Merton High Street

Merton Council have been busy putting cycle facilities on Merton High Street.

Let's see what they've been up to. A word of warning first: don't get your hopes up.

Above, looking east just before the Savacentre, you can see it's not so much cycle lanes as car parking. Why not make the lanes mandatory? Because, as on the CSH7 which starts a little bit further on at Colliers Wood, car parking is deemed more important, so the lanes are only any use for a few hours on weekdays. (Now it is worth pointing out that this is not necessarily all Merton's fault, because this is a TfL route and changes to parking restrictions would be subject to a traffic order and signed off by them. So TfL have some responsibility as do the Coalition for not abolishing this red tape. But ultimately this is Merton's scheme, so in my view the buck stops with them.)

Moving a little further east, just behind the grey car in the first picture there is the bus stop for Savacentre, pictured above. Here, the westbound cycle lane disappears.

East of the Savacentre, at the approach to the dangerous junction at Colliers Wood, there are no cycle lanes at all in either direction. This is actually where you most need them.

Things improve a little at the Haydons Road junction westbound. Here there is an advisory lane that leads into a lane on the pavement and it seems this will enable you to bypass the lights. This is the highlight in an otherwise pretty useless scheme.

Above, on the eastbound side of the same junction though, there is nothing. The twin traffic lanes are retained, and you'll notice there's a guaranteed left-hook if you stay to the left. There's an ASL but no lead-in lane, which is pretty useless.

At Nelson Road, you'll need the courage of the great admiral because the cycle lane swerves around some parking spaces, and the lane is right in the dooring zone so you're best advised 'taking the lane', where you'll no doubt get honked at by motorists who can't figure out why you're not in the perfectly good cycle lane paid for by their taxes.

On the other side, at Pincott Road, the pavement lane gives way to a side street: after all, motor traffic is more important so must get priority.

Above, the pavement lane continues past a crossing. You'll notice the pavement is obstructed here by some street furniture so there's potential for conflict with pedestrians.

Above, a little further west the pavement lane ends, well before the dangerous South Wimbledon junction, requiring you to merge into two lanes of westbound traffic. This really hasn't been thought through.

On the opposite side there is a lane, but it is narrow and alongside car parking, so unless you fancy a 'dooring' you're best off in the main carriageway.

So in summary, there is clearly not much joined-up thinking going on at Merton Council. This scatty, ill-conceived scheme might have been par for the course a decade ago, but given that Merton is bidding for the 'Mini Holland' cash, it simply isn't good enough. Narrow, intermittent, part-time advisory lanes right alongside car parking endangers cyclists and does not help them. Segregated paths are great, but not when they give way to side streets and spit you out into fast-moving traffic.
The only thing to be said for this scheme is the lanes do something to help keep space free for cyclists to pass on the left of the congestion which is commonplace on this road. But it won't attract any new cyclists, or do anything to improve the safety of the junctions. So as such this scheme is a waste of money. Money that could instead have been spent on Dutch-style infrastructure that people will actually use. Instead we've got something from the palette of discredited solutions that is out-of-date as soon as it's been built. Something that doesn't speak well of Merton's understanding of cycling and will do it no favours with the judges of the Mini-Holland bids.

Sir Chris Hoy Fails

Reported in The Times, the government have turned down Sir Chris Hoy's offer to become a national cycling tzar.

A government spokesman commented, "Sir Chris is completely unsuitable as he has a long track record of delivery and success at a world-class level, and this is not aligned with our ambitions for cycling".

A Tale of Two Collisions

An interesting juxtaposition of stories in the Standard today.

First one: Nicole Kidman beeing "KO'd by a pavement cyclist" in New York. By which they mean knocked down - Kidman is not reported as sustaining any injury. She is reported as being "shaken up" by the experience. A 19-year-old cyclist had been issued with "three summonses for riding a bike on the sidewalk, riding a bike with no helmet and reckless endangerment".

Second one: Cyclist Chrishan Mathias, 28, was hit by a minicab. He "was pulled under the vehicle and had one of its wheels run over his head when it shot across a junction and veered into his path as he cycled home from work." He suffered suffered a dislocated ankle, broken sternum and ribs, bruised lung and lacerated liver, spent 5 weeks off work and is still undergoing physiotherapy. But for his helmet, which was broken in two in the collision, he might well have died. The report says (now get this), "police are due to decide in the New Year whether the minicab driver should be charged with a driving offence." The incident does not seem to have been reported at the time it happened in March, and it appears that it has been picked up by the Standard after being revealed by the London air ambulance team, who attended the stricken rider.

You might want to sign this.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this, it has been reported that the 'cyclist' in the Kidman story was actually a paparazzo photographer. Which makes the predictable anti-cyclist rants in the Standard troll-comments section seem a bit lame.

Speed Does Not Cause Accidents

This is the bombshell headline reported by the BBC in its report on  this debate on the Today progamme between Prof. Stephen Glaister of the RAC Foundation, a respected transport research organization, and Claire Armstrong, who does not represent a respected transport research organization - at least, not if your definition of "respected transport research organization" includes the willingness to subject your research to peer review by others in the field or get it published by relevant academic journals. She represents "Safe Speed", who are, it appears, an organization  representing people who simply don't want to believe that speed causes road collisions, makes them more likely and makes the consequences of them worse. According to George Monbiot, it is a "a lobby group claiming to stand for one thing [road safety], but in reality standing for its opposite [the removal of both speed limits and their means of enforcement]"

Such people, it seems, are prepared to indulge in all manner of cherry-picking of evidence and bad science to "prove" that "speed does not cause accidents", when there is a positive tsunami of evidence not just from this country but from all around the world that the opposite is the case. In the debate, Armstrong parroted "regression to the mean" as if this alone means that 2+2 actually equals 3. Glaister pointed out that the RAC's report does take account of regression to the mean (as you'd expect from any statistical analysis worth its salt).

Armstrong also suggested that speed was a factor in only 6% of accidents. The Transport Research Laboratory dispute this, according to this source:

"The factors involved [in collisions] include, as TRL have pointed out to ABD and others on numerous occasions, more than one causation which would relate to speed. For example, Loss of control of vehicle, Failed to avoid vehicle/object in carriageway, the top two 'precipitating factors', will both be strongly influenced by speed."

I deconstructed Safe Speed's website a couple of years ago in a series of posts:

http://cycalogical.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/anti-speed-camera-arguments-1-deaths.html
http://cycalogical.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/anti-speed-camera-arguments-2.html
http://cycalogical.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/anti-speed-camera-arguments-3.html
http://cycalogical.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/anti-speed-camera-arguments-4-attitude.html
http://cycalogical.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/anti-speed-camera-arguments-5.html

If anyone at the BBC is reading this I suggest you take a look before you invite these people onto your programmes and give them equal billing with someone who has any more credibility on the subject of road safety than Donald Duck. How much is the license fee again?

60MPH Rural Tracks

Joe Wilkins was a family man, a firefighter, a father of two, and by all accounts a universally well-liked man.

He was killed on his bike, by a Ford Focus travelling at 60MPH, on an unrestricted (60MPH) road, Eaton Road, near Appleton in Oxfordshire.

Here is an image of the road:


View Larger Map

As you can see this is a narrow country road. The collision happened at 9:20PM on May 24th 2012. Sunset would have been at 9PM, so there would likely still have been some natural light. It appears Wilkins' bike had no lights or reflectors. The exact point the collision occurred isn't stated in the reports I've seen.

At 60MPH, things happen pretty quickly. You do not have much time to see and react to any hazards, such as pedestrians or cyclists, who may be hidden temporarily from view. For example, in the image above, there is a slight right-hand deviation in the road that limits visibility. It is roughly 350 feet from the speed limit sign to the limit of visibility. The stopping distance for a car in the dry from 60MPH is 240 feet. So that leaves 110 feet - that's just over a second at 60MPH - spare. With a typical flashing cycle light, it will probably take a couple of flashes for even an alert driver to register the presence of a cyclist, so there really is very little margin for error, even under ideal conditions. Now consider that these figures may be optimistic. If a cyclist is travelling towards the driver at 20MPH, not unlikely with a fit rider on a level road, the distance in which a driver would have to react and stop is significantly reduced.

It seems pretty clear to me that driving at 60MPH on this type of road even on a well-lit day is not safe. At night, while eating a sandwich, that's got to qualify as dangerous, doesn't it? Well, in the UK justice system, apparently not.

In 2010, 49% of UK road deaths took place on single-carriageway rural roads with a 60MPH limit. According to Ralph Smyth, chair of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, "It seems strange that you've got minor roads, often that are just tarmaced tracks, that have a speed limit of 60mph - just 10mph less than the motorways."

We agree.

Half of Londoners say Roads are Too Dangerous

According to a survey for London Councils reported by London24, half of Londoners would cycle more if road safety were improved.

In other news, bears crap in the woods, the Pope is a Catholic, and Eric Pickles enjoys the occasional pie.

The Gospel

1. In the beginning there were Roads, and there were Bicycles. And the Bicycles dwelt on the Roads. And there was peace in the land.

2. Then unto the Land came Motor Vehicles. They went forth and multiplied, and became strong in number, and mighty, and spread throughout the Land.

3. And the anger of the Motor Vehicles was terrible to behold. The Motor Vehicles slew many men, and the women and children were sore afraid.

4. The people did hunger and thirst after justice.

5. There came forth into the land Prophets, who did offer to banish the evil of Cycle-Death from the land. They painted Lines upon the Road. But the people saw the paint did not protect them.

6. There came forth into the Land other Prophets, and counselled the People to disguise themselves in silken raiments of many colours and ride amongst the Motor Vehicles. But the worshippers of the Motor Vehicles mocked the people, and drove them from the land.

7. Still the women and children were sore afraid, and the people did hunger and thirst after justice.

8. There came forth a Prophet named Boris. He promised to lead the People upon a True Path called Superhighway.

9. Boris declared that the colour of the Superhighway should be blue and would have great powers of healing and protection between the hours of 7AM and 10AM and between 4PM and 7PM excluding the Sabbath, which should be a day of rest.

10. Boris addressed the people. "Cycle in Numbers and in thy Numbers, there shall be Safety. Be not afraid, and keep thy wits about thee!"

11. But the people, especially the women and children, saw the power of the Motor Vehicles was still great in the land, and was not diminished, and they were still sore afraid, and they saw the blue paint did not protect them.

12. There came forth into the Land many Wise Bloggers. The Wise Bloggers wrote many scriptures about the promised land of Holland, and they called Boris a false prophet. They commanded that the people no longer worship painted idols.

13. The people gathered in great numbers, in the place that is called Embankment, and spake unto Boris. "Lead us to the promised land of Holland, if you are a true Prophet." Boris saw that the Wise Bloggers spoke the truth, and he again addressed the people. "I will lead you to the promised land of Holland, where possible".

14. Boris did summon Andrew of the tribe of Gilligan. On the first day, Andrew spoke with many powerful men. On the second day, Andrew made many plans. On the third, fourth and fifth day, he rested.

15. Er, that's it. We're still waiting...