London cycling deaths

[Martin Cassini]

In London this evening there was a mass bike ride to mark the recent deaths of three cyclists: David Vilaseca, 46, Haris Ahmed, 21, and Shivon Watson, 28. The aim is "to raise awareness of the dangers that lorries pose to cyclists". Ms Watson's father, Maxwell, said, "I am very grateful to them for highlighting how bad the traffic is in London and how irresponsible drivers are." It might seem harsh to be critical when death and bereavement are involved, but it seems to me the point is being missed. It's the system itself which makes roads dangerous. If it were run according to social custom rather than engineered regulation, people would be watching and interacting with each other rather than watching and reacting to signals. Then "accidents" such as these would cease.

[kevaquarian]

Any campaign which butts up against the 'concrete-minded' control of the ruling powers (and the "trickle-down" through the hierarchy) will be an uphill struggle. There will be some people involved that are looking to move forward and are open to progressive thinking, and there will be an (often hidden) influence from those with a vested interest to keep things as they are - dysfunctional. It's a major result just to see even some councils agreeing to do the trials, and it's frustrating that Martin was not taken on as adviser while they were implemented. Again, this smells of the push-pull of trying to get something progressive like this through the system.

[Martin Cassini]

The official reason for these "accidents" is that they occurred on the blind side of trucks. My hunch is that a combination of factors is involved, including stop-start traffic control, concentration on the control system rather than the road, eyes on lights rather than other road-users, road design and the rules of the road that support a culture of priority at the expense of common law principles of equal rights and responsibilities (granting ownership of the carriageway to vehicles, licensing them to plough on at inappropriate speeds regardless who was there first, neglecting the needs and safety of others, especially vulnerable road-users) - the whole sorry mess. The Portishead and Bristol lights-off trials which I helped instigate were conducted without me, and without adopting my advice to include other essential ingredients, among them a public awareness campaign to communicate a "new" culture of equality, plus (even temporary) roadway redesign to express that equality, and legal changes that would put the onus for road safety on the motorist rather than the pedestrian. - The closest I've come to a manifesto is probably the piece I wrote quite a while ago (needs reworking), which can be found at the More tab on the FiT Roads website. I ought to re-do the site, maybe combine it with this ...

[David Neylan]

What were the causes of these accidents and how did road design contribute?

Traffic in London really is a nightmare, exacerbated by the out of date traffic management measures that have been applied.

For us out here in a small town it is an uphill struggle to oppose the march of increasing micro-management of the town by misguided local officials. We are discussing one or two junctions locally, how many more are there in the cities? Where do you start?

While I read the blog and mostly agree I can't help but ask what are the guiding principles here?
The FiT roads is a good starting point but what is the manefesto?

Government both national and local have policy documents, though they don't seem to follow them, where is the amberlight paper?

While Portishead and Bristol are encouraging examples of a move away from traffic lights. Have the pedestrians been left out, as the vehicle dominance of the junction(s) remains?