.. on long straight road
http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/news/local/cyclist-killed-in-angus-horror-smash-1.322019
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
Cyclist killed in Angus 'horror' smash
(34 posts)-
Posted 10 years ago #
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Very sad, especially as from the photo I saw of the site, it looks like a long straight road with what you would hope is good sightlines.
Posted 10 years ago # -
That's an appalling thing to happen on what looks like a very friendly stretch of road. Surely this can't be anything other than manslaughter. Long, flat, dry road good visibility all round. Even if the cyclist was in the middle of the lane or moving around the driver was obviously moving at speed and didn't allow space. Sadly with a lack of witnesses this'll just be another road traffic collision.
Posted 10 years ago # -
BBC Radio Scotland Newsdrive reports that the A926 road has now reopened following an earlier accident
No mention of cyclist death
Posted 10 years ago # -
This is terrible. Reports suggesting the man killed in his 50s and bike turquoise.??
Posted 10 years ago # -
We don't even know if the collision was rear-end or head-on, or what caused it. But a long straight road you would think would be reasonably safe!
(Was going to post more here but think a separate thread would be better)
Posted 10 years ago # -
Stv.com has a picture of the van involved. It does not look as though much of an attempt was made to avoid the cyclist.
Posted 10 years ago # -
If you count the cyclist who was knocked off in December and died on January 8th, that's 4 cyclists killed already this year - basically one a month. Looks like 2014 is shaping up to be as deadly as 2013
Posted 10 years ago # -
That's significant damage to the front corner for hitting a bike. Another needless loss :-(
Posted 10 years ago # -
That van has finally managed to stop a ridiculous distance from the remains of the bike. Disgraceful.
Hope the police do it right & get the evidence needed.
Posted 10 years ago # -
What a horrible thing to happen. My condolences to all his family and friends.
I know I should be immune to such things but the STV headline really annoys me:
A cyclist has died after colliding with a small van on a rural road in Angus.
To me this implies action on the part of the cyclist, surely it was the van which collided with the cyclist.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Shocking.
Speculation to be avoided.
Sometimes journalists quote police verbatim
Often written as collision between cyclist and car/van and often not the other way round. Difficult to write this without implying where the cause lies.
I have a pal who cycles the road on a bianchi so I was speaking to him last night.
Terrible.
Posted 10 years ago # -
It's really annoying that almost everyone uses the cyclist-blaming format, and tbh I find it hard to understand how that gets past their legal departments.
Compare: "a man has died after colliding with a tree" and "a man has died after a tree collided with him". Or the rediculous: "a man is in hospital after colliding with a bullet on the high street".
The subject and object of a sentence are totally not interchangeable.
Posted 10 years ago # -
distinction is clearly made when a child is involved.
compare the two incidents yesterday
BBC and STV both used the same terminology:
"A 10-year-old boy has been airlifted to hospital after being knocked off his bike by a van in Aberdeenshire."
"A cyclist has died after a collision with a small van on a rural road in Angus."
Posted 10 years ago # -
Sad news.
but as above "Speculation to be avoided". We don't know enough to say for sure who did what or when, far less why. Maybe saying otherwise could prevent a fair trial if there is to be one. And from previous cases it might be hard to get corroborated evidence of what we might assume happened.http://www.forfardispatch.co.uk/news/local-news/police-name-cyclist-killed-near-forfar-1-3379583
Mr Gourlay’s family are understandably upset by their sudden loss and have said that he will be greatly missed. They do not wish to make any further comments and have requested that their privacy is respected at this difficult time."
Posted 10 years ago # -
We don't know enough to say for sure who did what or when, far less why
Regardless, i think i can narrow that down a bit.
The van driver was going far too fast.
As is currently deemed acceptable by society, unless of course you've had a drink.
Posted 10 years ago # -
The van driver was going far too fast.
I would respectfully disagree, many crashes at 40mph are fatal. So other than that fact that there is no acceptable speed to hit a cyclist any comments about speed at pure speculation.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I think we ought to let the police investigators do their job and refrain from speculation.
Another senseless tragedy. Another family bereft.
Posted 10 years ago # -
you've seen the state of the windscreen, right?
don't care if its 40mph or 70mph
its clearly too fast
Posted 10 years ago # -
A motor vehicle doesn't get that badly damaged by a human being unless it ploughs into them. I agree that deaths can be caused at slow speeds but that level of damage suggests a massive impact. The only area of speculation truly lies with why on what appears to be a long, flat & open road the driver got it so badly wrong. Even if the cyclist was moving around in the lane the pictures suggest the driver would / should have spotted him from quite a distance.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Its possible the cyclist veered wildly off line just as the van was passing. But far more likely cause would be van is totally at fault. Its speculation and discussion which is fair enough. Hardly think discussion of this on CCE forum will prejudice the trial.
How would 40 mph be too fast on that road ? I dont think it would be.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"Hardly think discussion of this on CCE forum will prejudice the trial."
Perhaps but it can add nothing to anyone's knowledge of what happened so, to me at least, seems morbid.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Not to mention insensitive. A man has just lost his life, for goodness' sake.
Posted 10 years ago # -
To describe discussion here as morbid suggests the ghoulish fascination of the curious bystander.
Police comment neutrally on a collision between a cyclist and a van; yet the photographs silently tell their own story.
Its a story that many of us have been mere inches away from being fellow victims of, on too many occasions, and that is why discussion remains pertinent.
Discussion does not infer any disrespect for the profound tragedy that has taken place here.
Posted 10 years ago # -
The road is a fast road. Not certain there will be a trial. As I suggested, we should resist the urge to speculate
Posted 10 years ago # -
"To describe discussion here as morbid suggests the ghoulish fascination of the curious bystander."
Good, I generally make an effort to choose words for their meaning. Whatever our own experiences in other circumstances, and I'm sure we all have our own stories to tell, in this case bystanders is all we are. Trying to find a justification to insert ourselves into someone else's tragedy is indeed morbid.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Trying to find a justification to insert ourselves into someone else's tragedy
Looking back over this thread, i can't see where anyone has done that?
If there was a thread here noting the death of a lion-tamer in a lion's cage, and speculation arose on the likelihood of how that came about, then that might possibly be described as distastefully morbid.
But not if it appeared in a forum dedicated specifically to the art of lion-taming.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I don't know about anyone else, but whenever I read about a death or injury of a cyclist on the road, there's always part of my mind looking for reasons why that would never happen to ME. Otherwise how do we keep riding? Hence (I think) a lot of the speculation and also what can look like victim blaming. Or maybe we are just ghouls
Posted 10 years ago # -
@sg37409
"Its possible the cyclist veered wildly off line just as the van was passing"
"How would 40 mph be too fast on that road ? I dont think it would be. "You're right, under normal circumstances I'm sure even 60 is an acceptable speed on that road. However you have to drive with all due care and attention and if you are overtaking a vulnerable road user that means slowing down and giving plenty of space.
I don't think anyone on this forum is ghoulish or trying to insert ourselves into tragedy IN THE WAY YOU MEAN*.
@crowriver If I ever get splattered across the A8 on my daily commute the one place I'd expect to hear outrage is this forum. What happened to that cyclist is completely unacceptable, that man was killed because he rode a bike.*We do insert ourselves into these stories as it could have been anyone of us and we need to protect ourselves and have the law protect us as well but the insertion isn't for macabre reasons and to imply it is is poor form.
Posted 10 years ago # -
If I ever get splattered across the A8 on my daily commute the one place I'd expect to hear outrage is this forum.
I sincerely hope we won't have to discuss such circumstances. If we did, I would prefer that folk don't act the amateur forensics expert and analyse a situation they are in no position to know anything about, as none of us witnessed the incident. I'm sure we can all hypothesise about the possible circumstances of this man's death. We might feel angry about it, fair enough. How does it help to hypothesise? Rather than jump to conclusions I'd rather wait to hear the police report, or rather what scraps we glean from the media in months to come (if at all).
Posted 10 years ago #
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