Coroner to write to Tour de Yorkshire sportive organisers after cyclist's death

Struggling to see the difference between the above and this - 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-45347867

Long vehicle makes unusual/awkward maneouvre in limited visibility, blocking the road. Oncoming road user fails to see obstruction in time and collision occurs. If you make you way through the links of the A66 court case, there's no criticism that the car driver was going too fast for the driving/visibility conditions.

Death by dangerous.

The main difference is that in the above the victim is a cyclist, in the A66 collision the victim is a car driver.......

The thing is, he wasn't causing an obstruction at the time of the collision, he was making a normal driving procedure - turning out of a junction. 

If he'd been stopped after the blind bend then, by all means, put out the sign but not if your pulling out of a junction. If we follow your train of thought he would firstly put out the sign, then after pulling out and ultimately driving past the sign, stop and pick up his said sign.

Now he has stopped on the other side of the blind bend so by your way of thinking he should have put another sign out by the junction in preparation of having to stop and pick up his first sign....

lol, you're clueless.

you clearly don't understand the difference between a coach and a car and how massively longer the obstruction is in place as well as the physical size AND the location.

A personal drive on a bend with limited view on a high speed road is not only rare as rocking horse shit it would generally require someone to stand in the road or have a mirror positioned to see up the road. The LAW as per the driver agency stipulates coach/bus drivers should put a warning of them blocking the road ahead so that other road users are aware of the hazard ahead.

You are causing the hazard, it's your responsibility to let others know, you clearly aren't interested in taking responsibility for the safety of others, when it's you causing the hazard, stay off the roads for fucks sakes!

Oh I forgot, NZer so civilised driving isn't a thing is it over there! The government make the rules for coach/bus drivers, it's there in black and white, you are WRONG!

If you are causing a hazard by your actions and fail to warn others of that unexpected hazard then you are at fault. This is not the same as a fallen tree due to a storm, the driver has made a conscious decision not to warn others of his completely blocking the road with minimal view to others.

When you break down or are obstructing the road you are requested to put warnings up the road, there is no excuse not to do this given the driver has 'committed' to blocking the whole of the road/lane amd is causing an extreme hazard on a live lane especially given it's a NSL road.

This is given by DVSA ffs!

I dislike the term "Blind Bend" surely it is a bend with a radius, at all points there is a site line to a point further around the bend, the blind part only comes into it when your speed is such that your braking distance exceeds that site line

If you can't stop you are wrong. End. 

So Human Race weren't at the inquest? It may have helped balance the opinion of the coroner and making yet another anti-cyclist BBC story.

It doesn’t sound like the coroner was critiquing the organisers, just noting how complex their job was, and noted that you cannot plan for for every eventuality. 

This is clearly the cyclists fault and I don’t know how anyone can argue otherwise. It could equally have been a broken down bus, horse rider, road works, fallen tree or any number of other things. Sounds like the drivers only mistake was to get lost, but it could also have been a lorry doing a delivery or even a slow moving car.

*well-dispersed.

It also doesn’t matter whether or not the CPS or whoever apply the rules around going the speed you can see to stop, because the cyclist has ended up dealing with a much higher authority, specifically the law of physics. You obey those laws one way or another, and there is no appeals process.

"I'm happy to accept that this was a well organised event in many regards... but launching 2,900 cyclists onto public roads, even first thing on a Sunday morning, is a serious undertaking requiring minute planning."

And how many motor vehicles were 'launched' on to the roads that morning, without and planning whatsoever?

For sake of argument. Had a car come around a corner with a combination of apparent lack of observation, excessive speed for the conditions and loss of control under braking leading to a collision with a group of cyclists exiting a junction, then I suspect we would have to be following links to the Daily Mail website to find criticism of the cyclists for simply being there.

You could remove the coach from this scenario and replace with; horse, parked vehicle, pothole, cyclist lying in road following an earlier incident etc. As BTBS is wont to say "Don't travel faster than you can safely see to stop". Good advice on open public roads.

I'm going out on a limb here.

This was absolutely the cyclist's fault. He was going too fast / not paying enough attention to stop in the clear road he could see ahead. (Normally a default position for BTBS). The fact that there was a driveway / lane there means that the driver's actions were largely reasonable, though he might have picked a better spot to execute his manoeuvre, but it could just as easily have been a vehicle from the property leaving. If this was a car going down the hill which had driven into a cyclist in the middle of the lane then we would have excoriated the driver. I'm sorry, the roads were open, the cyclist was riding without due care. That's not to say this was unavoidable, but on the face of it, by far the greatest part of the blame lies with the cyclist. I don't think the organisers have very much to do with it at all.

And anyone who takes 1.34 seconds to react to a road hazard (notice, identify, act) really shouldn't be on the road on any vehicle that goes faster than a jog.

A banksman or even simply getting off the coach putting a warning sign up the road and/or get someone on the coach to warn road users ahead should have been more than prudent to avoid this tragedy.

All well and good saying travel at a speed you can stop well within the distance you can see to be clear but police don't/won't apply this to motorvehicles when they crash into stuff/people. In fact judges and the CPS ignore this rule ALL the time when it comes to people on a bike being harmed not to mention pedestrians etc.

The simple fact is the driver created a huge and in fact deadly hazard on a bend with limited visibility, he had other far safer options including not trying to chance his arm to go under a bridge that he was simply not ever capable of doing so with his vehicle, clearly that's a inattention problem.

There is an onus on the coach driver not to create a situation that increases danger or to create a hazard, in that he failed and should be held responsible even if in part. The discrimination and putting all the onus here onto the cyclist here by the coroner and others is a disgrace. Yes he might have been going slower but as I said, in other circumstances where blame is placed it would not be on someone doing half the speed limit for that road nor going at a speed they can't see to stop in the distance they can see to be clear, this is simply never applied to motorists to point the finger by the police or by CPS!

At 40mph and a 1.34s reaction time* the stopping distance for a car never mind anything bigger would be 48metres that being 24m thinking and 24m braking.  Therefore there would likely have been a collision even with a car doing 2/3 the speed limit and that in best case scenario.

(the 0.67 time given by the HC is utterly bullshit as this is a reaction time for a known event in best case scenario not an unknown event and 1.5s is what crash investigators state is a usual time to react, in fact it can be much longer in panic/threat scenarios) 

What is even more worrying is that the investogator seems to say it's okay if you can't see, you just press on regardless because you "have to commit" to the maneuovre. WTF!!

"You get to a point when leaving that junction you have to commit and you do not have a view"

I hope the family take a civil case against the driver, they should on the basis of previous cases get a result to help financially help the family.

Typical UK coroner bullshit, one rule for one group and another set of rules for another!

Riding at 30-35mph round a bend with limited visibility doesn’t sound like a great idea, I’ve got to be honest. Sounds like death by misadventure. Yes, the coach driver was in the wrong place, but it happens. It could have been someone turning out of that junction who hadn’t made a mistake in ending up there, and then who would you be blaming?

Presumably the coroner is questioning whether the sportive organisers shouldn’t have sent the route down that road, given the speed attainable and the limited visibility. I’ve seen route markers for sportives that send people down descents towards junctions with major roads and thought that wasn’t too clever.

Fusty To operate a vehicle safely the operator should always be able to stop in the distance they can see is clear ahead, sounds to me like the coach driver could do this and the unfortunate rider couldn't so your calculations in Point 2 are pointless, the 60mph is a Max permitted but not expected in areas of limited visibility.

I seem to remember when sitting my driving test I was asked to pull up on the left and reverse into a road I had just passed, then pull out and turn right, the very manouevre the coach undertook. I certainly was not asked to park on the right . It should also be noted that the reversing operation was carried out without incident. The incident could just have easily happened when bring any other large vehicle out of that junction regardless of wheter they had reversed in there in the first place.

If there was any evidence to suggest that the rider was visible when he started to exit the junction then that would be one thing but the coach driver cannot be expected to take into account any vehicle which is not yet in site, however once that vehicle is in site it should be able to stop within the visible tarmac

Judicious use of the horn could have saved a life here. Very sad.

If someone is traveling at 60mph around a blind bend, then they are going too fast.

It's good to hear that some people have never taken a wrong turning in their lives. Perhaps they can be some sort of trainer.

The idea that a large vehicle could reverse around a corner and not have its nearside go into the opposite carriageway sounds a bit fanciful.

Firstly condolences to the familyand friends for this totally unnecessary death.  

The coroner obviously, like some of the current posters wasn't in possession of important facts, and equally ignored wrong doing by Coach driver Lockley!  

Thanks to poster 'antigee' we later posters now have more scene information.

Blame appears to lay squarely on the coach driver Lockley - 'Low bridge ahead' - had this route been cleared for his use?  If not why was he there?  If it was, more heads . . . . .!

But, it also begs rudimantary questions about Lockley's driving abilities :

What don't you do on a blind bend where traffic can pass at 60 mph?

1. Park, or Stop.

2. Stop, reverse into a side lane then, with 50 yards sight both ways  pull out across traffic potentially travelling at 60mph - that's a mile[1760 yards] per minute [60 sec's] or 29.3 yards per second, less than 2 seconds to reach the coach, add in 'thinking' time and  . . . . BANG!

That was what Coach driver Lockly accepted as a reasonable risk in doing what he did.  How fortunate it wasn't motor vehicls that hit his coach!

Accepting Lockley 'was in a pickle' - of his own choosing - he correctly should have pulled over onto the right and stopped facing oncoming traffic, and then reversed in the direction he wished to travel and into a side turning on his side of the road, then left, to retrace, avoiding the bridge.

How do I know that Coach Driver Lockley performed that exercise incorrectly, because done correctly, at no time would he have crossed David Worthingtons path!  

What was famously said at Alices Tea Party . . . by the Queen of Hearts?

This is sad, but I don't think the coach driver or the sportive organisers are to blame for this. It was an open road, so the sportive organisers haven't got any control over the traffic. It doesn't sound like the coach driver was doing anything wrong (except getting a bit lost), so it's an unfortunate case of going too quick for the blind corner which is too easily done whilst doing a sportive.

Sad but just shows you need your wits about you at all times. 

The coach driver did at least have the sense to reverse into the turning and thus have a good view of the road.  Most car drivers wouldn't.  However, this tragedy could have been avoided by observing the road sign, so roll on autonomous coaches with far better powers of observation.

Sincere condolences to the Worthington family and friends.

"Head down" = in the drops, tucked position (its a nice downhill on a quiet country lane).

Why was a coach on it, and having to do a 3 point turn reversing into another side lane? Bloody sat-navs.

Can't think of anywhere that would make sense for a coach to use this lane rather than the parallel A616.