Police: we can’t stop dangerous cyclists

reposted from: http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/latestnews/display.var.1778653.0.police_we_cant_stop_dangerous_cyclists.php

Police: we can’t stop dangerous cyclists

By Jane Reader

Comment | Read Comments (51)

DANGEROUS cyclists are putting lives at risk because police don't have time to stop them riding on the pavement, it has been claimed.

Despite regular complaints from the public, a senior Bournemouth police officer has admitted that such offences are not a priority because they are not official Home Office performance indicators.

Inspector Neil MacBean said cycling offences do not appear in the Dorset Police control strategy either, leaving little time to deal with them.

"With respect to enforcement, this is very limited because of the need to prioritise our work," he said.

Insp MacBean made his views known to members of Bournemouth council's Environment and Economy Scrutiny Panel who had asked for information on legal powers and enforcement action against cyclists.

Cllr Robert Lawton, portfolio holder for the environment in Bournemouth, said he was disappointed that the Home Office does not place greater emphasis on cycle safety.

And shoppers in Bourne- mouth agreed.

Terry Smith, 56, from Broadstone, said: "If the police are getting these complaints from the public then why aren't they doing anything about it?"

Harriet Jones, 20, from Springbourne said: "Cyclists are definitely a nuisance, especially in the crowded town centre. The only feasible way to deal with the complaints is to try and integrate them more into the pedestrian system, like Poole has done."

Daisy Goodwin from Charminster added: "This is just typical of the way things are done in this country. If a complaint isn't part of a target that needs to be met, then issues such as this are ignored until they become an even bigger problem and a child gets knocked down or something."

Cyclist Edwin Cunion, 50, from Bournemouth, said "The issue of policing would be irrelevant if there were adequate cycle paths."

Taking a different route - are 20mph speed limits right?

reposted from: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/daniel_moylan/2007/10/taking_a_different_route.html

emphasis by Chris Street

Taking a different route

Coercive measures like 20mph limits are the wrong approach to road safety. Placing responsibility on individual road users gets better results.

Daniel Moylan

October 17, 2007 9:00 AM | Printable version

Traffic lights stop vehicles; they create space for pedestrians to cross - and so they contribute to road safety. That is the conventional wisdom. But they also generate, in the driver's mind, a sense of claim on the road - when the light is green, it is your turn to go and pedestrians who get in the way are in the wrong. Moreover, they encourage drivers to focus attention on the colour of the lights and to take less notice of what other road users - pedestrians, bicyclists, people in wheelchairs - might be about to do.

There is another model: when you drive into a supermarket car park, there is a minimum of direction (and few people follow such as there is): the driver knows, expects, that people with trolleys and buggies will pop out from all directions with an equal claim on the use of the space. Movement is negotiated by observation and eye contact. Speeds are lower and serious accidents few and far between.

In some European towns, this principle has been taken further: outdoor spaces have been treated similarly to supermarket car parks - lights removed, lines painted out, signs demounted. The observable result has been lower speeds and a more civilised interaction between road users, arising partly, no doubt, from a degree of driver disorientation that follows the removal of the sense of claim, of the belief, encouraged by our conventional approach, that, at certain points, the vehicle has the "right" of way.

It is important to emphasise that such spaces require more thoughtful design than simply the removal of the lights and lines: normally, one would expect to see these changes incorporated into a broader redesign of the public realm - a change in surface materials, distinctions between footways and carriageways - that reinforces the perception of a radically different place, one requiring radically different behaviour. And that redesign needs to be very sensitive to the needs of vulnerable people seeking to manage their way through the space, especially the blind and partially sighted. That is the approach my council in Kensington and Chelsea is taking to proposals for a dramatically new public realm in Exhibition Road.

The way to make progress is to learn by doing. Radical improvement can rarely be modelled in detail in advance. And one of the advantages of a minimalist approach such as this is that things left out can be added back later if there is a proven need.

So, in the search for lower speeds, fewer serious accidents, a more civilised society, we have a choice: "oldthink" emphasis more coercion, enforcement, top-down controls (as are being urged on us with the call for 20mph speed limit); the approach we are promoting is, we believe, more likely to succeed, by working with the grain of human nature and placing responsibility squarely on the road user. Certainly in Kensington High Street, following a redesign that removed nearly all of the guardrail, accidents fell dramatically further than the London average for the period.

Would this work for the English white van man? Would he seek to exploit the more civilised space in order to go on the rampage? Well, there is little to stop that now. If a driver chose to go down Exhibition Road at 100mph today, there would be nothing to prevent him (I may safely say him?) apart from other vehicles. Perhaps we can test it and learn.

Is there a need for more 20mph speed limits?

reposted from: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2007/10/a_report_published_today_by.html

Is there a need for speed?

A new report recommends cutting speed limits in all built up areas to 20mph. What do you think?

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October 16, 2007 2:00 PM | Printable version

A speed camera. Photographer: Danny Lawson /PA

A report published today by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (Pacts) suggests that speed limits should be reduced to 20mph in built-up areas to improve road safety.

It is estimated that the proposals could reduce road deaths by over two-thirds from 3,100 a year to just 1,000. Robert Gifford, executive director of Pacts, said that the measures would also make a contribution to sustainability by making the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

The Department for Transport says it supports 20mph zones but feels local authorities should implement them rather than imposing a blanket speed limit in built-up areas across the country. Edmund King, executive director of the RAC foundation warned: "Motorists will accept 20mph limits where they make sense - but they don't want them everywhere."

The Pact report also suggests that more time-over-distance cameras should be installed to enforce the new speed limits in favour of traditional cameras and unpopular bumps and chicanes.

The AA Motoring Trust said: "The question drivers have to ask themselves is this - are they prepared to meet some pretty draconian measures and loss of freedom to achieve these extremely tough road safety targets?"

What do you think, would a blanket 20mph speed limit in built-up areas be "draconian"? And how should it be enforced?