Wheeled Goods Vehicles

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am sorry if the noble Baroness did not understand my reply. What I hope I said was that cement mixers are not exempt; in other words, they have to comply with the sideguard regulations. Since 2012, all new tippers have be fitted with sideguards and we are taking other measures. On 22 November, we published proposals to increase road safety for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders. The Government are taking a wide range of initiatives to promote road safety. Our roads are among the safest in the world but one casualty is one too many.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, the death of cyclists in this scenario is a tragedy. The problem, which I think the Minister has alluded to, is that the vehicles are very heavy and the cyclists are very light. Sideguards are relatively ineffective when turning left over a prone cyclist. The modern technology available that powers alerts with radar or sensing systems and so on, including on modestly priced cars, is here and available today. It is actually on the car that I own. Is the department taking direct action to accelerate the trialling of this sort of equipment on lorries and contemplating regulations to require it to be fitted?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

We are playing our role, in this case along with the European Commission. In May 2018, direct vision for trucks was one of the safety measures included in the European Commission’s review of general safety regulations. We are also supporting measures under the European Commission’s third mobility package further to improve the protection of pedestrians and cyclists. The European Commission is also doing work, which we support, to reduce what it calls the “aggressiveness” of HGV fronts in the context of vulnerable road users. The noble Lord is quite right that there is a lot of work going on supported by the UK which we hope will improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists.