A video has been posted on Twitter showing an incredibly lucky escape for three cyclists who were hit by a truck which passed them in the same lane as the cyclists were in.

In the video, the first cyclist can be seen indicating that he is moving to the right after having passed a slip road.

However, the driver of an articulated truck decides to squeeze past them in the same lane. The first cyclist can be seen being hit by the truck before crashing to the ground. The footage then shows that his two companions have also fallen, but they appear to have escaped relatively unscathed as they can be seen getting to their feet.

The video was posted on the Twitter account @zonacycling but it’s unclear where the incident took place.

29 COMMENTS

  1. Hey, I’m a huge bike advocate for safety etc., but why was he on THAT road? That looked like an inner-state highway. Not a good place for us cyclists. Still the truck is at fault too.

  2. I do a bit of cycling myself and I would never advocate sticking your arm out and then make a manouvre without having a peek over my shoulder to check that it is safe to move. I think it is bad practice, motorists are obliged to check behind before making any such manouvres. The truck driver was a total looney, cyclist will always come off second best in these situations, so never ever leave your wellbeing up to other road users.

  3. Thing is, the guy in front didn’t check behind him, just flapped his hand a bit, the guy with the camera definitely didn’t check, so I doubt the back guy did either.

    From the timing of the “indication” to the collision, there was no where near enough time for a truck driver to react safely without tipping the whole vehicle over.

    I can find it hard to put the truck driver at fault here when the cyclist didn’t that check it was safe to pull out.

    And.. I cycle every single day to work 20km round trip, summer and winter (-16 blizzard) and still have not had a crash.

    • Alex, you need to check the video closer. The truck driver was in the right (exit) lane and then decided at the last minute not to exit and cut back (over the solid lines) into the lane the cyclists were occupying. I agree with most, you probably wouldn’t catch me cycling on such a road in the first place, but the truck driver is totally at fault.

    • I’d re-watch the video pal, the truck driver has these things called brakes and seeing how he did not have the room to overtake should have used them, truck driver was wholly at fault, he took a risk, misjudged it and ****ed-it-up. If the victim had been a car – who would you blame then, the innocent car driver for being idiotically cutup by the Einstein truck driver? (Rhetorical question!)

    • Yup. I’d blame the car driver too. Trucks have a much longer stopping distance. At speed and under load you would be amazed how much warning a truck driver would have.

      In the video, the cyclist pulls into the side of the lorry. If a car pulled into the side of the lorry, the car driver would be at fault, as the lorry would have right of way in that lane. Just because a cyclist on a main road is more vulnerable, it doesn’t mean that WE somehow have different rights than other road users.

      It’s pretty easy to jack knife a lorry by jamming the brakes on too hard and fast. An emergency stop in a car is a good few car lengths. Multiply that for a lorry in perfect conditions, and factor in load and risk of jack knifing ..

      My take away from the video is, choose your routes, and for goodness sake, look over your shoulder before you pull out. Every vehicle driver on the road checks behind before maneuvering in traffic. Why should it different for us cyclists?

      If the cyclists had bothered to look behind them, I reckon they would have seen the lorry and waited for it to pass.

    • Alex Metcalfe The truck undertook them illegally. Look at the road markings. those hashes are supposed to be treated as a concrete barrier. The truck driver used the slip road improperly to undertake. The cyclist had no reason to suspect there would be any traffic on their right. No excuse.

  4. This is not a new video. The original was longer and gave a little contect to the accident. The rider should not move over with out looking back, but the truck passed on the right which was illegal.

  5. The truck is COMPLETELY at fault. The biker, like any of us, needs to ride defensively at all times if he wants to stay alive. When moving on a fast lane as such, it’s always a good idea to look over your shoulder, just in case a motorist tries to overtake right or left and hasn’t seen bikes ahead because they were screened by another vehicle. I never ride my bike without a rearview mirror on my helmet.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here