exdulwicher

And you then quote an extensive section of the report outlining 20mph zones and why it's a bit more difficult to analyse them but it's all still valid data... ??? And it's still got nothing to do with cyclists (or drivers) jumping red lights. Edit: I've also explained on another thread about the issues of "free-flow" and why it's really quite a nebulous concept in urban environments.

That's a bit rich coming from you Rockets! The forum is full of your selective use of stats, cherry picking of data, misreading / misunderstanding of articles, unfounded accusations against Southwark / Rachel Aldred / Peter Walker / the "active travel lobby" and numerous threads where you rail against cyclists and cycle lanes in general. And any time there's anything about a vehicle collision or incident, you'll look to minimise it, have a go at anyone criticising it and then it just becomes like this thread has, an increasingly tiresome tit-for-tat where you'll post some general nonsense, Earl will step in to correct it and you accuse him (her/it?) of doing exactly what you're doing. This thread has long since stopped being about cyclists jumping lights (one of at least 2 threads on the front page on that subject, see also https://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/topic/365768-why-do-cyclists-flaunt-the-rules-note-this-is-not-a-bashing-thread-and-should-not-be-turned-in-to-a-but-what-about-drivers-thread/ ) and just relapsed into the same old same old. Much like how the traffic drops noticeably during school holidays, it was very noticeable how the traffic on this section of the forum dropped significantly when you were on your little enforced "holiday"...

Agreed - it's already noted in the LTN 1/20 guidance (LTN in this case means Local Transport Note, not Low Traffic Neighbourhood!). Basically it's the guidance setting out how infrastructure for walking, wheeling and cycling should be designed and built, and it covers shared space and segregated space but it notes that the old days where a council could paint a line down the middle of a pavement for a bit then put a blue "Cyclists Dismount" sign at the end of it is nowhere close to acceptable any more. This obviously applies double for any form of adapted bike, trike, cargo bike etc which are far bigger and far less manoeuvrable than "traditional" bikes which is largely what has been accommodated so far. Thankfully there are an increasing number of parking bays, cycle hangers etc designed for e-bikes, cargo bikes, adapted bikes etc now. Give over Rockets. Funny how pedantry is really your strong point when it suits you but now you're just going "they're all e-bikes!" They're not, at all. Even the law says they're not so your statement is simply wrong. "e-bike" (in the colloquial term) refers to EAPC - Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycle. These are the legal bikes sold by reputable manufacturers and it also includes Lime, Dott etc. No throttle, the motor can only assist when pedalling, the motor cuts out at 25kph blah blah. It's all enshrined in law. You can even read about it here cos I know how much you'll want references and data points and "where did you get this info from?" https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electrically-assisted-pedal-cycles-eapcs/electrically-assisted-pedal-cycles-eapcs-in-great-britain-information-sheet However "e-bike" is also used colloquially (and incorrectly) to refer to any sort of electrically-powered 2-wheel bike-shaped thing, usually by people who don't know or care about the differences and sometimes by media seeking some clickbait. If it has a throttle, it's regarded in law as a moped or motorbike. That can actually be legal if it's registered, insured, taxed, has a number plate and so on. But you can buy them from any number of websites including Amazon, sold under the guise of "they're legal if they're only used on private land" disclaimer which as we all know is a total get-out clause. Whatever "crackdown" has to happen needs to be from a mix of angles. Confiscate the illegal bikes, absolutely. But then the Uber Eat / Deliveroo lot simply beg, borrow, buy or steal another one and they're back on the road in 24hrs - mostly because the whole system of gig economy basically demands that they use the cheapest fastest mode of transport possible. You also need to go after the online sellers saturating the market with illegal bikes, the back-street "workshops" that work on them or modify them (most reputable bike shops won't touch them) and the people selling crap quality batteries. All those battery fires are from illegally modified bikes, often being used with aftermarket batteries and incompatible chargers. Actual EAPCs from reputable manufacturers aren't a problem. And in law, EAPC is regarded as "a bike". Same as any other normal road-legal bike. Allowed to use the same trails, paths, infrastructure as any other normal road-legal bike.

Not easily. Firstly, they're called Civil Enforcement Officers and, in England, they simply don't have the legal powers to be stopping people. There is an option, which I've mentioned before, where a council can create a Public Spaces Protection Order - this is a measure used to control anti-social behaviour so you have to state the issue being addressed (eg drinking in a public place) and the area that it is applied to, so it can't just be "everywhere", you'd have to state (eg) "Lordship Lane between Goose Green and North Cross Road" and that can be enforced by police & PCSO's and delegated council officials (who must carry ID). They're a bit of a blunt instrument and they can't just be put in any old how; there has to be a reason and a consultation on if it's the right approach in the right place. The more serious traffic offences (RLJ, mobile phone use, speeding etc) are prosecuted by the police (or by cameras) and (usually) a fine issued unless it really is serious (like causing injury or death) in which case it'll go to court. This also picks up on a point made a few weeks back: This is just not true. Fines, as issued by the police or automatically by camera for the offences I mentioned, go to central government. They're not ringfenced, they don't affect future police funding (or lack thereof). The only exception is when a driver gets offered something like a speed awareness course where the fine is used to pay for the venue, the trainers and the training material. The council can only enforce existing traffic regulations in their area so stuff like parking (which was specifically given to councils to free up police time for more serious crimes), and infringement of local restrictions like driving in a bus lane or through an LTN. The funds from that do go to the council but are ringfenced for Highways use, usually road safety stuff. As usual, pretty much all the legislation for dealing with this is already in place. Police can (and do) stop cyclists for RLJ and there's been a noticeable crackdown on use of illegal e-bikes and e-scooters, especially up around City of London. But ultimately, there has to be a sense of proportion around it. Same as you can't catch every speeding driver, you focus on the areas where that speeding is definitely dangerous like outside a school at 3.30pm.

Not removed as such - there are raised tables (like flattened speed bumps) installed which help both to slow down drivers and to provide a level crossing surface for wheelchair users / buggies etc. Better than dropped kerbs, it essentially raises the road to kerb level so it's a lot easier for pedestrians to negotiate while also providing a clearer visual aspect to drivers. And kerbs have never stopped drivers going onto the pavement. If you want to actually stop that you need bollards or guardrails.

That's just disingenuous use of statistics. Fairly obviously, if you have no rental e-bikes, no-one can fall off one. If you then introduce rental e-bikes, people can and will have accidents on them, either falling off themselves via stupidity, drunkeness, road defects etc or from a collision with a vehicle. Kind of like how there were no road deaths or injuries from cars in 1850 cos cars didn't exist but people managed to make up for that by falling off horses or being run down by horse drawn carriages. Talking of statistics, the BBC article doesn't have any stats at all, it's just anecdata and what-iffery. Wonder how many people were in A&E that day after being hit by a car...?

That's rather my point - you cater for EVERYONE, minority or not. Taken to it's logical conclusion, you may as well say that since most people can walk fine, we don't need step-free access. However I bet you'd never say that cos you'd rightly be outed as a compete muppet... And fortunately, "jazzer hasn't seen anyone using it" is not a verified metric in transport stats.

That's very true but if society provides people with a range of options to suit the needs of everyone, then people can more easily select an option which suits them at that moment. If you build more cycle lanes, more people will choose to cycle some of the time (instead of walking, driving, getting the bus etc). If you put in more bus lanes / add more buses / improve bus reliability, more people will choose to use a bus some of the time (instead of driving or cycling or getting the train) And so on. No-one is saying that everyone should cycle all the time, in the same way that no-one is suggesting that everyone makes every journey by bus. But if you give people the option, it at least allows a choice relevant to their needs / wants at that moment. If you don't provide the choice (ie if there are no safe cycle lanes, no buses) then more people will drive more of the time - which then clogs up the roads. Some people will usually have to drive but if there are fewer people around them also driving (because they're on the bus or cycling) then it helps them to drive where they need to go. All that said, that's still off-topic a bit from whether the proposal for the cycle route via Peckham Rye is good, bad or indifferent. Or not fit for purpose.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-15014665/One-five-drivers-run-red-light-youre-likely-caught-dash-cam-roadside-camera.html So, yes. That said, there's a whole host of "statistics" out there varying from the fairly accurate but only applicable to one or two junctions right up to user-generated surveys (often conducted by road safety organisations or insurance companies) where they've anonymously polled customers and collated the results which often vary from dubious to wildly misleading and can quite routinely be very selectively quoted as well. It's disappointing how few people can read literally the first line in this thread cos there's a few interesting points mixed in with the usual "bloody cyclists!" nonsense.

About 10 years ago now there was a crackdown in San Francisco on this "rolling through stop signs" thing (Americans preferring Stop signs over red lights at many junctions but the principle is basically the same, the law requires all road users to actually stop, check it's clear to go and then proceed). There'd been a load of backlash about increased numbers of cyclists just rolling through so - with a bit of coordination from a couple of cycling advocacy groups - they got all the riders along one notorious stretch to obey the rules to the letter. Single file. Each rider came to a stop (causing everyone behind to also stop), then they proceeded and the next rider did the same. It gridlocked the road almost immediately. https://www.lifegate.com/san-francisco-cyclists-protest-against-rules It's why the Idaho Stop rules (treat a red light as a Stop, treat a Stop as a Give Way) makes so much sense, one of the main instances where trying to treat a bicycle as either a pedestrian or a car simply doesn't work, it needs to be understood as something in between those things.

Part of the issue is that you've immediately pigeonholed people according to a mode of transport and the world doesn't work in that black and white way. PEOPLE flout rules, no matter their mode of transport. But anyway... The challenge with "cycling" (in all its many and varied forms) is that it doesn't fit into such easy pigeonholes very well. At one end of the scale, you've got what is basically an upwardly mobile pedestrian (and in fact for some people - elderly or disabled for example - it can be a form of mobility aid). Kids are another good example, they're basically just slightly faster moving pedestrians, a point that Penguin makes above ^^. At the other end of the scale, a bike can (if ridden by a suitably experienced person) be little different from a vehicle and in fact much of the early (1970's / 80's) literature around cycling promoted what is termed "vehicular cycling", the largely debunked and pretty terrible idea that cyclists should behave like cars on the roads. In the middle of all that, you've got a range of infrastructure that on the one hand specifically says "here you are, ride on this pavement!" https://live.staticflickr.com/7235/7055174953_c208169421_b.jpg (not my pic, just off Google Images) It's hardly surprising that when that shared use foot / cycle path ends, some people will continue riding along the pavemet, whether they know they're supposed tt be there or not. And on the other hand it abandons cyclists at a junction or similar where highways people / the council have gone "nah, too complicated and expensive to do anything for cyclists there..." and expects people to work it out themselves / be brave enough to sit in the middle of a 4 lane junction waiting to turn right while all cars and trucks do the same inches away and where it can be easier and safer to do what a pedestrian might do at a quiet time - nip across in the gaps. And finally - conservation of momentum. This is at last beginning to be recognised in cycling design manuals. Every time you stop, get going again it adds an effective 300m to a journey in terms of effort. Once you've been through 4 sets of dumb lights that don't recognise cyclists, that aren't phased for that speed, that make you wait while you could easily nip through to turn left, you'll be doing whatpedestrians do when they're forced to wait at a pedestrian crossing for ages until the green man shows - many will get bored of waiting and "nip across". That is another bit of terrible highway design, the crossing button forcing people to wait until the light detects that there's minimal traffic - in effect the light is prioritising a driver a quarter a mile away over you standing there right now. Actually there's one more which I've mentioned previously and which gets noted above as well. Hire bike riders are all being charged per minute, delivery riders are paid per drop and not many of them are going to sit at a set of lights and be charged for the privilege when you can effectively become a pedestrian for a few seconds. And by the way I'm not condoning any of the above. You asked for an explanation - there are several factors in it but that ^^ is some of it. Maybe I should now start a thread asking why drivers flout the rules and see how quickly that turns into a "...but cyclists...!" thread... 😉

I've seen police on motorbikes stop cyclists a few times. Often a lot of moto police around the Buckingham Palace area, they're not averse to pulling over traffic (cycle and vehicle).

Thames Water indeed. Closed til 9pm today (6th Aug) it reckons.

This idea that somehow drivers provide "oversight" is oft repeated but also total nonsense. No-one in a car is ever going to be stopping to offer assistance, partly because it causes almost instant traffic jams and confusion and partly because people feel nice and safe in their little cocoon and, if they've even noticed anything criminal in the first place, they certainly aren't going to get out. They're going to lock the doors and wind the windows up. The car actually removes a lot of the human interaction possibilities - drivers are far far less likely to stop. The people who DO stop and offer assistance - that's almost always pedestrians. And even then many people will walk past, pretend to be on the phone etc; it quite often takes someone with real assertion to get some help in from "outside". There's a critical mass where if one person stops and helps (say someone who's tripped and fallen), then the first wave of people will walk past, ignore it (or pretend to ignore it) and it's not until a second and third person have stopped (or the first person has started yelling for help) that anyone else gets involved. I've seen it a couple of times and there's a similar psychological scenario that happens in building fires. It's astonishing how many people will wait until there are literally flames at the door before deciding that the alarm might be genuine and they should probably do something. And surely (if your assertion is true) that would make pedestrianised high streets the most dangerous places of all yet they seem to be the high streets that thrive best...

I love how you constantly request the data from others yet you get a free pass. You denigrated a report without even reading it. You cherry pick data to suit your needs. You've now alleged - with no proof whatsoever, I'm guessing mostly because it's almost impossible to prove or disprove it either way - that the police are walking round knocking on doors saying "watch out, there's been a spike in crime because a junction was closed to cars 5 years ago" And yet as soon as anyone else dares post anything positive or rebuts your increasingly obvious nonsense, you're straight onto them questioning the source, the data, the authors, the validity, the process...

You're like a one-man Daily Mail headline. You could literally write that in 1990 there were ZERO mobile phone thefts and now there are DOZENS every month! CRIME WAVE! CHAOS on the streets of Dulwich. Oh wait, no-one had mobile phones in 1990, of course there were zero thefts... I think you need to re-examine your ideas of correlation and causation.

The fire brigade also go around telling you to check your smoke alarms (in fact the "community fire" service provides free checks if you ask), turn off your gas, check your escape routes and so on - that doesn't mean every other house is burning down or that fires have increased, that's called preventative tactics cos it's a lot easier and cheaper for all concerned if the fire doesn't happen in the first place. Same with crime - most of it is opportunistic so if you're wandering through a park (any park, not just one with an LTN 500m down the road) looking at your phone and with your earphones in, it's really quite simple for a "jogger" or a hoodie on a bike to nip past you and grab the thing. Sensible advice along the lines of "pay attention to what's around you" is part and parcel of normal preventative policing. I know how much you love data and rely on it for everything so try looking at the actual crime figures. Dulwich has not suddenly turned into gangland LA because a few dozen square metres of road has been closed to cars.

Astonishing isn't it that despite the lack of number plate and the "no insurance" aspect, the cyclist can actually be stopped and fined / prosecuted for wrongdoing! None of that is new by the way, if you search around you'll find hundreds of cases of cyclists being fined for pavement riding and running red lights. road.cc routinely reports on such incidents. Although in this case, the cyclist wasn't actually doing anything wrong - the historically wildly anti-cycling RBKC have outsourced their enforcement to a third-party contractor who is obviously employing some minimum wage jobsworths who don't have a clue about shared-use foot/cycle paths and are issuing fines in error.

Gas works

To repeat what I said earlier, it depends what you are studying. The 2021 report looked at "Covid LTNs" so it's fairly obvious it's not looking at historic modal filters - a concept which by the way dates back way before 2015 and is still the mainstay of planning in new-build housing developments now in the form of cul-de-sacs. In fact to return to my plane crash analogy, if you were looking specifically at crashes caused by pilot error, it'd be a different dataset to crashes caused by engine failure, even though they are all "plane crashes" and there would undoubtedly be some overlap. Engine failure followed by pilot error for example.

If you read the methodology (I know, right?!) of the various studies, you'll see that it depends on exactly what they're studying and exactly when the LTN was put in. There was one about car ownership inside LTNs as well (slight decrease in general) which looked at a different number again because of how the data was collected and validated and cross referenced with census data. If you're doing a study in 2021 for example and it requires before and after data of a year then it stands to reason that you can ONLY look at LTNs installed at least a year ago (and even then, depending on exactly what data you're examining, not all LTNs will be suitable). If you then do a different study in 2024, requiring before and after data, you'll have a different set of LTNs to be looking at. It's like looking at aviation crashes in 2010 then again in 2020. You'll have a lot more data both in terms of the number of crashes but also the detail available to you since black box data now is way more advanced than it was in 2010. It's effectively a different subset of data. But all these studies require you to actually read what the study is looking at, what dataset is being used and how it was validated. I know you're trying desperately to find some kind of hook to latch your conspiracy theory onto but actually it's completely the opposite - the mark of excellent research.

I find myself in the wholly unfamiliar situation of agreeing 100% with something that Penguin has written! 😉 I think they're an answer to a largely non-existent problem but because politicians and big industry like answers that involve "technology" and especially the exciting sounding "AI", the trials are almost an inevitability. And the last thing London (or indeed most cities) needs is yet more cars cruising around and around waiting for fares.

Very much so. If you go and stand in a road and claim that - as a pedestrian - you have priority, you'll be arrested for causing an obstruction. Liability and "being in the right" also doesn't help much when you're dead. You can step onto a pedestrian crossing and get mown down by a truck or be cycling entirely legally and get taken out by a left-turning car going across you; the fact that you were technically in the right won't really make a lot of difference to your bereaved family. Sometimes, the world does actually rely on everyone looking out for themselves and each other.

In order of your questions: Chances are that the cyclist also falls off and is hurt. Therefore, contrary to popular belief, most cyclists do not ride around looking to run into anyone or anything. Liability - it depends. Are you dancing erratically down a cycle lane, wearing headphones? Have you dashed into the road from between parked cars without looking and straight into the path of a cyclist? If so, you could easily argue that you are much more to blame. On the other hand, are you walking carefully along a pavement when a cyclist hurtles (cyclists always "hurtle"...) around a corner and straight into you? If so, you could easily argue that the cyclist is 100% in the wrong. There will be any number of "shades of grey" around that, much the same as drivers seem to get off significant amounts of responsibility by claiming that they had nowhere to go or the sun was in their eyes. Insurance - this is a complete red herring. Anyone can make a (legitimate) claim for damages against anyone else. If someone in a supermarket car park smashes their trolley down the side of your car, if an uninsured driver is involved in an incident, if you bump into another pedestrian and you both fall over... You do the same as you would with any road traffic collision (witnesses, photos, look for CCTV and so on), you can go via any number of no-win-no-fee solicitors who specialise in personal accident and injury stuff, if the incident is severe enough to warrant medical care then that'll be reported via the appropriate channels. The police may or may not attend (and again, that would depend on the severity of the incident) but you can get a crime reference number (and let's face it, they won't attend the majority of burglaries or other "minor" crimes either). Chances are you'll find that the cyclist (and you as a pedestrian) has some form of insurance anyway - might be legal / liability cover bolted onto home insurance, something within a life insurance policy... Plus there is of course the Motor Insurance Bureau which is a fund paid into by insurers (and ultimately, us) to compensate victims of uninsured and hit-and-run drivers, it will also apply to a hit-and-run cycling incident. And a lot of cyclists will have cycle insurance for incidents as part of membership of any cycling organisation or included within theft cover on a bike. If they're on a Lime / Forest hire bike, they'll be on a blanket insurance policy via the hire company. But generally, the whole insurance thing is a complete distraction. Police - see above. Depends on the severity of the incident and what (if any) crime has been committed. I can't answer the last one because I can't speak for the cyclist in question.

Well the truth is that the two Tory candidates were standing on a specifically anti-LTN platform; it was (allegedly) the issue dividing Dulwich, the main concern for the poor residents. The Labour councillors were going to be sent running for the hills, the majority would speak. Then the result came in and the anti-LTNers were all left scrambling around for an explanation. It's like the data though. The data will come in, it'll show gridlock, smog, chaos on the roads... And then the data comes in and you're left scrambling around for an explanation (oh it's fixed, it's rigged, [personal attack on the researchers], it's not showing the true picture...) I'm not even sure if Rockets knows what arguments he's making or why. This has got to the point of conspiracy theory levels of argument. Doesn't matter how much data and evidence is presented, people will still argue that the Earth is flat / the moon landings didn't happen. It's like playing chess with a pigeon - you can explain the nuances of the game as much as you want but the pigeon is still going to knock over all the pieces, shit on the board then strut around like it's won.