FrengaX wrote:
PERIL OF HEADPHONES EXPOSED AFTER GIRL CYCLIST DIES IN CRASH
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/...-dies-in-crash



This is much more complicated than you are portraying it.

There isn't a cycle lane on Northam Road at that point but there is an
unmarked shared pavement route there. I would guess she was cycling
westbound to the Fire Station in St Marys.

If those assumptions are correct then the accident is a text book one as
illustrated he
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cy...sion_risks.jpg)
and it links to why cycle paths are more dangerous in another thread.
Danish research has classed the problem as insoluble in that even if
the cycle path has priority the problem remains The headphones were
most likely completely incidental to what happened.

Its a busy road so its unlikely the sound of the lorry would have stood
out even if she had not been wearing headphones. The cycle pavement is
on the left of a left turning lane that the lorry would have been using
and ends there so you need to rejoin the straight on traffic by crossing
the left turning lane. The difficulty for a cyclist is you need to
check traffic through 270 degrees when you are on the cycle facility and
that is what she would appear to have failed to do. Headphones or not
do not make up for lack of looking and she paid a high price for it.

The lorry driver did what is classically known in the literature as
"looked but failed to see" - cyclists in those positions are invariably
invisible to drivers even when they are looking. Whether he made the
other classic error of not fully passing her before making his turn I
don't know but he should have been aware she was there from having
passed her earlier.

The guilty parties if any are the traffic planners. If she had been
riding on the road she would not have been going straight on on a cycle
path to the left of a left turning lane. Its not the only place where
I've seen such stupidity I'm afraid to say.

Tony