Road Safety training for Dublin Bus drivers

DrMike

Dublin Cycling Campaign was approached by Dublin Bus last September to review and comment on the draft story-board for a proposed driver training video for safer interaction between its buses and people who cycle.
We made some suggestions about including reference to keeping out of ASLs and always keeping a 1.5 m distance for overtaking (anything less could be dangerous overtaking).
Yesterday we were invited by Dublin Bus to the launch of the training video and we have to say we were pleased with the format of the video - light-hearted but highlighting the important points about keeping cyclists safer on our shared roads and streets.
Well done to Dublin Bus senior managers for taking the time and trouble to make the video for use in its driver training school.
People who cycle hopefully can look forward to even more consideration from the driver team.
The video is an in-house one so not available to the public.

liger

DrMike wrote: »

Dublin Cycling Campaign was approached by Dublin Bus last September to review and comment on the draft story-board for a proposed driver training video for safer interaction between its buses and people who cycle.
We made some suggestions about including reference to keeping out of ASLs and always keeping a 1.5 m distance for overtaking (anything less could be dangerous overtaking).
Yesterday we were invited by Dublin Bus to the launch of the training video and we have to say we were pleased with the format of the video - light-hearted but highlighting the important points about keeping cyclists safer on our shared roads and streets.
Well done to Dublin Bus senior managers for taking the time and trouble to make the video for use in its driver training school.
People who cycle hopefully can look forward to even more consideration from the driver team.
The video is an in-house one so not available to the public.

Yes I have seen that video. It's much better than most of the other in house videos they have made over the last few years.

DB training has always been worked on the concept of sharing the road and a lot of emphasis on the vulnerable users but hearing the same thing over and over the same way loses its effect over time so its good to see not only have they come up with this but that cyclists had an imput.

luckybag

"It's a trap" - Admiral Ackbar

This video shall now be used in every court case involving DB and a cyclist.

"Your honour DB drivers are trained to the highest standards, in fact the training is approved by the Dublin Cycling Campaign, who worked along side DB to set the standard of training. The cyclist has never passed a test to see if they know the rules of the road, have never undertaken training, unlike the driver of the bus. If fact it was the cyclist who crashed into the bus, not the other way around."

Laughing their ass off in DB towers at the naive Dublin Cycling Campaign.

Tombo2001

Great that they do it, no harm in raising awareness. The thing is......the 99% of bus drivers that are decent, courteous, careful drivers are probably the same 99% that will pay attention to the video. The 1% that are aggressive, stressed and drive too fast are the ones that think they don't need to watch the video.

luckybag

Tombo2001 wrote: »

the 99% of bus drivers that are decent, courteous, careful drivers .

Can you say 99% of cyclist are the same?
This video is just more ammo to fight a court case agains a cyclist, don't fool yourself.

Tombo2001

luckybag wrote: »

Can you say 99% of cyclist are the same?
This video is just more ammo to fight a court case agains a cyclist, don't fool yourself.

I'm not that cynical, sorry.

Seaswimmer

Dublin Bus drivers are already way ahead of other bus and coach drivers when it comes to cyclist safety. Main offenders on my commute are Aircoach, Bus Eireann and Matthews. Maybe those companies could access the video..

schemingbohemia

Nearly had my head taken off by an Aircoach a few weeks ago, driver opened luggage door on road side without looking and it popped open as I was overtaking, asked driver to look out and he just yelled at me!

Rakish Paddy

Is there anything in the video about stopping at red lights? I have taken the bus a few times recently after not using it for several years, and on each of the journeys the driver went through at least one red light. I was pretty shocked by this - I don't ever remember seeing buses go through red lights 10-ish years ago.

liger

Rakish Paddy wrote: »

Is there anything in the video about stopping at red lights? I have taken the bus a few times recently after not using it for several years, and on each of the journeys the driver went through at least one red light. I was pretty shocked by this - I don't ever remember seeing buses go through red lights 10-ish years ago.

Are yout factoring in the stop distance for a 15ton vehicle travelling at speed. There is a point of no return for drivers where they must choose either to continue or risk passengers safety and possibly only be able to stop the vehicle in the middle of the junction.

Rakish Paddy

liger wrote: »

Are yout factoring in the stop distance for a 15ton vehicle travelling at speed. There is a point of no return for drivers where they must choose either to continue or risk passengers safety and possibly only be able to stop the vehicle in the middle of the junction.

Yes. I'm not talking about cases where the driver was tipping along at pace and lost a bit of a gamble on an amber light where it wasn't feasible to stop.

Just this morning, at 9:02 on Dame St., I saw a no. 123 bus go straight through a red light while the pedestrian green man was lit, and that is not an unusual sight now. That is totally unacceptable - the traffic light would have been amber for some time before turning red, and before the pedestrian light turned green.

Del2005

Rakish Paddy wrote: »

Is there anything in the video about stopping at red lights? I have taken the bus a few times recently after not using it for several years, and on each of the journeys the driver went through at least one red light. I was pretty shocked by this - I don't ever remember seeing buses go through red lights 10-ish years ago.

Red lights are routinely ignored by all road users these days, you'll be even more shocked when you notice the amount of road users on mobile phones. The lack of enforcement of traffic laws is a scandal.