Life paint
> "Cycle safety is the cyclist's responsibility"<p>Woah there. Hold up right there.<p>The safety of <i>ALL</i> road users is on the backs of <i>ALL</i> road users.<p>It's not uncommon in London to see reporting of one of the one-a-month on average deaths of a cyclist to see such comments as "the cyclist was wearing a helmet".<p>Yet the helmet didn't save the cyclist, because the cyclist was crushed by a fully loaded construction HGV tipper truck.<p>This idea that cyclist safety is 100% their responsibility is part of the root cause of the problem.<p>Cyclists are one of the most (if not the most) vulnerable demographics of road users there is, and it should be the responsibility of other road users to help protect them.<p>Failing that, it should be the responsibility of those who provide roads to ensure that the infrastructure itself protects them (segregated cycleways).<p>But creating an idea in which "Cycle safety is the cyclist's responsibility" is plain disgusting when every damn month another cyclist is in a morgue, regardless of whether or not the cyclist wore high visibility clothing, had lights, wore a helmet, etc, etc.<p>And there is my issue with Volvo's "Life paint"... it shifts the blame for the continued stream of fatalities onto the cyclist.<p>Do you want to know where the real problem is? Try this, of the 8 fatalities on London roads this year, 7 were caused by HGV construction vehicles even though such vehicles take up less than 5% of all London vehicular traffic.<p>Here's one from Monday... this week! <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/cyclist-26-killed-in-bank-tipper-truck-crash-was-newly-married-oxford-graduate-10339057.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/cyclist-26-killed-in-b...</a><p>Being covered in reflective spray paint will do nothing against a system that pays HGV drivers by the job count and doesn't enforce the many existing rules about vehicle safety, driver training... and in the recent case where a driver was convicted, the company that hired him didn't even check that he had a valid licence.<p>Perhaps if Volvo really wanted to make a big difference to the safety of cyclists, they'd get heavily behind the proposed designs for safer HGVs for cities: <a href="http://lcc.org.uk/articles/lcc-challenges-construction-industry-to-adopt-its-safer-urban-lorry-to-reduce-lorry-cyclist-deaths" rel="nofollow">http://lcc.org.uk/articles/lcc-challenges-construction-indus...</a>