Seminars highlight safety, quiet deliveries and legal
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• Cycle Safety seminar
Operators need to accept the costs of retrofitting construction vehicles to improve road safety for cyclists, according to a panel of experts at the Cycle Safety seminar.
"We should be pushing for cycle safety equipment rather than waiting for someone to tell us what to do," said Sean McGrae from Lafarge Tarmac. "The cost is a challenge, but it is also largely irrelevant. We need to manage our vehicles so we are not part of the statistics."
Agreeing with McGrae's comments, fellow operator Nick Elliott of Hope Construction Materials said: "There is some debate that this is quite expensive, but the cost is starting to come down.
When you roll it into the capital cost it is pretty small, and is money well spent if it helps the drivers. Safe operating companies are often the most financially secure ones." The panel acknowledged that operations in an urban environment will become increasingly difficult as the economy recovers. Jerry McLaughlin, Mineral Products
Association chief economist, said: "There will be 30% to 40% more product deliveries on the road, as well as more cyclists — the vehicles will have to eliminate blind spots." As one of the UK's largest property developers with Crossrail and other expansion projects coming on stream in the city, Glen Davies, freight and fleet programme manager at Transport for London, told delegates what
the association is doing to tackle a problem that sees 62% of cycling fatalities or serious injuries in Greater London involve an LGV.
"The CLOCS [Construction Logistics and Cyclist Safety] project involves 45 organisations that are looking to improve vehicle safety," Davies said. "We are looking at existing vehicles, minimising blind spots and reducing driver distractions, as well as future design of vehicles."