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news
stickersNational Express wants your help picking warning sticker
National Express coaches wants you to vote on which of two warning stickers it should adopt to let cyclists know its vehicles restrict its drivers view of the road so that they pose a hazard to vulnerable road users.
The two sticker designs were developed by National Express and a focus group of cyclists and experts at sustainable transport charity Sustrans, which is hosting the vote.
The appeal for help picking a design comes after a York cyclist published a compilation of careless and irresponsible driver behaviour including an overtake by a National Express coach that clearly failed to meet the Highway Code recommendation to “give … cyclists … at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car”.
Sustrans’ expertise is in building off-highway shared-use active travel facilities, so it’s perhaps not surprising that this exercise doesn't seem to have landed on the idea that making coaches less hazardous might be better than slapping on a few stickers.
The group came up with two designs: an arrow style sticker warning cyclists about passing on the left-hand side; and one that includes a large eye, focusing riders’ attention on the coach driver’s blind spot.
To be fair to National Express and Sustrans, the stickers do at least warn of the specific problem, vehicle blind spots. That will be seen as an improvement on the ‘Cyclists Stay Back’ stickers issued by Transport for London that have appeared on even small vans as well as trucks in the capital.
Representatives of cycling campaign groups, including CTC, London Cycling Campaign and Road Danger Reduction Forum, wrote to Transport for London in February saying: “The ‘cyclists stay back’ wording is not acceptable for use on any vehicle, because of its implication that cyclists are second-class road users who should defer to motor vehicle users.”
One of the campaigners’ concerns was that the sticker “conveys no useful information to cyclists,” said in a follow-up letter to Leon Daniels of TfL, adding: “We have suggested that wording should specifically draw attention to the risk from left-turning HGVs.”
According to collision-avoidance system manufacturer EyeDrive, National Express has trialled its Collision Prevention System and more than halved the number of near-misses recorded by its vehicles.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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52 comments
"National Express wants your help picking sticker to warn of coach blind spots
From recent video evidence, might they be better off improving driver training?"
As usual a stupid headline to a story of someone actually trying to do something helpful.
F*ck the stickers, eliminate the blind spots and then we'll talk about the stickers.
What are we talking here? See through lorries and cargoes? Light bending forcefields? Using "the force"? What?
from http://www.seemesaveme.com/eliminate/safer_lorries/blind_spots/
Like I said, eliminate the blind-spots.
Aye. The left one is completely stupid and I can't believe anyone at Sustrans could have thought that was suitable. Many people would take an implication of that sign as "please pass on the left". When people who are actually campaigning on behalf of cyclists come up with something like that it's no wonder the crap we get from non-cycling-specialist organisations such as local authorities etc.
Either that or they have decided they want the square-eye one so have presented us with an unacceptable option as well to give us the illusion of choice...
I have been very tempted to get some black on yellow stickers made up that say "Crap Driver" in order to be able to slap these on vehicles right underneath the "Cyclists Stay Back" stickers.
I've had the same thought - 'crap driver onboard' would do the trick nicely
That's probably unfair. That some companies are aware of a problem and want to do something about it, however cackhandedly, probably means their drivers are the better ones and are also aware and more careful.
The ones you should really worry about are the ones that are less aware and even if they were aware wouldn't even bother to try to warn people with any kind of sticker because it will cost them a a few quid, they can't be bothered and it their lookout anyway.
Let's not make perfect the enemy of the good shall we?
It probably is unfair and yep, I know some bus and haulage companies are doing a bit to try and alleviate the problem. But plenty aren't.
It was a National Express coach in the video clip from York doing a close pass remember. While the company management may be trying to reduce the firm's insurance premiums, there is at least one driver out there who the message hasn't filtered down to.
Agreed so lets' encourage those that want to (for whatever motivation) do something about the problem. If (as some on here seem to) we attack the ones that are trying then they may well decide that its counterproductive for them to do or say or propose anything because it puts them in the spotlight to be abused. Meanwhile. I M Pikey skip hire up the road comes in for no criticism whatsoever because it couldn't give a monkeys if a cyclist is killed. It'll just fire the driver and get another one and get back to business.
I was overtaken by a National Express coach the other day that was travelling well in excess of the posted speed limit when I was riding home from work on my motorbike. As I said, maybe the firm is trying to improve standards but those haven't filtered down to a number of the drivers yet. From what I've seen, the firm's coaches aren't that well driven, something I've noticed over a number of years.
There are a lot of dodgy skip truck and tipper truck companies run by questionable characters and which may or may not be used to launder money it's true. I'm not sure they'll sign up for this anyway.
If you're actually buying these... I'm in for a couple dozen
These are a bit like the 'if you can't see my mirrors I can't see you' stickers, aren't they. I think anything that raises awareness is good, and to be encouraged. I consider myself an experienced road user but was amazed when I saw a safety video at how big the blind spots on these vehicles actually are.
But, what I particularly noticed is this sentence:
"National Express wants... to let cyclists know its vehicles restrict its drivers view of the road so that they pose a hazard to vulnerable road users."
Surely that's the problem that needs addressing? The real answer to improving safety of vulnerable road users lies in designing vehicles that are safe in the first place and legislating against unsafe design.
I like the bike in the eye idea, as others have said the triangle pointing left could be easily misinterpreted.
The square design, but get rid of the eye and just use a bigger, bolder bicycle symbol.
Purely because it's a damn ugly piece of design.
The triangular design, especially with the left-pointing arrow, is dangerous. A quick glance indicates that you should go left, esp if the cyclist doesn't have driver training.
The square design, but with the bolder border, imagery (less arrow), and phrasing from the triangle would be best.
The larger the cycle icon can be, the better, so the eye in the square design is superfluous I think.
Both are flawed as is.
How about one in the cab - "don't drive in a manner that is likely to cause fear or harm to others"?
The trouble with the "if you can't see my mirrors" one is that it's perfectly possible to see the vehicle's mirrors from absolutely everywhere on the left-hand side of the vehicle. Just because the mirrors can be seen from outside the vehicle it doesn't mean the driver can see you in them.
Someone from DfT came out and said that if the mirrors are correctly adjusted, there should be no blindspot with the new types.
The greater problem is drivers not using them...
Cameras would be so much better, at low cost.
Added benefit would be that a driver can also see any other obstructions on the side, so hopefully fewer pieces of road furniture gets mangled as well.
What?
The warning is to vehicles behind.
If you can't see the lorry's mirrors then you are in a blind spot. The driver can't possibly see you. That's all. Simple advice.
There may well be other blind spots but just because you can't have a great long explanation about all of the possibilities doesn't mean you shouldn't warn/remind people of the principal one.
Red triangle warining signs exist that say "oncoming traffic in the middle of the road".
I bet you object to that because there may actually be no oncoming traffic at that precise moment. And that they have neglected to put up a sign somewhere else that someone could be oncoming in the middle of the road but for no good reason.
Wow. Did you get out the wrong side of bed this morning?!
All I said is the "If you can't see my mirrors I can't see you" sign implies that if you can see the mirrors the driver should be able to see you, which they can't necessarily do. This could lead people to believe they are in a safe position (they can see the mirrors) when they aren't.
Eliminate the blind spots as much as possible and engineer the roads and junctions to reduce the harm caused by large vehicles.
I think that's fine.
I don't think the stickers just saying "cyclists stay back" are. That's daft especially when they are attached to vehicles that don't pose any particular special danger in that regard.
But to me reminding other road users about blind spots seems quite useful.
Stickers like this are common when aimed at other motorists. ie "If you can't see my mirrors - I can't see you."
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