Road Safety: HGV Cab Design & Cycling Collisions

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07 Feb, 2014

Photo: sarflondondunc (Flickr)

Today the TRAN Committee of the European Parliament has delayed a vote which would have moved towards possible new radical designs for lorry HGV cabs. The vote will now take place next month. This is making it very tight as to whether this leaves time for the full vote in the Parliament plenary before the elections and the change of the parliamentary guard in April/May.

Amendments that MEPs were to vote on had seemed to hold a lot of promise with regards to making HGVs safer. There could have proposed an extra 50 cm – 100cm increase in the front of the cabs to improve the aerodynamic and safety benefits.

How important could this be for cyclist safety?

In order to utilise this extra space manufacturers would have to incorporate specifications with regards to safety and aerodynamics. We would have wanted, and still want, to include safety benefits such as

better direct vision all around the cab
a rounded deflective shape
better front, side and rear underrun protection
a crumple zone to reduce impacts

Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) make up around 3% of the European vehicle fleet and 7% of driven kilometres, yet they are involved in about 18% of all fatal collisions, costing over 7000 lives across the EU (in 2008).

Some 22% of cycling fatalities are as a result of collisions with a goods vehicle, both light and heavy goods vehicles[1], with wide variations across the EU. This figure is 43% in Belgium, 38% in the Netherlands, 33% in the UK and 33% in Denmark.

In some cities it seems as if the situation is getting really out of hand. In London over 50% of cycling fatalities last year were as a direct result of a collision with an HGV. The main crashes with cyclists being the right turn (left in UK, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus) blind spot crash.

Why are these large vehicles so disproportionately dangerous? Buses are involved in a similar amount of collisions and casualties as HGV lorries, but buses are only interacting with pedestrians and cyclists. For HGVs, interaction with urban transport users occurs for only a tenth, perhaps less, of the whole journey. However construction lorries and tippers are also becoming more and more integrated into urban transport areas and these are also a real problem now, accounting for many of London’s casualties. What we can say is that, out of all the other road users, proportionately HGVs are the most dangerous vehicles that cyclists come into contact with.

HGV cab requirements = zero!

With this in mind it seems incredible that there is no legislation regarding HGV direct vision (as opposed to indirect vision such as mirrors). Not only are there no requirements for HGVs to have good direct vision from the cab, but there are no standards, no guidelines, no recommendations to point to even if requirements were thought useful.

So, private motor cars (weighing ≈1.5 tonnes; ≈4 metres long) have a reference and requirements for direct vision[2]; HGV cabs (weight 44 tonnes; ≈18 metres long) do not.

That is rather odd.

HGVs do have plenty of indirect vision regulation and requirements regarding mirrors which are mandated from the EU[3]. There are, however, plenty of problems with indirect vision. Studies from around Europe have shown there to still exist blind spots or poor vision around the cab (where cyclists are more likely to be hit), and UNECE and the EU do add new requirements every so often to keep up (new lorries this year will have to have an extension to the Class V mirror).

Indirect vision is no substitute for direct vision.

First a slight mistake in adjusting the mirrors can leave a large blind spot in the driver’s vision. A Danish study[4] found that of the 25 HGVs they studied that were involved in collisions with cyclists, 21 had incorrectly adjusted mirrors. We do not know if this caused the collision but it certainly sets off a flashing light on the dashboard.

Secondly it has been estimated that it takes about a second for a driver to glance into a mirror and then turn to the next mirror[5]. So there are two/three main mirrors at the passenger side, one up front, a look ahead through the windscreen and then the manoeuvre. That’s about 4-6 seconds from looking in the first mirror to looking in the last and then making the manoeuvre. A lot can happen in that first mirror in five seconds. This really is another blind spot, a temporal blind spot rather than a spatial one, but a blind spot none the less.

Of course there are other problems with mirrors such as objects seeming further away and speeds being warped in the convex side and front mirror; mirrors not being replaced when broken; mirrors themselves creating blindspots by obscuring the direct view.

So what of direct vision from the cab? What can the driver see directly?

Herein lies a problem. HGV lorries are regulated in size by Directive 96/53 which covers the whole lorry including the trailer. In order to maximise payload, to accommodate the position of the cooling systems at the front grill, and to give the driver a comfortable living space, the cab has begun to resemble a Brussels townhouse and has got thinner and higher over the years. The driver sits at an incredibly high position. The windscreen has devolved into a thin strip, mainly out of stylistic concerns, and the side door panels have almost completely closed up. What can you see from the side of this cab?

HGV Cab

The eye line of the driver is getting on for 3 metres or more from the ground, the bottom lip of the side window is at around 2.5 metres. If these sorts of HGV cabs are allowed in urban areas then we have to bring the cab height down and introduce better windscreens and window side panels. We need to give the driver every opportunity to see around the cab. It is at best an anomaly that we have lost control of this; and at worst a scandal.

This is why we have been seeking to make safety a priority within the changes to Directive 96/53. This Directive specifies the shape and size of HGVs across the EU.

We are calling for

better direct vision from the cab
to accommodate a better, lower seated position for the driver
There should also be work towards direct vision requirements for HGVs at UNECE for all EU HGVs, related to this we would also like to see some change with how the front and side windows are placed, positioned and sized
to accommodate a safer shape for physical collision with unprotected road user deflection

We co-signed last week a declaration with other leading organisations and public authorities around Europe calling for Brussels to not shirk from this challenge of providing safer HGV cabs for all road users that come in contact with these vehicles.

We hope that the delay in the TRAN committee is not attempting to kick this issue into the political long grass. If this does fail we will have to wait a very long time before we get an opportunity to tackle these cabs. They are a terrible design, with very high cabs, tiny windscreens and poor vision around them. We need to give the driver the best possible opportunity to see cyclists and pedestrians.

We also need to give public authorities the opportunity to say that only those vehicles that conform to safe designs are allowed in their cities or to be involved in projects with public funds.

This is not fantasy, prototypes have been built, designs are on the table, but to make it a reality there will need to be some relaxation of the restrictions on the front of HGV cabs. With relaxing of restrictions comes a responsibility to make safer vehicles. We eventually will need some sort of requirement for direct vision specifications from these cabs, changing Directive 96/53 can be the start.

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