Some delivery trucks have a blind spot of up to 1.9 metres while the best in their class have virtually none because of lower cabs and bigger windows, according to a team at a UK design school. Closing that gap could save hundreds of pedestrian and cyclists’ lives.
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Researchers at the Loughborough University Design School modelled the sightlines of drivers in 19 bestselling heavy-goods vehicles. They selected trucks with high and low cabs and used data from real-life crashes to recreate risky scenarios. The team reported huge differences in the direct vision – what drivers can see with their own eyes – of best and worst-in-class trucks in all categories, and that ‘low-entry cabs’ out perform all of today’s best performing vehicles.
Of the delivery trucks modelled, the Scania P N3 was found to have great direct vision, which drastically reduces fatal blind spots. It has many of the characteristics of a low-entry cab. The height of the driver – the higher, the worse – is a critical factor in the direct vision performance of a truck. Meanwhile the Man TGS N3 has much larger combined blind spots totalling 2.72m.
The team also reported that construction vehicles pose the greatest danger to vulnerable road users –cyclists and pedestrians – compared with delivery trucks and long-haul lorries. Their report calls for European rules to specify what should be visible from the driver’s seat.
Transport & Environment has called for the mandating of low-entry cab designs for new delivery trucks, while ensuring that all other truck types have direct vision performance that’s at least as good as the current best performers. The European Commission is drafting new vehicle safety rules and has indicated it will introduce direct vision requirements for new trucks, but only from 2028.
T&E freight director William Todts said: ‘It’s shocking that there are such large differences between perfectly similar trucks. It shows that some truck makers aren’t factoring in cyclist or pedestrian safety when designing new vehicles. The solution is obvious: we need direct vision standards for trucks. With so many people being hit by a trucks, we can’t afford to wait until 2028. This needs to happen much quicker.’
According to the European Transport Safety Council, 4,000 people die in truck crashes in Europe every year. Many of these fatalities, almost 1,000, are vulnerable road users such as cyclists and pedestrians. More than a quarter (28%) of fatal truck crashes occur in urban environments and more than half of lorry crashes involving cyclists and pedestrians in urban areas occur at relatively low speeds.
In the UK, local government body Transport for London is set to unveil proposals to require HGVs to enhance direct vision with glass panels in passenger doors, larger windscreens and lower drivers’ positions.