EUC rider killed by Bus driver in Ukraine

[Marty Backe]

It's amazing that we all look at the same video but come to opposite conclusions. My eyes show the bus traveling faster then the rider, the bus mirror hitting him on the head, causing him to lose balance, fall off the wheel, and get run over.

No matter how I twist and turn my head and eyes, and can't make it look like the EUC rider is passing the bus.

We're all watching different versions of the same film 

[joca]

52 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

My eyes show the bus traveling faster then the rider...

The EUC starts off near the rear of the bus and ends up at the front of it. How can the bus have been travelling faster?

[Ghostware]

1 hour ago, Marty Backe said:

It's amazing that we all look at the same video but come to opposite conclusions. My eyes show the bus traveling faster then the rider, the bus mirror hitting him on the head, causing him to lose balance, fall off the wheel, and get run over.

No matter how I twist and turn my head and eyes, and can't make it look like the EUC rider is passing the bus.

We're all watching different versions of the same film 

You are right on this one Marty. 

[Alex Tsepkov]

I just noticed something else as well. In the police video (6-8 seconds into it), you also can see a bumpy manhole, which seems to be right where the sidewalk fence starts. If you rewatch the original video, that is also the location where the EUC rider started waving his hands, implying that he lost balance. I do not think he was hit by the bus mirror (look at police video about 14 seconds in, you'll see how small and close to the bus the mirrors are). I think he fell because of the manhole, not being hit by bus mirror.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Alex Tsepkov

[yuweng]

While googling, this semi related news pop-up. i guess world wide will eventually needs to regulates all kinds of PEVs.

[Gasmantle]

Looks very much to me that the EUC was travelling faster than the bus whilst riding up the drivers blind side in a narrow gap between the bus and a van.

The bus driver won't have been able to see the EUC - why didn't the EUC rider have the sense to slow down in anticipation of the bus turning toward the kerb?

It's a terrible accident but riding like that is asking for trouble and does nothing to help the case for legalising EUC's

[WreckageRider]

This makes me sad and sick, I am both an euc rider and I drive a bus, in fact I drove a bus for 10 hours in the city at the same day as this post, its a tragic accident and I feel for all involved, the EUC was in the buses blind spot so that was why the drivers reaction time was delayed and unfortunately some buses are deliberately made to be quiet so you can't hear them coming, at work i see people walk out and ride out infront of my bus all the time so I drive with extra care knowing we are in a new age of personal transport.

[winterwheel]

15 hours ago, RockyTop said:

About a year ago, I was in the bike lane. (right edge of the road) A bus started to pass me. Three seconds later when I was in the middle of the bus it crossed the bike lane to get to a bus stop with me beside it. Luckily I was able to move over and slow down enough to get out of the way. I am sure that the bus driver did not even noticed what he did. He didn’t even stop before taking off again. 

 

Here we have some lanes that are shared by bikes/taxis/buses. Speed limit 50kmh. I was riding down one of these at 40 or so when a bus zoomed up close behind me, blared its horn, then zoomed around me and cut me off in order to stop at a bus stop just 100 meters or so up the road. Essentially the pre-cursor to the worst possible interpretation of what happened here. 

As a bicycle-class vehicle I had a right to be there, and with the speed I was travelling the bus saved at most a second or two in its route by going around me just to stop immediately a bit up the road. 

The vast majority of bus drivers are super, but it just takes one idiot to make a headline.

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by winterwheel

[WreckageRider]

2 hours ago, winterwheel said:

Here we have some lanes that are shared by bikes/taxis/buses. Speed limit 50kmh. I was riding down one of these at 40 or so when a bus zoomed up close behind me, blared its horn, then zoomed around me and cut me off in order to stop at a bus stop just 100 meters or so up the road. Essentially the pre-cursor to the worst possible interpretation of what happened here. 

As a bicycle-class vehicle I had a right to be there, and with the speed I was travelling the bus saved at most a second or two in its route by going around me just to stop immediately a bit up the road. 

The vast majority of bus drivers are super, but it just takes one idiot to make a headline.

 

The way we save time between timing points in our bus run is by loading and unloading passengers quickly and fast customer service, only silly and uneducated bus drivers will drive crazy to make time, i have actually tested what i said by driving on the speed limit for one run then the same run driving 10 under, this was on Christmas day when the roads were quiet and no passengers.. the time difference was so tiny that it was barely measurable.  Sadly buses and bikes don't mix due to blind spots so its vital that bus drivers are always vigilant when in the city where anything can pop out of anywhere

The good thing is the future is bright due to the newer bus designs reducing blind spots and also better performance.. the bus i drove today had lighter steering than my car does and the stopping distance of a large car., im in Australia and we are highly trained to drive a bus in the city which happened over a year for me, ... I do love the fact i can ride my Z10 to work and it sits behind the drivers seat, next week my mten3 will be here and im excited to take that everywhere I go including proudly next to me while I drive a bus.

[Paul A]

EUC and front of bus are level at start of video.

Either early or late in day.  Sun is low in sky, long shadows.  Sun is positioned behind.  Maybe difficult to see vision in mirror.

Parked truck is jutting out onto lane.  Two lanes.  Double line divider down center of road.

Narrow gap/choke point at place of impact. 

EUC squeezing into narrow space between parked truck and bus at place of impact.

Appears maybe side mirror of bus pushes the EUC to the right.  EUC rider maybe tries to maintain balance, over corrects unintentionally, loss of control, veers back left, falls off.

Maybe bus driver unaware of EUC.  Bus driver moves back to the kerb side lane after passing parked truck.

Accident caused by both bus and EUC passing the parked truck at precisely the same moment.  Narrow gap that EUC was squeezed into caused impact.

View video playback at highest resolution, playback speed at slowest.

Very sad.  Need Copenhagen style cycle paths to separate traffic, reduce car doorings.

[.....]

On 9/11/2020 at 1:51 PM, Dave Wood said:

My point still stands, it's scary how many riders are out there who don't even know the rules of the road, less alone how to drive defensively.

You are giving riders too much credit. Most euc riders probably drive a car and are aware of proper rules on the raod. Just as most drivers know what a turn signal is, but fail to use them. Same with being on the phone, eating. People KNOW better, they just CHOOSE to ignore the rules, as it isnt convenient for them. I am NOT suggesting this rider is one of these people. I am merely pointing out that its giving too much credit to allow 'ignorance' as a defense. You cant tell me that euc riders who ignore stop signs and traffic lights, dont know wtf they are. People know better, they just don't care.  Now defensive driving is a layer even deeper. To be any good at this, you wold have to care about your driving and even go further as to take training and remain compeletely vigilant. For a general motoring public, this is just too much to ask, as it would intefere with their abliity to neglect the road and enjoy doing other things at the same time. I also am guilty of road infractions, but i have no problems with admitting to my self that I am just being a selfish asshole (and criminal) when I do. I wish I could afford the luxury of claiming ignorance.

Just a side note..  @jocaIn usa, the outside lane is the travel lane for busses. Inside lane refers to the left turn and passing lane. A lot of municipalities have policy that requires busses to travel in the RH lane (outside) unless a reason exists, not to. I know other countries its all backwards, but isnt the 'outside lane'  the one closest to the middle? I just figured, left or right no matter, outside is outside and inside is inside either way? Of course, maybe bus stops in other places ARE in the middle, between opposing directions of traffic. Seems a dadngerous setup if it is.

Edited September 12, 2020 by ShanesPlanet

[Simply_Striking]

Arguing who is right or wrong in these type of situations, you can be right and still end up the one being injured/ or worse and wrong and still be injured/ or worse. As a PEV users the best we can do is control our own actions, and reduce situations where our own safety is more compromised than it already is. Doing what is right because we have the right of way to have a pissing contest with another road user, at risk for ones own safety for me, just is not worth it. A reason why I am very selective of who I do group rides with, because there are few among us that do not mind running a red light or crossing where we are not supposed and put their lives and that of others at risk. Just be human to each other.

[joca]

47 minutes ago, ShanesPlanet said:

Just a side note..  @jocaIn usa, the outside lane is the travel lane for busses. Inside lane refers to the left turn and passing lane. A lot of municipalities have policy that requires busses to travel in the RH lane (outside) unless a reason exists, not to. I know other countries its all backwards, but isnt the 'outside lane'  the one closest to the middle? I just figured, left or right no matter, outside is outside and inside is inside either way? Of course, maybe bus stops in other places ARE in the middle, between opposing directions of traffic. Seems a dadngerous setup if it is.

I was using inside/outside lane to avoid left/right but it seems it doesn't resolve the confusion! In the UK, inside lane means the one closest to the pavement /furthest from the middle of a two-way road/where the bus stops usually are. So, in the UK you drive on the left and always overtake to the right of the car you're overtaking ("undertaking" is passing on the left, which would be on the right in the US). I don't think the US has the same rules on overtaking on a specific side, so that may explain the difference in terminology?

[Shield]

I think we are losing sight of what is important here. Until the investigation is over none of us know exactly what happened. One of our fellow brothers has lost his life. Lets take that time to honor him and pray for his family.  

[Darrell Wesh]

1 hour ago, Simply_Striking said:

As a PEV users the best we can do is control our own actions, and reduce situations where our own safety is more compromised than it already is. Doing what is right because we have the right of way to have a pissing contest with another road user, at risk for ones own safety for me, just is not worth it. A reason why I am very selective of who I do group rides with, because there are few among us that do not mind running a red light or crossing where we are not supposed and put their lives and that of others at risk. Just be human to each other.

Not sure what your stance is here? Top and bottom statements seem contradictory. Doing “what is right” is the option with the highest chance of preserving your life in the streets. If that means slaloming on the roads to generate awareness of my prescence (instead of riding straight and stiff) then so be it. If that means going on the wrong side of the road to over take a car who continually tries to “brake check” me, then so be it. 
 

We don’t have the luxury of being fair and law abiding like a car while riding these vehicles. That luxury means being able to get hit or to hit someone and come out unhurt/alive, which we don’t have. Someone said earlier that we must always ride like no one can see us. If that’s the level of paranoia that we ride with in the streets, why on earth am I abiding by the same laws? I’m not talking about just EUC’s here, this is the same for manual bicycles, skateboards, anything not a motor vehicle.

You play by their(cars) rules when you’re not them and you won’t come out on top.  

[NickNonsense]

Glad to find more sense here on the forums then in the discord server as most was out with they pitch forks screaming murder which is absoluetly insane (Honestly disgusted by some peoples reaction there)

This is very upsetting news hearing about a fellow rider my deep condolances to the riders friends and family. I hope this engrains the awareness thats needed whilst riding amongst other users be that motorists, cyclists or pedistrians. Be safe, respectful and look after each other.

[.....]

4 hours ago, joca said:

I was using inside/outside lane to avoid left/right but it seems it doesn't resolve the confusion! In the UK, inside lane means the one closest to the pavement /furthest from the middle of a two-way road/where the bus stops usually are. So, in the UK you drive on the left and always overtake to the right of the car you're overtaking ("undertaking" is passing on the left, which would be on the right in the US). I don't think the US has the same rules on overtaking on a specific side, so that may explain the difference in terminology?

Hell, I'm confusing myself and think I've got it backwards. I read it back and think I have inside/outside confused. I won't bother trying to clear it up here, as its all a moot point. Its just terrible to see this happen. Even when someone is at fault, it doesnt make it any less tragic. I seriosuly doubt there was any intent to do harm here.  Life is sometimes cruel and often unfair. I guess its just easier to cope with all of it, when we just blame 'life' in general.

Be  careful out there people, especially when yo're the one's in the planes/trains/automobiles. This kind of thing not only hurts the lives of the people close to the injured, it often harms the person who made the mistake. Knowing a mistake on your part, caused death to another, could haunt a person for many many years.  Life is a fickle bitch. Enjoy it while you can, don't take for granted that you're promised tomrrow. My heart goes out to the family in this and many other incidents similar.

[Raptor]

On 9/10/2020 at 11:36 PM, Shield said:

Olen videot mitu korda vaadanud ja ei näi, et draiverite tegevus oli tahtlik. See oli väga kahetsusväärne ja traagiline õnnetus. Puhka rahus.

Watch the video more! From a distance, the bus driver sees the EUC rider, but still turns on him !?

Edited September 13, 2020 by Raptor

[Raptor]

On 11.9.2020 at 23:58, Marty Backe said:

On hämmastav, et me kõik vaatame ühte videot, kuid jõuame vastupidistele järeldustele. Minu silmad näitavad bussi, mis sõidab kiiremini kui sõitja, bussipeegel lööb talle pähe, põhjustades tasakaalu kaotuse, roolilt kukkumise ja otsa sõitmise.

Ükskõik, kuidas ma oma pead ja silmi keerutan ja keeran, ega saa jätta muljet, nagu EUC sõitja mööduks bussist.

Me kõik vaatame sama filmi erinevaid versioone 

 

[Shield]

15 minutes ago, Raptor said:

Watch the video more! From a distance, the bus driver sees the EUC rider, but still turns on him !?

 

[Paul A]

On 9/12/2020 at 2:46 AM, joca said:

It doesn't look like the bus is passing him, it looks like he is passing the bus (on the inside). The rider is positioned towards the back of the bus at the start of the footage and catches up to the front of it by the time they collided. It's hard to tell whether that happened because the bus started slowing down to change lanes, or because the rider was going faster to begin with, the footage doesn't start early enough to see.

There is a huge problem with large vehicles not having adequate mirrors to check for small vehicles on the inside of them. But bus/lorry drivers don't design their vehicles. If this was a blind spot problem, it was not the driver's fault.

Undertaking is dangerous, don't do it.

A badly parked truck was jutting out and blocking the kerb side lane that the EUC rider was in. The impact occurred right at the choke point where the bus, euc rider and parked truck converged together.

It seems that the euc rider needed to give way and allow the bus to pass the truck first.

Seems the euc rider was trying to overtake the bus and get past the truck, or squeeze through the narrow gap.

The bus was driving within its lane and would have moved back to the kerb side lane after passing the truck.

A bus would probably seek to travel in the slow kerb side lane, also for stopping at bus stops.

Bus driver probably would not expect anyone to be passing him on the right side, as the truck was blocking that lane.

The video does not show the euc rider in front of the bus at any time where the driver could have clearly seen him.

The euc rider was along side the front corner of the bus at the last moment before impact.

Long shadows, sun low in the sky, sun behind. Might have been difficult to see for the bus driver to see anything in the rear view side mirror.

Euc rider might have been in the blind spot. Euc rider also a much smaller object than a car.

Doesn't appear the bus driver was aware of the euc rider until impact.

Very tragic. 

View video at highest resolution and 0.25 speed.

[winterwheel]

On 9/11/2020 at 2:58 PM, Marty Backe said:

It's amazing that we all look at the same video but come to opposite conclusions. My eyes show the bus traveling faster then the rider, the bus mirror hitting him on the head, causing him to lose balance, fall off the wheel, and get run over.

No matter how I twist and turn my head and eyes, and can't make it look like the EUC rider is passing the bus.

We're all watching different versions of the same film 

I can definitely come to that conclusion as well, but there is no doubt at all that the double-parked vehicle played a role.

But one can't escape the conclusion that if the rider started ahead of the bus then the driver knew the rider was there and this was a purposeful act. 

We need this video to start three seconds earlier. That would be definitive I think. That video must exist.

[Gasmantle]

1 hour ago, winterwheel said:

But one can't escape the conclusion that if the rider started ahead of the bus then the driver knew the rider was there and this was a purposeful act. 

Looks very much to me that an idiot on an EUC decided to squeeze through a narrow gap on the drivers blind side at speed and it cost him his life.

I'd be very surprised if there was any intention by the bus driver to kill or injure the rider.

 

[winterwheel]

3 hours ago, Gasmantle said:

Looks very much to me that an idiot on an EUC decided to squeeze through a narrow gap on the drivers blind side at speed and it cost him his life.

I'd be very surprised if there was any intention by the bus driver to kill or injure the rider.

 

As I said, my assessment is contingent on the reasonable but not universally held view that the bus was passing the rider, and that the rider had therefore been at some point ahead of the bus and visible to the bus driver. 

Edited September 13, 2020 by winterwheel

[Paul A]

11 hours ago, winterwheel said:

As I said, my assessment is contingent on the reasonable but not universally held view that the bus was passing the rider, and that the rider had therefore been at some point ahead of the bus and visible to the bus driver.

The parked truck was partially blocking the lane, perhaps half of the lane.  

This would leave a gap not wide enough for a car, but maybe wide enough for the EUC rider in his estimation, to pass through,  albeit very risky with a moving bus alongside.

Perhaps the bus driver was unaware of EUC rider and struck him when moving into the kerbside lane.

Perhaps the gap wasn't wide enough, and at the last moment, the EUC rider moving around the parked truck bought him into the path of the bus.

Misjudgment of space, relative speeds, direction of movements of others,  prediction of dynamic positioning at a future time...many variables that can change quickly and not controllable.

A large 360 degree buffer zone of space for safety.  Entering the buffer zone of other vehicles is dangerous.  Other vehicles entering your buffer zone is dangerous.

Please do not rely on others having seen you.  

 

 

 

Edited September 14, 2020 by Paul A
Wording. It is speculation of possibility, not statement of fact. Insertion of the words "Perhaps".