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Tag Archives: road safety
Buffoonery in high places
The UK’s leading self-publicist – the current London mayor – has appointed as his cycling “czar” someone who knows my work (he has quoted it uncredited, in at least one article). So he should know better, but not only does Andrew … Continue reading
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Tagged Andrew Gilligan, cycling czar, London traffic, road safety
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Deference be damned
The 1960s were supposed to have seen off doff-capping class deference, but deference on the road – people on foot deferring to people in vehicles (even waiting for permission to cross at zebra crossings) – persists to this day. The … Continue reading
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Tagged Equality Streets, pedestrian safety, road safety, rules of the road
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J’accuse
Research fellow at UCL, Dr Katharine Giles, is the latest cyclist to die on London’s roads. Crushed under a tipper truck in Victoria. The report in the Evening Standard calls it a “tragedy”. For once the word is correct, partly … Continue reading
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Tagged cyclists, Dr Katharine Giles, Equality Streets, road death, road safety
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The US shooting in perspective
The Connecticut shooting is appalling, but – not to diminish it – hundreds of children are killed on UK roads every year. The latest rampage in the US is the one-off act of an identifiable, disturbed individual. Much of the under-reported … Continue reading
Corporate manslaughter?
Here is yet another “accident” involving a cyclist. As stated before, most accidents are not accidents. They are events contrived by the rules and design of the road. These days, even more euphemistically, “accidents” are called “collisions”. Note that this … Continue reading
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Tagged accident, collision, corporate manslaughter, cyclist, David Poblet, Ellie Carey, Equality Streets, road safety
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Rise in road deaths
The transport select committee is worried about the rise in road deaths, 51 up on last year to 1901. It ignored our submissions about the role of traffic lights in causing congestion, so it’s doubtful they will listen to our critique of road … Continue reading
Designing for danger
Traffic officers run a system that’s intrinsically dangerous, then devise expensive controls to mitigate the danger. But inevitably they fail, because all they are doing is treating the symptoms of the problem they created in the first place. If they dealt with … Continue reading
Designing for danger
The priority-based system is designed for danger (unequal rights, conflicting speeds, distracting signals, etc), then traffic officers devise increasingly expensive systems (more of the above, pedestrian countdown, etc) to mitigate the danger they themselves have cooked up. You can of course design … Continue reading
M5 crash
Deep condolences to the people affected, but calls for the 70 limit to remain are irrelevant. Instead of driving by numbers, we should drive according to context. Some accidents are genuinely unavoidable – and the more we learn about this one, the more it sounds … Continue reading
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Tagged 80 speed limit, advanced driving test, M5 crash, road safety, ROSPA
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Numbers v context
On the Today Programme the other day, a road safety spokesman (I missed his name) said the only way to reduce accidents is to reduce speed limits. He wants 20mph in all urban areas. As I’ve written elsewhere, would you want to … Continue reading
