"I am a miracle," sighs Elise Prigent.
At 25, this Parisian almost lost her life right next to the Hôtel de Ville in Paris.
On August 18, she started at the green light on her blue electric bike.
A few meters from her, a construction truck sets off at the same time, before turning right.
The cyclist, who intended to go straight, is stuck in the blind spot of the heavy goods vehicle, which does not see her and begins her maneuver.
It is violently grabbed and suddenly disappears under the wheels of the machine, as evidenced by the surveillance images that we publish.
“I felt like I was being swallowed by a monster,” Elise recalls.
Read alsoCyclists killed on the road in Greater Paris: "Let's take real measures", claim the associations
"You really have to realize that the fact that I'm standing, walking, and that I can talk about it, is something that is extremely rare," she says.
On November 4, N. was not so lucky.
Hit by a heavyweight at Place de la République, in Paris, the young man died in a very similar accident.
According to our information, N. would be at least the 7th cyclist to have lost his life in Paris and in the inner suburbs of Paris in these circumstances in 2021. In July, it was Emma, 24, who died in Boulogne, on a crossroads already reported as dangerous by cycling associations.
On September 23, a little two-year-old boy also died under the wheels of a truck in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, while he was being transported on his father's bicycle.
However, equipment exists to improve the visibility of heavy goods vehicles in dense urban environments.
In London, more ambitious legislation is gradually requiring trucks to adopt cameras, sensors, screens and alarms to compensate for their wide blind spots.
Likewise, safer intersections have long been proven in the Netherlands to limit these deadly shocks.