Cycle Hire docking station locations

Don't bother going to the TfL map, there's still nothing marked on it (at the time of writing).

Someone else has done the legwork however, here.

Disclaimer - Not all the docking stations have been built yet - this is just a map of planned locations. I know for a fact that a good number of these don't exist yet, and it's got to be odds-on they won't exist on July 30. But the docking station fairies might still work their magic!

Kew Road, Richmond

Richmond Council have kindly provided a mandatory cycle lane on Kew Road (well, some of it anyway). Picture below.

The northbound lane's hours of operation are 8-10AM Mon-Sun - that's why it's full of parked cars. It's well-known that no cyclist cycles north outside these hours (except for that idiot in my picture), and after all, no-one would be able to visit Kew Gardens if they couldn't park for free on Kew Road. We can't have cars cluttering up the side-streets, and there's no public transport nearby, you see. Kew Gardens tube and national rail station is fully 400m away, and as for the buses, well no-one travels by bus, do they? You could get mugged and everything! And buses are so slow because of all the congestion (it's buses that cause congestion of course, not cars). So you have to come by car (you certainly wouldn't want to cycle, not with all those parked cars in the cycle lane). There's really not enough parking in fact. Kew Gardens really need to clear away some of those plants and put down some proper tarmac.

The southbound cycle lane has hours of operation 8AM-6:30PM Mon-Sun. All cyclists are home and tucked up in bed by 6:30PM you see, it's way past their bedtime. It's also very important that local people can park their cars on the street after that time, otherwise all sorts of bad things could happen.

Speed cameras - more BBC misreporting

BBC TV news this morning wrongly said that Swindon had 'removed its speed cameras'. It didn't. They're still there, but not switched on (see picture here). The BBC couldn't be bothered to do even basic research. There's a big difference between removing cameras and switching them off - if they're still there with the tell-tale 'ruler markings' on the carriageway, they still act as a deterrent to speeding.

However, the BBC also reports that Oxfordshire is going to switch off its 72 speed cameras.

This will at least result in a more realistic trial than Swindon, which switched off 6 speed cameras. As Road Safety Minister Mike Penning said: "This is another example of this government delivering on its pledge to end the war on the motorist." Quite right too. It's good to know that this policy is being led by such victims of the war as Swindon Borough Council's Rod Bluh, who said "As somebody who has been banned for speeding, I take speeding very seriously." (source) Speeding in Swindon went up during the trial, so we can look forward to motorists in Oxfordshire getting to their destinations much quicker. If a few people have to die, that's a price worth paying.

I think it's time we started a charity for the victims of the war against the motorist. These poor people, like victims of the Iraq and Afghan wars, deserve our sympathy. They probably suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after getting a £60 speeding ticket. I'm sick and tired of hearing about these moaning minnies complaining about being 'hit' by 'speeding' drivers who are merely asserting their basic human right of freedom of movement. We live in a compensation-culture nanny state where drivers are expected to pay for the fact that someone got injured by their own stupidity. They should've stayed indoors, or in a car, where it's much safer.

Barclays Cycle Hire - the Latest

In my last post on this subject, I was whingeing about the lack of information on TfL's website.
Well, you can indeed register for the scheme today, although I've not yet tried.
There's also a map of docking stations. However, there aren't any docking stations on it! Which rather indicates a lack of testing and a hasty roll-out. I know they exist because I've seen one on the corner of Whitehall Place and Northumberland Avenue, and another on the corner of The Strand and Craven Street.

There's also whingeing in the Standard about the cost: "£6 for two hours", it shrills, "the most expensive in Europe".(Maybe that's why it's sponsored by Barclays?) As I've pointed out before, this is rather missing the point. The first half-hour is free. You can ride from one side of the hire zone to the other in 30 minutes, and even if you can't, when you're near the time-limit you just dock your bike at the nearest docking station and take another one - the time-limit resets (apparently).
HOWEVER
I went for a walk up the Strand, to Covent Garden, to Shaftsbury Avenue, then Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square. All the kinds of places people visit, places I'd expect to see docking stations, but  I didn't see any. So I'm a little concerned that you could be riding around for a while racking up charges if you don't know London's streets or don't know where the docking stations are.

Swindon - the Death of Speed Cameras?

Speed cameras - do they work?

To be honest, I've not made my mind up yet on all the issues. I rather agree with James May when he says: "Speed cameras are obviously for making money and not for saving lives, but that's only because the fines aren't high enough. Obviously they're not, because people are still speeding. That's why they're getting nabbed."

But the only thing I learned from the BBC's news items on the subject was that the BBC are not worth the license fee.

The 'Taxpayers Alliance' (Tory right-wing in disguise) featured large, as did Swindon Coucillors, with little balancing opinion - no road safety organizations, just a police officer and someone from the Safety Camera Partnership (who stood to lose her job and looked a little upset). The assertion that 'only 5% of accidents are caused by speeding' went unchallenged (I'll get to that later). The BBC need to realise that this subject is not celebrity gossip. People ultimately live or die based on the quality of this debate. The BBC coverage gave the distinct impression that the death of the speed camera was a good thing.

That's why you need to read this blog.

I am not a particular fan of speed cameras. Their very ubiquity in London must have a moderating effect on speeds, but the one near my house certainly has a very localised effect. But the people who oppose speed cameras don't have a great story on what they're going to do instead.

The Swindon 'trial' reports that accident rates have not increased since speed cameras were turned off. However, it is a little premature to draw the conclusion that speed cameras have no effect on accident rates.

• Only 6 speed cameras in Swindon were turned off (source), and the tell-tale road 'ruler markings', signs  and the cameras themselves remained, albeit with a yellow hood: at a distance you a speeding motorist would have trouble telling the difference between the 'out-of-action' cameras and the real thing.
• Swindon is not a large area and the trial lasted just a year.
• There's a possibility of bias: the trial data has been produced by people with a vested interest in its success.

Two more points about the Swindon trial. 

1. Swindon, instead of investing in speed cameras, instead invested in engineering measures, signs and education. So, if it's true that cameras have no effect, you would expect the accident rate to have gone down, not stayed the same (assuming the other measures were successful)
2. Swindon's engineering, signs and education were paid for out of speed camera revenue. That means, if we got rid of all speed cameras, there would be rather less money for such measures. Because speed cameras are pretty much self-financing, you get a certain amount of 'free' road safety ( paid for by speeding motorists). So, if we follow Swindon's example, we'll have no speed cameras and less other safety measures (assuming the funding shortfall isn't made up by extra government grants - hardly likely in these austere times). You don't have to be Isaac Newton to figure out that's hardly a recipe for safer roads.

So let's take a very quick look at both some empirical evidence and some theory.

Theory first.

Speed both makes crashes more likely and more severe. The faster you drive, the less time you have to observe the road ahead and behind for hazards, and the less time you have to react to them. If you have less time to react and your initial speed is faster, your speed at impact will be faster. As any schoolchild knows, by Isaac Newton's laws, a faster impact involves more energy and hence a greater chance of death or serious injury.

What effect do speed cameras have? Firstly, you have to be either very unobservant, very distracted or driving fast to get caught, the cameras are so visible. So anyone who gets caught three times should, one could argue not be on the road - if three times you failed to see a 10-foot pole with a large yellow box on it, how many 5-foot children are you failing to see? The prospect of losing their license with another offence must focus the minds of those people.

Empirical evidence next.
According to Devon and Cornwall Safety Camera Partnership, "In the first two years of operation the number of injury collisions in this area has fallen by 27% and the number of people killed or seriously injured has reduced by 7%. However on those roads where cameras are used there has been a 44% reduction in crashes and a 17% reduction in casualties. Also the average speed of vehicles on the roads has reduced by 12% and the percentage of drivers exceeding the speed limit has been reduced from 64% to 33%."

London Underground: The Age of Steam

I was open-mouthed watching the BBC News last night when they were given a tour of the Edgware Road signal box. It's 85 years old, and spares have to be hand-made. There's still valve-based technology there. In fact, the word 'technology' probably hadn't been invented when it was designed by some bloke wearing a doublet and hose. No wonder the trains are never on time.

Of course, this was all propaganda by TfL, trying to give spending cuts the body-swerve. But short of showing little boys cleaning out the chimneys, it's hard to imagine a stronger case being made for capital investment.

London Cycle Hire Scheme delays

The London Cycle Hire scheme has been delayed (again).

The original start-date was delayed by about 2 months (see my previous post on this topic).

According to The Independent and other sources, bikes "will be available only to pre-registered members when the scheme is launched a week on Friday [i.e. July 30th]". In other words, casual users won't be able to use the scheme on its launch date.
I like to do a bit more in-depth research than the mainstream media, so I thought I might register. However, a quick visit to TfL's website reveals no way to register. If registration requires them to post you a key-card, and the web channel isn't up and running yet, they've left it a bit late, haven't they? You would expect the registration channels to be available by now if significant numbers of people are actually going to be in possesion of a key card on the launch date.
Which rather begs the question: will they launch a cycle hire scheme where no-one can actually hire a cycle on day one?
[UPDATE] The BBC say you can register from Friday 23rd July, although there's nothing on TfL's website that I could see. You might think they'd be keen to make the most of the launch, in which case all the channels would be in place and there's be advance publicity on their website. There's not even a map of the docking stations there - the map of the cycle hire area looks like it's been lifted unmodified from a tourist brochure.
This all has the sniff of lack of planning and coordination - rather typical of the Boris Johnson administration.