Transport Select Committee hearing: There's not a war on London's roads, but it's a battlefield

It is not just MP's who are ill informed, I had a customer at my bike shop who was stopped by a community support officer who told me that he could receive a fine for not wearing a helmet. He asked the officer what section of which act he was quoting and surprisingly the officer couldn't remember. If you are stopped by any officer of the law including C.S.Os and they try to issue a fine, remember that they have to tell you the section and the act of parliament they are using. I suspect many C.S.Os don't even know what an act of parliament is.

Never thought I would find myself in agreement with David Davies, but I have said elsewhere that no-one insists that pedestrians wear hi-viz and helmets despite 100+deaths in London per year.

The standard political process:
[bad thing happens]
"We must do something!"
[A Thing is proposed, without any proof]
"That is a Thing! We must do that!"

The 'war' only happens because people fight. Cyclists currently have to fight for road space for safety reasons. If user attitude can be changed from "get there as fast as possible" to " get there as calmly as possible" most of the problems will disappear. Everyone just needs to chill the hell out - it isn't 'us and them', it's just 'us'. This could be aided by strict liability laws, and strong enforcement of them.

There are plenty of infrastructure issues too. I've just been to Berlin, which has cycle traffic lights and many segregated cycle paths. Traffic is allowed to turn across pedestrian crossings (both on green lights) but pedestrians have priority. A flashing amber light is used to warn road-users that people may be crossing. This works, but mainly because people actually give way to each other. There are few road-markings at crossroads, so people have to give way to each other, and there's little feeling of 'entitlement' that London's roads produce. Remove traffic lights and road markings at junctions and people are forced to actually be aware of their surroundings.

unsliced wrote:

Many RLJers (and I am not one) are doing it safely and while it doesn't make it right, it isn't a massive wrong.

I'd be interested in finding out the number of cycling deaths that were related to RLJing. My gut assumption is that a significant number of deaths will be as a result of cyclist stopping at lights (unseen by big lorries turning left for example) or in free flowing traffic where a cyclist hasn't been seen, with relatively few being due to a cyclist jumping a light.

I'm generally not a RLJer but I've been known to go through a red lights at 'odd' times of day (early mornings and late nights when there is no other traffic around me) and I frequently anticipate the lights (I know the light sequence and at points where my light changes following a green man, I'll be up, clipped in and leave on the amber).

Whats most depressing, if you read DFT cycle lane guidelines and even TFL's own plans, it all makes sense.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/safe-streets-for-london...

so clearly the relevant people lower down the chain do understand the issues, but all this just gets lost when the issues are discussed by narrow minded MPs.

Can't we have people with relevant skills in charge? The only thing these people are skilled in, is the deliberate use of logical falacies and arguing techniques.

Despite all these committees and reports, information never seems to flow upwards.

There's the quote that's almost a cliché that

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

and I suspect that we're almost to that state with many of the busier junctions, certainly in London.

There's a fixation with red-light jumping but few people step back and question the fixation with traffic lights in the first place. That the roads are filled with these types of enforced control is a major part of the problem. Many RLJers (and I am not one) are doing it safely and while it doesn't make it right, it isn't a massive wrong.

We can all think of junctions where there's a pedestrian phase but rarely any pedestrians. Or where your route goes straight on and the road joining from the right doesn't impede your lane. Or where the phasing means that you're always just meeting a red light. Or a dozen other simple examples of where a traffic light is just a means to frustrate rather than actually aid safety or efficiently shape the traffic.

When was the last time you saw a traffic light left on flashing amber (i.e. pedestrian priority, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12860433)?

The transport select committee obviously do not understand how roads actually work - and the fact that the RHA got a free ride shows that the CTC, LCC and so on should probably take a leaf from their lobbying tactics.

The roads are too complex to leave it up to individuals to see the bigger picture, but it's apparent that no-one in charge cares, so we're going to be left with only one choice: if the powers that be can't be trusted to protect us, we'll just have to make the rules up ourselves.

So we've at least one member of the House of Commons Transport Committe who doesn't understand how funding for road infrastructure is sourced. That is appalling.

One of the reasons Winston Churchill gave for abolishing road tax in 1937 was because he believed people paying it would feel they have a right to use the roads. And still this fallacy continues, even amongst those who have responsbility for the transport network.

“Ill-informed, silly and out of touch.” well I never.