These are the words of Emma Ferguson, whose husband was killed by a lorry driver who did not have the left side mirror on his vehicle. She has won a compensation claim against the company that owned the vehicle, in the civil courts. Characteristically the driver was NOT charged.
As more innocent people are killed by lorries in London, one takes inspiration by Mrs. Ferguson. If we all have the same resolve to protect vulnerable road users and ensure that anyone who wishes to ride a bicycle in London, can do it without apprehension and fear, then in a few years, this city will also see a level of civility seen in other European capitals.
The picture above shows the scene of one of London’s killing fields, where a 30 year old woman was crushed by a lorry this week. Elephant & Castle is one of the busiest roundabouts and the lady should have never been in that position. But how can anyone blame her, when the cycle infrastructure is so poor, when cycle lanes end when they are most needed, when the UK Government delays implementation of EU Directives requiring life-saving mirrors, when the Mayor slashes the funding for improving the cycle network, and indeed when he puts two fixie riders on the cover of his policy document?
More specifically, Southwark Council had put forward plans to make the Elephant & Castle node safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Boris Johnson refused to approve the plans, because they would have affected motor-traffic flows.
We should not let the barbarians rule our city.
It's the prevalence of councils and their traffic engineering departments to put bike lanes where it's easy and not where it's hard that really, really bugs me. So on wide roads with no hazards (other than drivers taking advantage of the increased sense of safety they feel to drive faster . . . ) we get bike lanes, but as soon as the road narrows, or gets to a tricky junction, the bike lane disappears. The Manual For Streets has a hierarchy of consideration – pedestrians, cyclists, public transport, service vehicles, and right at the bottom of the pecking order, private motor vehicles (includes taxis, lorries, and white vans). Whenever the going gets tough, this is just turned on its head, because keeping the traffic moving trumps all other considerations. Bah!
I think that I may have found the UK's shortest and most pathetically useless bicycle lane: at Calais Street on the outskirts of Hadleigh, Suffolk. I didn't have a tape measure with me, but from the “start of lane” sign to the “end of lane” one it's about five bicycle lengths.
Can anyone do better than this? I mean, a cycle lane which is actually LESS than the length of one bicycle?
Oh dear, we have a mountain to climb here…
I used to live in London, I now live in Edinburgh after a spell in Rome.
I cycled around the capital in a time when the car was king, just 10 years ago. It was do-able.
I've been back a couple of times as it is better for me to cycle across the city from one major train station to the other – I can't stand the Underground any more – and it's always a slightly nerve racking experience, despite the fact that I cycle every day where I live now.
Perhaps it is just a point of view, but things seem much more crowded now than they did then, despite the congestion charge.
I was enthused to hear what Ken was promoting during his time as Mayor and thought that finally someone had their logical thinking cap on, and I hoped other influencial people would see the huge increase in cyclists and the economic benefit, and would take on some of these ideas for the rest of the country.
Alas, this is not so now. After all, Boris is just a “token” cyclist, and outside of London he is seen as a genuine twat; innocent though he seem to be in his ineptitude, but a twat nonetheless.
Planners are not nearly so forward thinking when it comes to cycle infrastructure, in fact they have yet to really start doing it properly anywhere. A quick read of the DoT guidelines on implementation of cycle infrastructure will show that it is not that they regularly flout these guidelines, it is that they simply seem not to have even bothered putting them in their offices, let alone actually taking the time to read them. And so it is that another life is claimed, and the charge of Careless Driving, set up to protect innocent and vunerable road users in situations like this is once again shown to have been a complete farce.
I read Boris' “Way To Go” document. I think with a title such as that to a major policy document, it is obvious what it will contain; nothing but vague nonsence and good intentions. Even that is likely to be ignored by planners.
In Edinburgh we have the problem that one man is God when it comes to how the city is perceived to develop over the next few years, and a group of planners who have no clear idea themselves. Nowhere is there any indicatons of sustainability or any thought that the near future holds problems what will be vastly amplified by duel challenges of Climate Change and Peak Oil.
We still have so far to go.
Cyclist killed on A1. I was driving in a car only minutes behind this accident / collision on Sunday 3rd May. I've just started cycling and love being out on my bike, but every time I leave the house with my bike, I wonder if I will actually return alive … or whether today is the day a car kills me. Drivers aim their weapons at me. Every time I am out, I have at least one near miss. Lincolnshire's roads are lethal, but so are all the other roads in this country. If our roads cannot be shared and if cycle lanes cannot be installed, then roads should be partly closed to ensure the safety of ALL road users, especially during organised events.
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