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I appreciate the fact that BD are sitting up and paying attention, but you should be aware that in the majority of cases collisions are not down to lack of awareness or experience on the part of the cyclists, but are due to inattentive or bad driving on the part of the other vehicle.

Only this last week we've had an HGV driver (Joao Lopes) convicted of a 2nd death in the space of about two years - the first time he ran over a Elidh Cairns as she rode through Notting Hill, and the 2nd time he ran over Nora Gutman at a pedestrian crossing. INn the case of Emma Foa who was killed by a concrete lorry near King's Cross that turned into her, it was shown in court that she would have been visible in the driver's mirrors if he had bothered to look. Brian Dorling and Svetlana Tereschenko were both killed by HGVs at Bow roundabout within the space of a couple of weeks.

There is an endemic problem with safety associated with the construction haulage sector in particular that will not be mitigated or prevented by giving some awareness training to a few cyclists. We should be pressing for these operators to install proximity sensors and blind spot mirrors throughout their fleets now, rather than waiting for legislation to force them to do it. These same operators should be giving their drivers cycle awareness training as a rule rather than an exception. And the haulage sector should do more themselves to marginalise or pressure the less respectable operators to get in line.

For one cyclists view on a similar "changing places" scheme to the one you are organising see:

http://thecyclingsilk.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/my-morning-with-metropolitan-police.html

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