Cylists are awful. They run red lights, they take up too much space, and they kill pedestrians. Cyclists are so awful that a Private Member’s Bill has been introduced to make dangerous cycling a crime.
So how much of a problem is dangerous cycling? We’ve collated the statistics on pedestrian deaths between 1998-2007 and created a visualisation, showing the relative number of deaths caused by types of vehicle. You can find it here, and play around with it, looking at the total, or the individual years.
I’m not sure the problem is so endemic that it requires a new law, or as much media attention as it’s garnered, and I’m not sure laws that are lobbied for by the families of a lone victim are the best way forward. But the data’s there, in case you fancy some stats to back up your argument.
Tag: in the news
Weekly War Bulletin, 20 Nov
For really large values of “week”. I was too busy to digest October’s news as it happened, so here’s a quick look at the stories that stood out since the last Bulletin. Normal service should be resumed from next week.
Weekly War Bulletin, 11 Sep
Those deeply unpopular and ineffective speed cameras whose only point was bleed dry the poor hard-done-by ordinary Motoring Brit? Switching them off has prompted an, er, popular backlash from ordinary Brits, after their roads filled with people driving like massive twats. Even the AA has realised that the anti-camera morons are not representative of their members.
In Dorset they’re serious about their War On The Motorist: in the Poole suburb of Sandbanks, famous as home to spoilt sportsmen celebrities with Range Rovers, a quarter of all Motorists have been caught speeding within the past five years. Poole are even bucking the trend by installing those evil average-speed cameras on streets with schools.
Shocking finding of investigative journalism, though: law entirely ineffective at punishing and reforming dangerous drivers.
Allegedly, the tube strike led to a rise in cycling. I only saw an increase in inexperienced drivers on the road, but then, I live in South London where we don’t have tubes anyway. As the Tories criticise the unions for walking out on strike instead of being nice and getting around the table to talk about the ticket office closures, they, er, walk out of the London Assembly, refusing to debate the issue of ticket office closures.
Candidates for mayor are firing up their politicking, with Boris stating disagreement with coalition transport cuts, and Ken promising to resurrect the never obviously useful Cross River Tram project. And desperate to make the Hire Bikes — and by association the one lone man solely responsible for their entire concept and implementation, Boris — look brilliant, the Standard now claim that “Boris Bikes” are inflating property prices around the docks. Meanwhile, the problems with the system mount up, as TfL automatically charge users’ credit cards hundreds of pounds each for non-existent usage.
“Signalling irregularity” sent a Hammersmith & City train the wrong way down the tracks, weeks after the media mostly ignored the runaway Northern Line train.
The director of Stratford Westfields shopping mall thinks that Stratford needs international trains to stop at its white elephant international station — that “international commuters” are vital for its development…
Speaking of white elephants — that absurd cable car suggestion to cross the river between the Dome and Silvertown? They’re still seriously talking about building the thing…
Councils are switching off their street lights to save money. Expect a rise in traffic accidents and violent crime and robbery — but that’s OK ‘cos the costs of those won’t be on the council’s books.
Every tabloid hack knows that students these days are just taught how to pass exams, rather than the stuff they’ll need to know out in the real world. Turns out that this is just as true of learner drivers — but the authorities are trying to change that, starting with the removal of test routes from the internet.
As Sustrans opens an alternative coast-to-coast route, the government is being asked to remember what a good investment proper cycling infrastructure is. The most entertaining reminder is Christian Wolmer’s epic letter to the Minister for Miscellaneous Non-Rail Non-Car Transport (or whatever his title is).
Lambeth Palace has collided with a bus.
Three-mile, £105 million motorway will provide “attractive gateway” to Port Talbot.
Durham know that a weak “congestion charge” that’s in single figures — whether £2 or £9 — is never going to be effective. The only proven way to get cars off the streets is the destroy them.
There’s a violent thief on SouthEastern trains.
That was quick: the visit-all-docking-stations-in-a-day challenge has already been successfully completed.
Tory councillors say stupid things about cycling and road danger shock.
A Cincinnati woman is arrested for an “equipment violation“, while a Carlisle woman on the motorway does it the old fashioned way.
The M42 was closed by a poorly horse.
Ho ho. Florida man arrested for “arguing with bicycle“.
Your moment of zen, Driving Fail via Boing Boing:
Weekly War Bulletin, 4 Sep
How to shift modal share to cycling? Shut down the tube. TfL say commuters should get on their bikes during the strikes that start today.
Prince Charles has another brilliant idea: a national tour to say nice things about cycling. But how to get around such a big and difficult to traverse country as the UK? How about a £100k private train? “‘Peep peep,’ said Charles the Mental Engine to Thomas, as he was pulling Annie and Clarabel on the 08:27 stopping service to Birmingham New Street. ‘Get out of my fucking way. Don’t you know who I am?'”
A professor of marketing has discovered that sad non-cyclists envy us awesome cyclists. This is not news. One only needs to watch all the cabbies, bikers, and white van men sat in the advanced stop lane for cyclists at the lights, desperately hoping that people will see their position and mistake them for a cool bicyclist.
And from the desk of Professor Obvious: drivers are not very good at driving when they are angry.
We were supposed to be able to use hire bikes without a subscription and key around about now. TfL now say casual users won’t be allowed to have a go until the new year.
And with other important transport projects being mothballed, scaled back, and dropped entirely, rumours are flying that Boris, fearing that the electorate will take it out on him, might give up and seek to return to Parliament, to represent Londoners as a back bench trouble maker.
Oxfordshire towns and villages can rent their own speed cameras for £5000 a year, after a residents’ backlash against the county’s cameras being switched off.
The motorways are full, and the M6 toll road has failed to solve the congestion problem around Birmingham, because Motorists will not pay for a road when there is a free one going to the same place.
Want to get to your destination three minutes quicker? You can now take advantage of a new convenient fast-track level-crossing service from the British Judiciary, where you can put the lives of hundreds of people in danger for the competitive price of just £50. Payment may be made by direct debit; no need to turn up in person to pay. On days when revenue enforcement officers are unavailable, the service is free.
Police arrest drunk driver; crash his supercar into garden. Heh.
London-Frankfurt direct trains are moving into the testing phase; but intra-national high-speed rail is going to face hiking nimbys.
Finally, your moment of zen: a cyclist with a reckless disregard for his own safety — where is his helmet?
Weekly War Bulletin, 21 Aug
As yet more counties have to switch off their speed cameras, a study from the Department of The Obvious finds that more people are speeding where the cameras have been switched off.
This week’s cold hard news, though, is all about how some rich sportsman drove an absurdly inappropriate vehicle into central Manchester and got a parking ticket from a mean looking unrepentant traffic warden. When you make millions of pounds a week, you can afford to do what you like with our streets. “Supercar” drivers (for some reason I can’t read that word without thinking, I’m super, thanks for asking…) in Westminster just chuck their parking tickets away as they leave the country. A fellow footballer demonstrates that in a country which punishes homicidal behaviour with £60 fines, millionaires will happily keep on behaving homicidally until you confiscate their weapons. And a TV actor is released on bail and presumably allowed to continue driving his BMW after giving a pedestrian serious head injuries and driving away without stopping.
There’s another type of person who likes to drive in London. In Peckham, a shop has collided with a BMW, killing its driver, who was in his 30s. Hmm.
Motorists whine about having their human right to park wherever they bloody want being infringed. Except that the government have this week ended the war on the motorist! Hooray! Motorists right to park on your front lawn, in your business’ front yard, or, indeed, on any part of a pavement that is technically private land, has been enshrined in law. Only IanVisits dissents.
Sounds about right: on average, one child in every class is killed or seriously injured by a motor vehicle before they can leave school. Kids in rich London boroughs are safer. Hey, it’s just the necessary price we pay for our modern quality of life…
It’s OK though: authorities and businesses around Holborn are taking seriously the dangerous anti-social behaviour on our streets: they’re setting their private armies of wannabe cops on anti-social cyclists. Previously, London’s battalions of private security guards were able to keep themselves busy tackling the threats posed by tourists, train spotters and press photographers. Now that the EU has ruled that owning a camera is not an act of terrorism, security have had to find a new threat to neutralise, and a new set of laws to make up. Look forward to being hassled by people who think it’s illegal to ride without a helmet, or who tell you that they will call the police if you don’t stay within the advisory cycle lane, because as a private security guard they know the law and that is the law.
As the Lib Dems join the fight over just who it was that had the idea to install hire bikes, we find that one in six of them aren’t even in use yet, because installation of docking stations in some of the posher parts of town has been held up by people who are worried that they will take road space away from their Mercedes.
Ready for the next round of train fare increases? The Secretary of State for Motoring Transport could abolish the cap of 1% above inflation increases, in the hope that more expensive train fares will mean higher fares revenue, and less need to subsidise the trains. Like it does on the, er, very expensive but empty SouthEastern bullet trains from St Pancras to Kent, which have already had to be subsidised by exempting SouthEastern’s conventional services from the 1% cap. All sound a bit complicated and surreal? That’s train fares.
Another reason we must build HS2: how else will people get to London Birmingham Airport on time for their flight to Edinburgh? It’s not like they can use Heathrow, given how awful the shopping is there.
Local train in Suffolk hits a sewage tanker, whose driver thought that getting his sewage to its destination a couple of minutes quicker was more important than the life and limb of 21 train passengers and staff.
Your moment of zen: bear gets stuck in car! (via Boing Boing)
Weekly War Bulletin, 14 Aug
A slightly delayed one, as I just caught up with the newsfeeds after returning from Beijing — of which more later this week.
The justice system’s response to killing somebody by driving a car over the speed limit in a residential area as an unsupervised learner driver? Eight weeks curfew and £85 legal costs. A curfew.
It’s alright, though. A car insurance company tells us that all our transport problems can be solved if everyone on the roads just shows each other a bit of respect.
The Chief of Cambridgeshire Police agrees: driving offences are the middle classes’ anti-social behaviour of choice. I propose reforming the legal treatment of anti-social driving such that motoring offences come with a simple easy to assign ASBO that indefinitely bans the Motorist from going within one mile of a motor vehicle.
But the hundreds of pedestrians killed by cars? Pffft. They were probably listening to iPods, so they’ve really only got themselves to blame, shows research by Motorist lobby group.
Anti-social Motorists caught by the dwindling traps are electing to sit through re-education programmes to save themselves from points. But the ultimate natural alternative traffic calming has now been discovered: carefully positioned trees.
I have no interest in cycling as a competitive sport, and apparently a competitive sportsman cyclist who I’m informed is accomplished in the field has no interest in cycling outside of the velodrome, preferring to race around in his jag without looking where he’s going.
More farce on the tube as failure to follow safety procedures leads to a runaway engineering train chasing panicked passenger trains for four miles. And boss Peter Hendy jokes that tube staff haven’t got enough to do: ho ho ho, look at you all, nothing to do, he he, I may as well have you all fired. Hah.
With record passenger numbers, Heathrow is clearly full: the T3 drop-off had a 5-car crash.
Spoilt brats play smash the toys in Knightsbridge; charged with dangerous driving. It’s alright, just a bit of fun, don’t worry, we’ll pay somebody to clear up afterwards.
Allegedly more people are cycling. Or they’re cycling a tiny bit further. Or they’re buying new bikes, at least. The CTC are celebrating this historic victory.
Where have all the hire bicycles gone? Try this map.
Careful with these hire bikes, though. After they arrived in Denver, the Republican candidate for state governor uncovered the bikes’ role in an internationalist anti-American plot.
Posh South Bank restaurants want riff-raff on bikes banned from the riverside.
While the train operating companies want to know if you’d be interested in hiring a bike from their stations…
There’s a bug in the oyster system: TfL don’t seem to have worked out quite why it’s double charging some customers when they top up — and don’t seem all that bothered about finding out.
Finally, while I’d usually hate anything that came out of a marketing department on principle, I’ve been suckered into giving free marketing to the creators of this ad. Your moment of zen…
Weekly War Bulletin, 7 Aug
The big news this week is that the government has put dogma ahead of practical economic policy by scrapping their support for speed cameras; Oxford were first to switch off their cameras, and now many more are following. Everybody knows that the sole purpose of speed cameras was to rake in gazillions of pounds, which local police forces got to pocket. Without central government financial support for the camera schemes, the local police will have no money to pay for them. The logic is watertight. I don’t know how the government experts have failed to follow it, when so many Motorists in the comment threads have.
Meanwhile, get out of a driving ban free, by blaming your nine points worth of speeding on your dead mother.
Hit and run driver leaves cyclist lying on Bracknell roundabout; Motorists following just drive on past.
Here’s a car that runs on shit. This pretty much sums up Britain’s approach to solving transport problems: come up with ever more absurd but headline catching ideas that give a vague impression that people are thinking hard about the problem and working tirelessly on clever solutions. Quietly step around the real causes of the problems. Recycle the same solution and news stories every three to five years.
East London councils are queuing up to pave over their playing fields for, er, Olympic Games VIP car parks. What a fabulous celebration of sport these Olympics will be.
Croydon chavs throw baby under bus.
Tut. How dare a minority section of the London population go around believing that they are entitled to vast amounts of expensive dedicated infrastructure, on which they can speed around dangerously, imposing their smells upon the people around them. These bloody joggers should know their place.
Where have all the bicycles gone? To the Ukraine: gang of stolen bike exporters caught by GPS enabled decoys.
Sign language for “where’s the nearest tube?” mistaken for “I’m ganna push you on the tracks.” Deaf man ends up in court.
Oh yeah, remember that epidemic of Toyota braking problems? Just bad drivers blaming their tools.
Sustrans think that Bike Hire phase 2 money could be better spent “expanding potential” for cycling in the outer boroughs.
I’ll leave you with a page full of frickin awesome art deco trains:
Weekly War Bulletin, 31 July
Apparently some sort of new bicycle thing — a hire scheme of some sort — launched in London on Friday. After things got heated with an organised anti-bank stickering campaign, a man was arrested for kicking one of the poor things. And if we had known that usage on Friday would be free — and with hindsight, we probably should have expected it — we’d have taken one on the Mass.
The Olympic Road Network (the news have been misnaming it Route — all of the routes are in fact roads) has been confirmed: Park Lane, Embankment and Upper Thames Street are in. 25,000 “sponsors and their guests” will be able to use them, thus guaranteeing that the Olympics will not be ruined by the absence of “sponsors and their guests”. Some are already expressing their shock at hearing that even taxis will not be allowed to use them. We really have been expertly conditioned to believe that taxis have some sort of right push in and drive wherever they like. With the fine for “improper use” at £100 (or, in newspeak, £200 with a 50% discount if paid on time), a nicely flowing Olympic lane will no doubt prove very tempting to the sort of idiot who already thinks it’s a good idea to drive in the congestion charging zone.
Ho ho. Parking, eh? Harrods owners’ luxuary cars clamped on Knightsbridge. Kensington & Chelsea council have realised that a £70 fine means nothing to the sort of person who already thinks that it’s a good idea to drive into their borough, and so instead of a token fine that merely gives the fine payer the feeling of having paid for a service, K&C are taking away the children’s toys and making them stand in the corner.
Those new Victoria line trains that we’ve been expecting for three years turn out not to work perfectly first time. They shut down if you stand too close to the doors, and are therefore described as “23 times less reliable” than the old ones. Except, as London Reconnections points out, this won’t be a surprise to the engineers and project managers, who will know that this is how engineering projects work, and be ready with the fix right away.
Of a more long term concern to tube commuters should be the cuts to station staff, which this week are prompting strike ballots, and the Mayor’s great Air Con.
Meanwhile, talentless banjolele players accuse TfL of discrimination after being told they’re not good enough to play on the tube.
Bus firm repudiates last week’s racist abuse story.
Camera on world’s most blindingly obvious “Buses and taxis only” road rakes in £2 million from Motorists who get confused and think they’re a bus. I for one welcome this tax on the stupid.
The New West End Company have an artists impression of St Giles’ Circus after the Crossrail works are completed at the station below: a scene delightfully free from street furniture clutter, where pedestrians and cyclists meander about in the junction, while buses, whose motion blur implies quite some speed, plough through them. Most depressingly of all, they tell us that the Queen musical will still be playing a decade from now.
Finally, after Tom Hall suggested six uses for a hire bike, your moment of zen: the author demonstrates how a 20kg hire bike can be a complete replacement for a gym membership:
Weekly War Bulletin, 24 July
TfL aren’t happy about delays to the cycle-hire scheme. I’d have thought TfL would have bigger contractor fuckups to get upset about — implementation of the bike hire scheme looks fabulously competent compared to most transport projects.
Speaking of which, TfL have resorted to banning colour photocopies and first-class mail, in order to save every penny. Network Rail, though, seem happy to chuck another £600k bonus at boss Iain Coucher, with the DfT actively stepping back from the matter.
Kids in Slough are shining laser pens at aeroplanes; kids near King’s Cross are chucking rubble at sub-surface line trains. Woman with veil thrown off Russell Square bus; Metroline investigate.
Hammersmith & City line closed for three weeks in order to demolish a taxi rank at Paddington in preparation for Crossrail. That’s, erm, the war on taxis? No engineering work during the olympics, though. The IOC and olympics organisers have decided that they can cause enough disruption by themselves.
Regeneration plans at Wembley include a residential and retail development focussed on a street that people will be expected not to drive on. That’s the war on the motorist, that is.
Weekly War Bulletin, 17 July
A slightly delayed round-up of the week’s news, and it’s all about the cycling infrastructure as the Cycle “Superhighways” open (and are already ripped up by the utilities), and the first bikes arrive in the cycle hire stations (despite the best efforts of Mayfair toffs to keep the noisy congestion-causing machines away). Similarly effective infrastructure projects around the country, including the opening of the bridge-to-nowhere in Cardiff; the cancellation of the 10% of Hartlepool’s transport budget that had been allocated to cycling; and in Portsmouth, a woman has been killed by a bus while cycling along what would have been a cycleway, if budgets hadn’t been cut. And so the police have effectively endorsed cycling on pavements for children.
Meanwhile, the LCC are complaining that all this guard rail removal has led to shortage of bike parking spaces. And at ITN, Gray’s Inn Road, Jon Snow’s bike was stolen in the middle of the afternoon.
That billowing black smoke over town on wednesday? Just some parked cars on the Mall in a spontaneous combustion incident.
The absurdity of the useless legal sanctions for dangerous driving was highlighted by the fine for dropping a cigarette end being double that for driving into somebody. Spoilt brats who thought it a jolly caper to drive through France at 150 mph received fines well over £1,000, and the confiscation of their £100,000 toys.
Do take a look at the BBC’s tour of the abandoned St Mary’s tube in Whitechapel. Meanwhile, the tube cooling budget has been cut, and longer trains have driven DLR staff to call a strike for friday.
Looking to decimate cut costs at the BBC? The place to start would surely be the £5,000 flights and £500 taxi rides.
A tree has collided with an intercity train in the west country. Reports indicate that the tree was at fault.
Change doesn’t happen by polite dialogue. It happens when the backward grow old and die off. These kids will win the war by growing up free from a deep commitment to car dependency.
Your moment of zen: Cycle Superhighway 3, by diamond geezer, CC By-NC, click to embiggen:
Weekly War Bulletin, 10 July
This week, a driver was shot dead in rush hour traffic in Cricklewood. There’s no word on whether this was gangland drama, personal feud, or just the normal behaviour of city drivers, amplified by the presence of one additional lethal weapon. Police closed the Hendon Way for a “fingertip search”.
Police in Barking are just “investigating” the violent killing of a baby.
It just goes to show what a terrible effect this war on the Motorist is having when the fire brigade are beaten by the bike. The bicycling heroes of the Clapham Common fire are a sign of Wandsworth’s “traffic misery” — “misery” that is to continue, as a development project that would have included fixing up the “bottleneck” one-way system was vetoed by the communities minister merely because it would “harm the character of the area”. Philip Hammond should surely have a word in his ear about this blatant act of war on the Motorist.
Except! What’s this? Phillip Hammond, he who claims to want to put an end to the war on the Motorist, is trying to give more power to the Vehicle & Operator Services Agency to stop and punish Motorists and Motorist companies.
Highways Agency engineers working on widening the M25 (“to reduce congestion”) are having to waste time — time that they could be spending building roads — putting in fences and hedges to protect a St Albans naturist club from the noise. “We’re not closing,” shouted the militants from their trampolines. “We’ll never close, we’re here to stay forever, whatever life throws at us”.
A cabbie is reported to have had a “lucky escape” after being doored by Beyonce Knowles in her Mercedes outside Harrods. A lucky escape from what?
Rest your eyes on the new Picadilly line trains (due 2012).
Last week we reported that finances for Crossrail were safe. But a week is a long time in politics…
The CPRE have investigated the cycling “revolution” in London and discovered, er, there isn’t one.
Lollipop ladies are to get spy cams in their lollipops to catch Motorists who think it’s fine to drive over children. The comments on the Daily Mail article are certainly up to the high standard that we have come to expect. “However, this would make mean making the little darlings wait sometimes, and of course we can’t be destroying the idea that our cute little precious kiddies have to have everything Right Now Instantly, can we?” Oh you took the words right out of my mouth, Batman (if that is your real name).
And the Daily Mail is similarly conflicted over who to side with in the story of the primary school kids cycling to school unsupervised. They’re nice upper middle class kids in Dulwich! But they’re cycling, and on the pavements! But it’s two fingers to the interfering politically correct health and safety nanny state! But, but…
Spies! Stealth taxes! Those NuLiebour Big Brother councils are fighting dirty with conspicuous CCTV smart cars.
Meanwhile, in the regions…
Two children have been crushed to death by powered gates in gated communities designed for people who are paranoid about car theft.
The famously Motorist persecuting Bristol City Council, administrators over a city that, er, consistently has the highest and most debilitating car dependency of any major city in the UK outside of London, are fighting the war on the Motorist by removing a whole 12 city centre parking spaces (out of thousands) in order to install cycle stands.
Finally, your moment of zen, via Boing Boing, the Singapore fail train:
Weekly War Bulletin, 3 July
US Embassy nearing £3 million in unpaid congestion charge fines. Afghanistan owes nearly £35,000 to the boroughs in parking tickets. The diplomats claim immunity from paying these taxes. Because unlike water and electricity, for which they are presumably required to pay, the highway is not provided as a service, it’s a human right.
Motorists are being asked how much they should be fined for breaking the rules. In other news, turkeys promised referendum on christmas. They haven’t done much of a job of promoting their “consultation”, but I think I’ve tracked down the instructions here, should any of our readers wish to have their say.
In the Highlands, councillors are getting on their bikes to save money. The Highlands. That’s the council with the lowest population density in the UK; the biggest mountains; the convoluted coastline and isolated islands; the long wide trunk roads to nowhere; the few, slow railway lines; with harbour towns at the end of fifty mile roads and scattered crofts on single track lanes, a hundred miles from the county town. And there are councillors in London who think it not inappropriate to drive a car around town.
Having beautified the M40 last week, 25 tonnes of rubbish on the railway at Banbury were the next target for those seeking to keep the home counties looking perfect.
Private train operating companies are asking the government to allow them to fight over the scraps of public money left to the railways. Those that loose out can always fall back on the confusing fares fraud to raise revenue.
What did they expect of a man from Yeovil?
Allegedly there is anger at Edinburgh airport introducing a £1 — a whole one pound — charge for using their drop-off car park. That’s the war on the Motorist, that is.
Wi-fi going down the tube? Haven’t they been saying these things for years? Surely it will get cut off under the terms of the digital economy act anyway? And only at stations? What use is that?
Three day 200 mile journey on free bus pass.
In the Congo, a speeding oil tanker driver has been involved in a collision with a village, killing 200.
The “Road Safety Foundation”, front for the AA and road lobby, gets free publicity with claim that road safety has been achieved by road construction — but that more needs to be done.
Searching the news for “crash” is an eye opener. Just a small selection of those from this week… Three year old has severe facial injuries after crash. Elsewhere, another has head injuries. Nine year old cyclist collides with car in Perterborough. Pedestrian collides with lorry in Berkshire. Van shares the road in Manchester. Bin-man dies after bungalow collides with rubbish truck in Kent. Tree collides with car in Warwickshire. Tractor collides with lorry in Essex. Railway bridge collides with double-deck school bus in Flintshire. It’s not the only Welsh bridge playing up: there are calls for a new bridge to be constructed after a pesky grade II listed crossing has repeatedly collided with lorries and then demanded accurate reconstruction. In Staffordshire, another grade II listed bridge has been involved in a similar incident with an 80 year old driver. And a lorry/bridge collision in Cambridgeshire. In Ealing, shopping centre roof collides with Mercedes in innocent mix-up between brake and accelerator. Tyneside metro train hits car. Milk tanker crashes in Wiltshire, spilling its load. Impaled Motorist saved by four-leaf clover. Lorry driver arrested for death of teenager. Lorry driver arrested for death of biker. Taxi driver charged for death by dangerous driving. Drivers charged for deaths of pensioners. Sir Ranulph Fiennes charged after driver seriously injured. Traffic cop in court after causing death with sports car. Fireman in court for crash on emergency call. Farmer jailed for causing death by trailer. Two year ban is the penalty for driving into pregnant woman; lorry driver who killed school kid also “spared” prison. And finally, another cyclist hit by a truck from the Shard building site.
Just a small sample of the more interesting stories from the week. For every one of them there is a straightforward death-on-the-road story.
But the BBC’s Nick Bryant has been exploring solutions to dangerous roads. Pedestrians need to look where they’re going, he finds. Stop listening to music, taking phone calls, talking to people, and looking around at the scenery; and don’t whatever you do try walking after a drink. In other news, those seeking to end rape announce that the solution is for women to cover up and stay indoors.
Your moment of zen:
Weekly War Bulletin, 19 June
Previously, Jag-driving cycle-fearing new Secretary of State for Transport Philip Hammond candidly told interviewers that his teenage son had asked him, “so, ah, what is the point of your job?” Politics Home is now reporting that he has been candidly telling interviewers for The Spectator that not being a Lib Dem is the only possible reason he didn’t get a real job, the job of the moment, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It’s almost as though he wishes he weren’t Secretary of State for Transport. That’s one thing we’re all agreed on, at least. (Tip of the hat to Railway Eye)
However, the power hungry petrol head did find time amongst all the other Very Important Things that transport secretaries do to end the speculation over whether the new government would drop tools on Crossrail: they’ve promised carry on and finish the whole thing. Just not said when by. Presumably this means that it’s Thameslink upgrade, Great Western electrification, and HS2 that get cut instead. (HT to London Reconnections)
Luckily, the economics boffins advising the government have developed a cunning plan for saving money on running trains. It’s all about supply and demand, see. If demand outstrips supply, you’ve got to do something to bring the two back into line. The boffins suggest that the way to do that with rain travel is to rip out the seats. Perfect! Make trains even more crap and demand is bound to fall back into line with supply. Even better, raise the fares by 7%. If that doesn’t get ’em back in their cars, what will?
Meanwhile, we find ourselves unlikely allies of the Daily Mail, who report that even in the age of the economy drive there’s still one publicly funded ministerial limo left in Westminster. It belongs to one David Miliband, who has been clocking up the miles on the campaign trail, and allegedly leaving it on the double yellows while he pops out for some hand-shaking and baby-kissing amongst the party members.
Also, pity the poor hard done by driver as there are more new calls for a reduction to the drink-drive limit — do check out the wonderfully vacuous and inarticulate statement from the not-even-entertaining-anymore Association of British Drivers, who were brave enough to take a stand against those who will take away the right of the humble Motorist to go out and kill somebody of a Friday evening. And then there are the trials of countdown displays on pedestrian crossing lights. These should be fun: pedestrians have been so well trained by drivers to think that the phase when the green man and the amber traffic light are both flashing is a phase designated for rapid acceleration of vehicles, and now traffic planners have decided to make the situation more interesting by re-training pedestrians to think that they can still safely step out into the road just at that moment when drivers are eyeing the amber light with their feet poised.
Meanwhile, in the provinces…
York has decided against having congestion charging, in favour of “improving public transport and making walking and cycling more attractive”. Staff at Dulux are on standby for a large order of blue and red from the city council as I write.
Pavement cyclists in Norfolk. Tut. More on these later.
Look at these unsporting fellows in Manchester, installing average-speed cameras. That’s basically a war crime. Everyone knows that average-speed cameras take all the thrill out of speeding without getting caught. The comments are, as ever, entertaining.
Cyclist rides naked through Suffolk village. “We don’t have this sort of thing in Acton.” Nope, I tellin’ ee, that’s the sorta nonsense them there folk up London way gets up to, with their disgusten by-cyclen ways.
Sustrans claims huge success in getting kids to cycle to school. The people of Northamptonshire must be shocked and appalled. There, the council’s opposition Labour group think it’s an absolute disgrace to suggest that kids should be doing something so dangerous as cycling, and want a stop put to it at once.
In Wales, man with mentally crippling micropenis condition desperately seeking some sense of purpose but running out of ways to try finding it.
And finally, secret recordings leaked from the BP boardroom, here re-enacted by actors:
At War With The Motorist 