ptempel

Was going to say too much $$ for the infrastructure. However, if you live in a fairly urban area, then you probably already have naturual gas going to the house like me. This makes me wonder why we (or I) don't take more advantage of it for cars. Would be simple to fill up a tank in the trunk if you had a car that would use it. Natural gas cars are just not popular in the US as far as I know. I think the fuel cost is a wash and would be about the same as gasoline. But the convenience and less dependability on gas stations and cleaner burning fuel are interesting options. The less dependability on the station would have been beneficial right after superstorm Sandy for me. I got lucky and got a 5 gallon can filled at a station a day before they ran out of gas. However, I'm sure that many others were not so lucky. Oh, well. Sorry for the tangent...

whitecat

Preposterus. Is the only word that comes to mind.

whitecat

He saw her. If the driver isnt blind, he saw her. And if he is blind, who let him behind the wheel of a truck? Either way, its his fault 100%. Take away his license and make him do something else before he kills someone.

Kontact 

Issues of who is to blame are actually very different than who needs to do what to stay alive.

CliffordK

I'm not sure. Some people have experimented with propane.

LPG: Liquid Propane Gas
CNG: Compressed Natural Gas
LNG: Liquid Natural Gas

I think one issue is that it is not easy to convert from stove gas to LNG. So, one may be stuck with much lower density CNG.

Propane, on the other hand is liquefied to LPG at a much lower pressure, so it is much easier to store and transport.

If a person is tied to only filling at their own house, then that would limit their range, and there are mighty few filling stations across the USA for CNG or LNG. 20 years ago, I think the natural gas was also much slower to refill than propane, although perhaps that has been remedied by now. Better buffers?

One might be able to design a vehicle that could use either propane or natural gas, but it would likely require redundant tanks, and electronic injection.

mr_bill

Paul Barnard

This! That is a perfect graphic illustration of what I was trying to convey earlier. From a safety standpoint, focusing on this is where the value is.

Kontact 

I said they were separate issues. Why don't you get that?

Is it because you aren't cognitively able to understand, or you just have some personality issue that causes you to attack even when you're not making sense?

UniChris

Actually, it's not simple as you need to re-compress it. Last mile cooking/heating gas pipeline pressures are far too low to store a useful amount in a vehicle. While the engineering for end-user compressors can be done, there are a lot of safety issues that have to be done right. Last thing I heard (and this was a number of years ago) US regulators (possibly more an alliance of local ones than federal?) were waiting to see the safety record of home compressors in countries that were allowing them.

It would be worthwhile to look into how that turned out.

Rollfast

My dad operated three gas stations in his life. You stay behind enough gasoline to service two locations.

Rollfast

And with that I see nothing further in arguments.

grayEZrider

Exactly!
As grandma used to say about "right of way", there is right, and there is DEAD right.

downhillmaster

KraneXL

Speaking of grandmas, I'd imagine she'd have a good amount of company in this thread.

For anyone that's afraid to go outside, I present you an alternative. Although its hard to be sure if cyclist would still apply?





Perhaps it doesn't occur to you that it could be the "tractor" driving next to the cyclist? Decisions, decisions. What shall I do?

mr_bill

Have you never wondered why there isn't abject carnage around tractor trailers driving through cities?

There would be dead people on foot and dead people on bikes EVERYWHERE, EVERY SINGLE DAY if that's how blind HGV operators are.

For those who have never been in the cab of a tractor trailer, here's a demo of the ACTUAL blind spots prepared by an ACTUAL driver (UK video) in rebuttal to that British Safety Council rubbish.



Through the magic of maladjusted mirrors flat mirrors, maladjusted convex mirror, and panning to IGNORE the far-side look-down mirror, the British Safety Council disapperated the people on pushbikes.

Note that in the British Safety Council video, there is no look-down mirror on the front screen. All such mirrors are now required for HGVs by TfL.


In the Vancouver video, the operator had flat mirrors, convex mirrors, and CONVEX FENDER MIRRORS.

The person on the bike was wearing BRIGHT PINK, on an overcast day (ambient light only, no confounding shadows), who would be visible to ANY competent operator who LOOKED. Probably in all three far-side mirrors, certainly in the two convex mirrors.

(That's one of the reasons why our bus operator and person on a bike asked about convex mirrors.)


With emphasis:

The reason the person on the bike wasn't seen is because the OPERATOR DID NOT LOOK.

-mr. bill

Hypno Toad

I'd say 4,000 to 4,500 fatalities per year is a serious number of commercial vehicle involved deaths - maybe not carnage, but not insignificant either. Commercial vehicles make up less that 4% of vehicles on the road but are involved 13.5% of fatal collisions on the roads. (I understand they also log significantly more miles per vehicle and I didn't look up those stats - fatal collisions per mile are likely equal or slanted the other way)

Convex mirrors are not required in the US, it appears NY requires them (good thing with NYC). But that puts the responsibility in the hands of an operator or business to add and maintain convex mirrors on their rigs. Based on my experience as a commercial driver (and via my brother-in-law that currently drives semi), these safety features are not a priority - keeping costs down and getting it done quickly, those are the priorities. (yes, fatal collisions are high cost, but the big companies typically fire and blame the driver for not following safety protocols).

Lastly, we totally agree the driver of this truck failed to check his mirrors properly prior to making that right turn.

downhillmaster

mr_bill

87 people on bikes died in crashes (not accidents) with large trucks in the US in 2016.

Or blame the person on foot or the person on the bike. Around here the vast majority of operators involved with a crash (not accident) with a pedestrian or cyclist are still operating for the company they worked for at the time of the crash (not accident).

-mr. bill

jamesflood1

Actually we need to keep safe distance from the truck. If we don't keep the safe distance there might be a risk to accident.

Hypno Toad

There are no accidents, only collisions/crashes.

Rollfast

There are collisions that aren't an accident, they are called demolition derby and bumper cars.

KraneXL

You just stated the obvious. That much was determined by the outcome in the video. Riding a bike on the road is a dynamic process. So moving to a "safe distance" to the truck on the left, could put you in an unsafe distance to the one on the right. In the event of a contact, you end up in the wrong. Hindsight is always 20/20, but there is no one simple solution except to ride defensively. Same as cars.

mr_bill

I'm stopped at a stoplight in the right lane.
A truck pulls up next to me in the left lane and stops.
I put on my brakes.
I'm STILL stopped at a stoplight in the right lane.

-mr. bill

Chris0516

Excellent. It shows that the cyclist had already passed the rear end of the second tanker trailer. By the time the truck driver put on their turn signal. The truck driver was at fault.