London to trial eye-level traffic lights designed to save cyclists' lives

most traffic lights in France seem to have eye level lights - think they are actually for car drivers as they tend not to have the ones across the junction.

These are a good idea but the ASL boxes in London fill up with vans. taxis, bikes and scooters; for this to work there will need to be enforcement. It has been done in Edinburgh but someone will have to explain the law to London Police before these are introduced (and organize a press campaign - so that if it is enforced effectively moaning lawbreakers do not start complaining that they are being treated as a "cash cow").

There is an advance stop light for cyclists in York near the train station at the busy junction of Station Road and Blossom Street where cyclists turning right out of Station Road are very vulnerable to motorists going straight ahead. I used to use it every weekday, but i now use a better, new quiter access to the station which has been built since, thank goodness. In theory cyclists ASL's are a good idea, but in practice, as implemented in York it is not much use. Firstly, the lights operating for cyclists (as opposed to just on "normal")were supposed to be triggered by dectectors buried in the road, detecting cyclists entering the junction box. They regularly fail to detect cyclists, so no ASL. Second, the differential between the ASL for cyclists and motorists was too short - not enough head start. Thirdly, as pointed out above, impatient motorists start moving when they see the cyclists' ASL. Frankly it was arguably better (but still indimiidating and dangerous) before since from where you were positioned as a cyclist you could see the other lights go red and anticipate yours going green (without jumping them), whereas motorists behind could not see the change of the other lights so easily. The junction is now still unatisfactorty despite the Council spending a lot of money on it (having rejected more radical proposals which would have provided a real benefit to pedestrians and cyclists). Hopefully others can learn from York's mistakes.

Introduce the new lights but add a camera. Use the revenue generated by fines for drivers jumping the lights to build more cycling infrastructure.

It's only reliant on the first driver in the queue of cars obeying the law; this is quite likely in my view.

A cycle only phase at many junctions in London would make things safer by alowing some time to get away from the junction before left turning traffic.

But on my commute the numbers of cyclists is so great they wouldn't all get through unless the cycle lane was wide and the ASL wasn't full of cars and motorbikes already.
Some Police enforcement would need to be stepped up or motorbikes would just use the cycle phase as well.

On the Cycle Superhighways 7 and 8 (which I use on my commute) there are already so many cycists as to make even the widest point on the lane (2m) look far too narrow.