Earl Aelfheah

It's not actually. It is a thread making a specific comparison between cars and bicycles. ... some would say drawing an entirely false equivalence. That's the point.

non sequitur much?

But we aren't talking about all the people on our streets getting hit. We've got people minimising thousands of actual road collisions, and KSIs, and instead, endlessly relaying anecdotes about how someone saw a cyclist on a pavement and they had the gall to say thanks as they wheeled past etc. If we flipped the focus, so that we had as many threads complaining about all the actual collisions, the property damage, the injuries and deaths which are a feature of our roads as we do the 'I saw a cyclist do something they shouldn't' ones, no one would complain about also having one dedicated to 'bicycle anecdotes'. We're endlessly moaning about what a nuisance the mouse is, whilst ignoring the massive angry elephant.

And what 'pre-emptive action' would you propose for speeding motorists jumping the lights, those on their phones, or who drive under the influence of drink or drugs. Why this vitriol against road users only when they're behaving badly on a self propelled, 10 kg bicycle, but not when they're in a 2 ton, fast moving motor vehicle? It's the latter causing tens of thousands of serious injuries and deaths. Again, the focus of your outrage is completely disproportionate / misplaced. These pages - obsessed as they are with low level nuisance behaviour, whilst shutting down any examination of the main cause of road deaths and injuries, are depressing. The discussion feels like classic culture war nonsense; A really obvious form of deflection that loudly points the finger / vilifies a minority of relatively vulnerable road users, to stop any serious examination of the where the real danger is.

Yeah, I agree. If I were to take a guess, I would assume the numbers in the Southwark report are probably the right ones (as opposed to the FOI response). If so it's a lot of people getting fined every school day, like you say.

Possibly. Or the response to foi was incorrect (or reported incorrectly) 🤷‍♂️ All a bit weird.

Visited Dynamic Wines over the weekend. Great place, and good value!

...this explains the cross rail business supplement https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/transport/rail-and-underground/elizabeth-line/paying-crossrail-business-rate-supplement

Ah yes, you're right. Sorry, quick maths on my phone, not working out for me. I think it's more than 26,000 though and there are 29 school streets, not 24 (that was my mistake originally, apologies). Either way, it's a lot! [edited to add] A quick google picked up this from Direct Line https://www.directlinegroup.co.uk/en/news/brand-news/2023/03022023.html Suggests a very different figure for school street fines issued by Southwark. According to an FOI, there were only 275 PCNs issued in Southwark in relation to School Streets for 2022. Something doesn't add up!

It's detailed month by month spending so probably not. Why don't you just email your councillor and ask them?

Yeh, I agree. This does seem ridiculously high. Perhaps the increased enforcement will help (probably not)?! Living near a local primary I do see some appalling behaviour in the mornings by drivers - a real lack of care for children's safety sometimes. ...no idea why we're having this discussion in the (latest) LTN section.

Just read this back and I have definitely not done the maths right 🤣 Assuming that there were around 39K PCNs related to school streets (this isn't totally clear - the report says the increase is 'mostly' down to SS), there are actually 29 school streets in Southwark. So it's around 1,345 issued per SS. So that's around 3.7 a day on average. Does seem high!

I read that as a 39% increase from the school streets programme - roughly 39K? I think there are around 24 school streets in Southwark, so that's around 1,625 fines per street over the course of a year - so a couple a week on average per school street? Have I done the maths right there? Does seem like quite a lot. OK, that's a fairer comparison. Does this 'look worse' though? If you read the Council's own narrative, it appears that the increases are down to better enforcement (more cameras installed to stop people driving in bus lanes), more enforcement officers employed to ticket those who have parked illegally and the introduction (and subsequent enforcement of) School Streets. If you're not going to enforce bus lanes or parking restrictions, then what's the point of having them? And if you do want to argue against them, make that case (rather than supporting them in principle, but not in practice). There are 430 million miles travelled on Southwark roads each year. If there are only 264,259 PCNs being issued, that suggests that the vast majority of drivers manage without getting caught in bus lanes, driving through a school street, or parking illegally. Don't think it's hypothecated in this way. Any surplus from PCNs generally goes into a fund that can be allocated for (amongst other things) improvements to roads and the public realm. I suspect that some of that budget was used to landscape the square / improve the layout. Any answer to this? Are there other organisations who's subscription email updates we want to start regularly posting on the forum?

Is there a reason we have yet another LTN thread? Also, any chance anyone knows who runs ‘one Dulwich’, or why their missives are constantly being reposted on this forum, despite people being able to sign up to receive them if they're interested? Thanks. I suspect most people are in favour of school streets.

Surely you can think of a reason fewer PCN's may have been issued during lockdown? I mean I know that some people were driving to Barnard Castle, but generally the number of car journeys dropped dramatically. How is the Dulwich LTN a revenue generator exactly? The arguments that parking fines are being used to fund LTNs and that LTNs are a revenue generator, are not logically consistent.

This is my point. If you are interested in achieving vision zero, then you need to address the major cause of death and serious injury (motor vehicles). We have numerous threads discussing inconsiderate behaviour by people travelling on bicycle (often whilst also minimising the very real (objectively measurable) danger posed by motor vehicles). That doesn't seem proportionate, or serious. So those saying "yeah, that mouse is a nuisance, but shouldn't we talk about that massive elephant standing behind you?", are not being unreasonable.

We had national lock downs in 2019-20 and 2020-21. If you look at PCNs issued across the last three years (post COVID), the picture is more mixed. Feels a little mischievous to pick that year for comparison doesn't it?: 2021/22 242,775 ⬆️ 2022/23 196,285 ⬇️ 2023/24 264,259 ⬆️ Amazing how the extremely opaque 'One Dulwich' organisation has all the same talking points to one of the posters on this forum.

My strong belief (in general, but with Southwark Council in particular) is that things like this are nearly always the result of incompetence rather than conspiracy.

We have a large number of collisions involving motor vehicles locally (which pose the most serious danger to other road users by several orders of magnitude). When there have been attempts to discuss the data on this, the same individuals obsessed with the 'menace' of people on bicycles, have sought to minimise or dismiss it. There is a disproportionate obsession by some with the 'danger' of bicycles which suggests more of a personal axe to grind than any serious engagement with the issue of road safety. Southwark had 168 KSIs (killed and serious injured) in 2022 (the most recent figures I could find with a quick google). This is not insignificant.

To a degree yes. I’m pointing out that people claiming to be desperately concerned about road safety are choosing to focus almost exclusively on the use of bicycles (creating multiple threads), whilst repeatedly minimising any attempt to discuss the major cause of road deaths and injuries. That doesn’t seem to be particularly serious to me.

The vast majority of those travelling on bike do stop and find it very annoying when others don't in my experience. I also see people driving through on red in cars, although much less frequently (due to the increased likelihood of their being fined). I don't think its' anything about a 'tribe' - there is nothing inherently more selfish about 'cyclists', they're just people who travel by other means at other times. The real issue should be how we make streets safer. This is why I get a bit bored of the wildly disproportionate attention given to what is by almost any objective measure one of the most benign transport choices, besides walking. What we need is more consideration in general, with a particular focus on tackling the most dangerous / destructive forms of road behaviour.

Looks like they do recognise a trades union USDAW - Sainsbury’s and Usdaw sign a new national agreement to improve trade union organising and representation within the business

Those are ridiculous. Are we sure they've finished putting the signage in, seeing as they're not enforcing it yet?

You can get a full breakdown of all council spending here: Council spending | Southwark Council

Or one poster can just keep creating multiple posts on effectively the same topic, to ensure that no other debate gets heard