truck and then clipped a bar (highly unlikely.)

My honest opinion, as a logistics operator, and with experience of trucks, if the truck driver was being more careful and didn't squeeze past the cyclist while overtaking, it could have been a different story. Probably would have been...

 

If the truck is doing 60 km/h and overtakes the cyclist with a 1m gap, is it really possible to upset the cyclist such that he ends up under the truck wheels? My gut feel is that it is not, but if it is true then the "1m rule" needs to be changed to a "1.5m" rule.

 

120 km/h maybe a different story. But then the truck should be leaving a bigger gap. I wonder if anybody has done any tests on this?

 

But that is why this case needs to be ventilated in court. With all of the available evidence, witnesses, cell phone data, tracking data and dash cams.