Taking your life in your hands – David Cameron’s response to the Times’ Cities Fit for Cycling campaign

I’m grateful to the Youtube user who has uploaded this video of David Cameron’s response, in Prime Minister’s Questions today, to Julian Huppert’s question on the Times’ Cities Fit For Cycling campaign, and on the issue of cycle promotion generally.

Huppert -

Tomorrow members of this House will have the chance to debate the importance of cycling, following the Times’ Cities Fit For Cycling campaign. The Minister for Cycling – the member for Lewes – has made some welcome announcements and investment. There is still much more to do. Will the Prime Minister commit the government to support the Times’ campaign, increase investment in cycling, and take much greater steps to promote cycling across the country?

Cameron -

I think the Times’ campaign is an excellent campaign. I strongly support what they’re trying to do. Anyone who’s got on a bicycle – particularly in one of our busier cities – knows that you are taking your life into your hands every time you do so. And so we do need to do more to try and make cycling safer. The government is making it easier for councils to install mirrors at junctions. We’re putting 11 million pounds into training for children, and 15 million pounds for better cycle routes and facilities across the country. I think if we want to encourage the growth in cycling we’ve seen in recent years, we need to get behind campaigns like this.

This is really quite an extraordinary response, not least for the fact that our Prime Minister has openly stated that using a bicycle in Britain – not just in our busiest cities – involves lethal risk.

Cameron then reels off a list of sums of money that are obviously designed to sound impressive, but which are in reality pitifully small, a miniscule fraction of our country’s transport spending. For instance, the two sums he mentions, when combined, amount to less than 1% of the cost of widening only 22 miles of the M25.

Given that these sums are supposed to represent an attempt to deal with the lack of safety – the lethal lack of safety – involved in riding bicycles that Cameron acknowledges, it’s verging on insulting, not least for the fact that this shouldn’t really be about money, at all.

It should be about a commitment - a commitment to change the guidelines that govern the way our roads and streets are designed and built, to make them safer, both subjectively and objectively, for bicycle use. That kind of commitment would be magnitudes more valuable than the 11 million pounds Cameron has presented for sticking-plaster measures like cycle training for children, and the installation of mirrors. I have no problem, of course, with training, especially for children, but I resent it being used, as in this case, as a substitute for concrete action to change the environment. Training children will do nothing to address the dangerous nature of our roads and streets that Cameron himself recognises.

The money Cameron talks about, just like his support for the campaign, is nothing more than a fob-off.

Don’t be fooled.

A City ‘Fit for Cycling’? I don’t think so. Will mirrors and training make this street look any different? I don’t think so. 

Junction design for bicycles – keeping people safe, without mirrors or sensors

Paul James has done an excellent job fashioning London Cycling’s ‘Dutch’ redesign for Parliament Square -

into something that is actually Dutch, rather than a bit of a compromise -

I must stress that I am supportive of the London Cycling Campaign’s approach, but there are some criticisms that can be made. One of the most important, I think is the omission from their design of the ‘free’ left turn you would get with tracks which continue, protected, around the apex of the junctions, as in Paul’s design. These allow left turns by bicycles at all times, regardless of the light sequence. LCC’s tracks, on the other hand, stop at the junction.

Right turns, under Paul’s ‘Dutch’ scheme, are achieved by queuing in dedicated waiting areas, then moving with a light sequence synchronised with right-turning vehicles in the carriageway, as shown in his graphic, below – in the last box, for instance, cyclists turning right, towards the Big Ben clock tower, move with right-turning vehicles, while vehicles heading straight into Whitehall on are held at a red light.

This means that all the turning movements of bicycles are entirely protected and separated from motor vehicles. No need for trixi mirrors, keeping out of blind spots, attempting to get into ASLs, and so on.

It does, of course, add a little to the time it may take to progress through the junction; but remember, as described above, left turns can be made at any time, without waiting for a light signal. The overall cost in time to cyclists should therefore balance out.

This kind of light phasing is probably most appropriate for Parliament Square, but there is another method that the Dutch use to keeping bicycles and vehicles separated at busy junctions – the simultaneous green for bicycles, or ‘tegelijk groen’.

Here are some examples I shot on the Cycling Embassy field trip to Assen and Groningen, hosted by David Hembrow. The first is at a very busy junction in Groningen, approaching rush hour.

Notice that motor vehicles are being held, in all directions, while cyclists are free to travel in whichever direction they please while they have their own green phase. It looks like chaos, but works perfectly – it’s very easy to make eye contact with people who might be crossing your path. Actually, it’s a lot of fun.

Another example from Groningen – this time heading into the city at lunch time. Again, you can see the vehicles being held, while bicycles move in all directions. Ahead of me, you can see someone being given a ‘backie’ across the junction, sitting on the rack of someone’s bike – not really imaginable in London, as things stand.

Now an example from Assen, in the rain. At the two examples shown above, I only had a short wait – this one is slightly longer. But remember, if I had been turning right, I wouldn’t have needed to use the junction at all – the path continues around behind me.

Again, a little chaotic, but entertainingly so.

Two videos of the same junction, but taken from a stationary position, showing light phases -

As you can hear David Hembrow saying in the first video, these arrangements do involve adding a phase to the light signals, and so will reduce the junction capacity for motor vehicles. Of course, there are many less motor vehicles queuing here than might be the case, due to the large numbers of journeys being made on bikes. I didn’t see any signs of the typical congestion – the type that besets an equivalent-sized UK town – in Assen. Bicycles are more efficient that cars, so facilitating their use benefits everyone.

One final example -

These simultaneous green junctions are really only appropriate at smaller-scale junctions, rather than at larger ones like Parliament Square. An analogous junction – similar to the Groningen and Assen examples – might be the intersection of Essex Road and Canonbury Road in Islington.

The ‘simultaneous green’ for bicycles could be combined with a simultaneous green for pedestrians; you can see how this might work in one of my videos from Groningen, already shown, with the gentleman crossing from around the 0:20 mark -

He has crossed the ‘inbound’ cycle track safely, and then walked past the cars held at the red light, before passing behind the bicycles (us) emerging into the junction. This may, of course, be more problematic with higher pedestrian movements, or with rather less civilised cycling behaviour, but those junctions with higher pedestrian movements are likely to be those similar to Parliament Square, where dedicated phases are more appropriate.

In any case, either of these two types of solution are what we should really be asking for in the Times’ Cities Safe for Cycling campaign – junction designs that keep vulnerable users safely separated from the movements of large, fast vehicles. We should not be fobbed off with Trixi mirrors and sensors, and training, as in the generic letter sent out by many Conservative MPs in response to correspondence -

Ministers… have pledged £11 million for Bikeability training to help a new generation of cyclists gain the skills and knowledge they need to cycle safely….

the Government is leading discussions at European level on further improving standards for heavy goods vehicles to help reduce accidents caused by poor visibility…

after a successful trial in London, councils across the country can now apply to use Trixi mirrors to make cyclists more visible to drivers at traffic lights.

Mirrors, sensors and training all help, of course, and have their place, but they are sticking-plaster solutions which do not address the biggest source of the danger – the environment.

Design changes cannot happen immediately, of course, or even in the near future, but we need a firm commitment to change the way our junctions themselves are designed, using continental best practice, to ensure that over the course of the natural cycle of repair and renewal, our junctions become both objectively and subjectively safer for vulnerable users, safe enough for the 56% of people who are put off cycling by the hostile  appearance of our urban roads and junctions. Mirrors, sensors,ASLs and training are not enough to change their minds.

Should some people ever be allowed to drive again?

People like Robert Freeman, for instance.

From the West Sussex County Times (story not online) -

Horsham driver jailed for mowing down two soldiers

A Horsham man has been jailed after mowing down two off-duty servicemen in his Land Rover. Robert Freeman, 23, a carpenter, of New Street, was sent to prison for 16 months and banned from driving for five years when he appeared for sentence at Guildford Crown Court on Thursday February 9.

He had pleaded guilty to dangerous driving in High Street, Cranleigh, on August 6 last year. He also admitted failing to stop after an accident and failing to report the accident. The court had been told that a promising young serviceman was left with life-changing injuries when he and his soldier pal were mown down by a hit-and-run driver in their home village. Jack Lawler, 20, of the 13th Air Attack Regiment, had his back broken and was knocked unconscious after being struck by a speeding 4×4 as he stood in a bus bay in Cranleigh.

His friend Luke Carter, 21, was on leave after a gruelling seven-month tour of duty with the same regiment in war-torn Afghanistan when he was sent flying through the air by the same vehicle, it was said. Both lives were blown apart as the Land Rover Discovery swerved into them before driving off without stopping – leaving one of the victims feeling it might have been done deliberately, the court was told.

‘The impact was catastrophic,’ said Judge Christopher Critchlow. The court heard how Freeman had a string of driving bans behind him and had regained his licence [incorrect - Freeman was still disqualified at the time. See below] less than two months before the incident which seriously injured the two servicemen. Freeman, who had two previous convictions for drink-driving and one more for driving while disqualified, had had his most recent driving ban shortened by completing a safer motoring course – a decision which was to have a grim outcome only weeks later, the court was told.

The defendant had earlier denied a charge intending to pervert the course of justice by making repairs to his damaged car and this plea had been accepted by the prosecution. Jailing Freeman, Judge Critchlow said the maximum sentence for his offence was two years behind bars – although there are moves afoot by Parliament to increase it.

‘Some will say that the maximum sentence is not enough to punish people who drive in this way,’ he said. The judge told Freeman, whose speeds at the time of the crash were estimated by eye-witnesses to be between 40 mph to 50 mph, that he had clearly been breaking the 30 mph limit in Cranleigh village centre. ‘You swerved and hit both men,’ he said.

Referring to Freeman’s explanation that he swerved to avoid hitting someone else he had seen crossing the street, Judge Critchlow stressed that no one at the scene had ever spotted this other pedestrian. ‘Nobody else saw that,’ stressed Judge Critchlow. He said he was bound to give a discount on his jail term  for his early plea of guilty. ‘Nothing I can say or do can turn the clock back for the two men who were injured – or for you,’ he said. But Judge Critchlow ordered that Freeman’s Land Rover Discovery should be forfeited in the hope that its sale could raise some funds to compensate the two injured soldiers.

Investigating officer Detective Constable Dan Chant of Surrey Police said: ‘Freeman was found guilty of dangerous driving, with the aggravating factor that he then failed to stop or report the collision. These men were waiting at the bus stop minding their own business when Freeman lost control of his car and swerved into them. Although he didn’t drive into the two men deliberately, this was a very serious incident and left both men with serious injuries from which they have taken some time to recover. The fact that he was given a custodial sentence in court last week reflects the severity of the incident and has ensured that he has been brought to justice for his recklessness.’

Further

Civil action taken on behalf of two victims

Civil proceedings are being taken on behalf of the two victims, Guildford Crown Court was told. Jack Lawler and Luke Carter sat in the court with their families as the sentence was passed on Robert Freeman.

Earlier, Susannah Bramley, prosecuting, said the two soldiers had been drinking at the Three Horseshoes, Cranleigh, shortly before the incident and had decided to cross the road to talk to someone moments before the accident. She said both men were in a bus bay when they were hit by the car driven by Freeman who had been drinking in another pub in the village.

‘It swerved into the bus lay-by. Both men were thrown into the air by the impact,’ she added. Ms Bramley said Mr Carter had been left wondering if he had done something earlier to upset the defendant and prompt him to drive the way he did. She said: ‘Mr Lawler was knocked unconscious. He doesn’t remember anything from leaving the gym earlier to waking up in hospital.’

The court was told that Mr Lawler, who had just obtained his Air Wings, suffered a broken back and a broken pelvis. ‘He had to have 16 screws inserted in his pelvis and two bolts inserted in his back,’ said Ms Bramley. She said Mr Lawler had also suffered serious kidney and liver damage. Ms Bramley said that he had to learn to walk again, have his most intimate needs attended to by others, and his parents’ home adapted to cope with the effects of his injuries. She said his career in the forces was still uncertain despite his indomitable spirit and a courageous fight-back to health.

Ms Bramley said that although Carter had been less seriously hurt, the accident had had a bad effect on him physically and psychologically. In a victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Carter said: ‘The confidence I once had has disappeared.’ He said he had witnessed horrible scenes in Afghanistan but he had never expected to experience such a shocking incident so near his own home. But he added: ‘Jack’s injuries just make me realise how lucky I was.’

In his impact statement, Mr Lawler said: ‘The world was my oyster. To have it all taken away like this is indescribable.’ He said: ‘The physical pain has been excruciating.’ But he said the mental agony was even worse. Mr Lawler said his initial anger had been replaced by a burning desire to fight his way back to full health. ‘I will overcome this,’ he added. He made it clear that the sentence imposed on the defendant was unimportant to him now. ‘I don’t care what happens to the person responsible,’ added Mr Lawler.

Stuart Weston, defending, said his client was genuinely sorry for the injuries head caused. ‘He says he swerved to avoid a pedestrian. He saw someone else step into the road,’ he said. Mr Weston told the court his client had left the scene because he had panicked. He added: ‘This is a tragic case for all the people involved.’ He said Freeman was a hardworking young man who was highly thought of by many people. ‘He has found the 28 days he has spent on remand in custody terrible,’ he added.

Sickening.

I often ride along New Street on my bicycle, where Mr Freeman lives, quite often late at night. Indeed I did so on the evening of Saturday the 6th August, although some time before Mr Freeman returned home after ploughing into two servicemen.

I am also very familiar with the bus stop where this ‘accident’ occurred – as a teenager, I had a number of friends in Cranleigh, and would catch the bus to get there and back again, often using the stop in question.

Mr Carter and Mr Lawler had crossed the pub on the left, to the bus stop at the right, where – in a detail missing from the County Times story – Mr Carter’s sister was sitting on the bench, by the dark bin; she witnessed her brother and his best friend being struck by a speeding vehicle.

You can see why Mr Carter thought they might have been struck deliberately, given the deviation from a straight line Mr Freeman must have taken to move into the bus stop. From the direction he was travelling in -

Mr Freeman concocted some fantasy story about a pedestrian crossing the road to explain his wild swerve, a story that even his defence counsel seemed embarrassed about presenting -

Stuart Weston, defending, acknowledged the aggravating aspects of the case and said: “Mr Freeman has to live with the consequences of his driving and must be punished. He was driving too fast. He swerved to avoid a pedestrian – it was not witnessed by anybody else, but those are my instructions.”

A totally unsubstantiated explanation, that Mr Freeman persisted in sticking to, despite the unease of his defence counsel.

Another detail missing from the County Times article – while mentioning that Freeman ‘had been drinking’ in another pub, the paper does not record that he managed to rack up a £45 bar bill, before stepping into his vehicle and driving home. Of course, Mr Freeman was not been charged with drink driving, because he fled the scene and failed to report the collision, escaping the possibility of being tested.

Well done him.

The final missing detail is that Mr Lawler – whose heart stopped beating twice during surgery, and had pieces of shattered bone embedded in his spleen and kidneys – was subsequently treated at Headley Court, which is of course the centre where soldiers seriously injured in Afghanistan are usually rehabiliated; not those who are mown down during the course of a night out in their home village while on leave from that country. Some journalists are quite fond of rhetorically describing the ‘conflict’ on our streets as a ‘war’ – in this case that analogy is perhaps a little too raw.

If Mr Freeman was ‘genuinely sorry’ for destroying the life of Mr Lawler, it is rather odd that he didn’t stop at the scene, or report the collision, even in the days subsequent to the crash when the severity of the injuries to the men involved was being reported – days on which Mr Freeman chose to occupy himself by repairing the damage to his vehicle. He would also have confessed to the police when they tracked him down, instead of offering ‘no comment.’ He was only sorry when it made no difference.

For some reason, his plea of not guilty to the charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice – by repairing his car – was accepted by the prosecution, meaning that this deeply callous behaviour, like his drink driving, has also escaped punishment.

It is finally worth noting that Mr Freeman has only received a penalty for the dangerous driving charge. As the BBC reports -

Freeman had also admitted driving without insurance, failing to stop at the scene of an accident and failing to report a collision, but the judge said there would be no separate penalty for those offences. Two other charges of perverting the course of justice and driving while disqualified were ordered to lie on file.

That is, his failure to stop, and his failure to report, went unpunished, alongside his attempted perversion of the course of justice, his driving while uninsured, and his driving while disqualified.

Given that, for all he knew, he could have been leaving two young men to die, this is a rather curious omission, to say nothing of the failure to penalise him on any other charge.

The maximum prison sentence for the sole remaining charge of dangerous driving is, as the judge noted, a derisory two years, which he clearly felt to be inadequate. A sentence which was reduced by eight months due to Freeman’s guilty plea, an inevitability in the face of the overwhelming evidence against him.

He may have had a ‘terrible time’ in custody on remand for 28 days, but given how he has got away with the bare minimum punishment, he should be thanking his lucky stars.

Robert Freeman – who let us remind ourselves is aged only 23, and has already managed to rack up multiple drink driving convictions and a conviction for driving while disqualified – decided, within weeks of passing a ‘safer motoring course’ designed to shorten the length of one of those bans, to set out to drive to and from a pub, while still disqualified. He had not regained his licence as a result of that course, as the County Times reports, merely shortened the length of his ban.

Almost certainly drunk – we have no way of knowing for sure, of course, thanks to his devious and callous behaviour – he wrecked the lives of two young servicemen.

Naturally enough, he will be driving again in five years time, because even those who have shown themselves, repeatedly, to be totally incapable of the responsible use of motor vehicles will never, ever, have that right taken away.

Grant Shapps and the death of Hatfield

Grant Shapps, Minister for Housing and Local Government, speaking during the Future of Town Centres and High Streets debate in the House of Commons on the 17th January 2012 -

As I am speaking in this debate, it would be remiss of me not to mention that the wonderful town of Hatfield suffers greatly from the same problems that many Members have described. It was a new town, and so bright was its future when it was set up. Unfortunately, partly because of the situation that has been mentioned—the road and the cars were taken out of the town centre, and the life was sucked out of it—it has struggled to have a renaissance. As the Minister taking the response to the Portas review forward, I can assure right hon. and hon. Members that I have personal experience of a failing town centre that needs to be rescued. That is why I take many of the measures suggested in the review so much to heart. Car parking was the No. 1 concern mentioned by Members in the 54 contributions. It is absolutely right, and in fact quite obvious, to say that in today’s society, when people either do not need to get into their car at all because they can simply click on something with a mouse to buy it or, if the option is available, as it now is in most parts of the country, drive to a shopping mall or shopping centre, an uncompetitive high street with high parking charges will always make a retail district suffer. It is absolutely essential, even in these incredibly tough times, for local authorities to appreciate that hammering the motorist visiting the local shops will not be the solution to the area’s problems, and certainly not to those of retailers.

This is complete gibberish, for several reasons.

Cars have not been ‘taken out’ of Hatfield town centre – if anything, they have been sucked in by a gigantic ASDA superstore, with an enormous car park, built right in the centre of the town, that is – naturally – easily accessible by motor vehicle. Here is a satellite view of  Hatfield town centre.

The pedestrianised centre of Hatfield lies to the upper right. The enormous ASDA supermarket is easily spotted in the centre of the frame, flanked by its large car park to the south-west.

The presence of several large roads in this image also serves to demonstrate that you can drive into Hatfield town centre very easily.

In addition to the parking available at ASDA, there are four council-run car parks in close proximity, around the town centre.

There are several hundred spaces available, in total, in these four car parks. What is more, they are all free, 24 hours a day.

I’m not quite sure on what grounds, then, that Shapps is able to maintain – with a straight face – that the car has been ‘taken out’ of Hatfield town centre, when there are plenty of car parks plastered all over it that are easily accessible; or indeed, how he is able to present the cost of parking as a problem here, when it is free. One could say that his comments are grossly misleading.

You would think he would know better, given that this is his constituency.

It is true, of course, that there are a number of pedestrianised streets and plazas in Hatfield town centre on which you cannot drive your car – the area flanked by the car parks. It is also true that these are the areas which are blighted, and suffering. Shapps is correct when he says that the life has been sucked out of Hatfield town centre. It is dying.

The big colourful billboard overlooking a dismal precinct of crumbling concrete and brick proclaims: “A new town centre for Hatfield.” The remaining shops, surrounding cracked paving stones and pools of water in a large, deserted square, struggle to survive alongside boarded-up and shuttered units. As a testament to the vagaries of 1960s architecture, this is as bad as it gets.

Here is an image of one of these streets -

The photographer comments

You would be forgiven for thinking that this photo was taken on a sunday evening but it wasn’t. This was taken at 12:30 on a Wednesday afternoon.

Why Shapps thinks the alleged exclusion of the car from Hatfield town centre represents the cause of the problem here is quite unfathomable, because it is beyond simple to park up at a very short distance from these streets, at no cost.

To my mind, the whacking great ASDA dumped a few yards from these shops might be a more obvious reason, a conclusion reached by the same photographer, who again comments

This supermarket dominates the town centre. See other images of this square to get a feel for the impact that it has had.

And if a superstore parked right next door to the town centre retail outlets wasn’t enough of a reason, we also have a gigantic shopping centre on the A1(M) as it flanks Hatfield - the Galleria, which contains an extensive range of all the kinds of shops you find on a typical high street.

It has 1,700 parking spaces, 80 shops, and is less than a mile from Hatfield town centre.

Do you think this might be having an effect?

But Shapps – for some curious reason – fails to mention either the influence the Galleria, or indeed ASDA, might be having on the town centre of Hatfield. Instead, his diagnosis for the decline – the sucking of life from the town centre – is, to repeat,

the road and the cars were taken out of the town centre

Which is, needless to say, a facile, empty-headed analysis, that ignores the fact that cars and roads have not been taken out of the town centre at all, and simultaneously fails to diagnose the real reasons for the decline, namely strategic town planning.

Shapps imagines that allowing cars to drive and park all over the existing pedestrian areas in Hatfield town centre, like that pictured above, represents some kind of ‘solution.’ It cannot be, for precisely the same reason that providing free parking yards away from these shops has not worked. Set against the inertia of a vast shopping centre, and a superstore, the notion that allowing  people to park fractionally closer to these shops, or to drive past them, is going to change anything at all is laughable.

It is car-centric planning that has sucked the life out of Hatfield town centre, not the inability to drive through a handful of pedestrianised streets that already have free car parks right beside them.

Just look at how the life has been ‘sucked out’ of the car-free centre of Groningen

The same sad story in Utrecht

A miserable scene from a car-free street in the Marais district in Paris

What were those crazy Parisians thinking, excluding the car here

This street in my town, Horsham, is clearly lifeless now that car use on it has been restricted

The soulless car-free Market Square in Bruges

The visibly dying car-restricted High Street of Guildford

Et cetera.

Thanks to @John_the_Monkey

How you know when there’s something a bit wrong with your transport and planning policies

When people choose to travel 50 miles to do their shopping.

From Horsham’s The Resident newspaper -

“I only really come to Swan Walk [Horsham's shopping centre] to go to M&S. I go to Bluewater if I want to go shopping. The parking charges in Horsham don’t help.”

As you can see below, it is 49.8 miles from Broadbridge Heath to Bluewater.

This should, ordinarily, be considered an incredible, even extravagant, distance to go for ‘regular’ shopping.

But given the way our transport infrastructure is configured, it’s not so absurd. By car, the journey takes less than an hour. Factoring in the hassle of using a car in the first place, the extra time taken for the journey – 40-50 minutes longer than the time it might take to drive into Horsham and park up – is not so great an inconvenience. Naturally enough, parking your car in one of Bluewater’s 13,000 spaces is free, unlike the cost of a space in Horsham. Finally, there is, of course, the greater choice offered by Europe’s largest shopping centre, compared to the retail on offer in a town of 55,000 people – although whether this extra amount of choice accounts for the anonymous Broadbridge Heath resident’s decision to do nearly all her shopping in the former is doubtful.

What is interesting is that cost of parking in Horsham is now frequently described as ‘extortionate’ - especially so now that it is set to rise by between 20 and 50% in the next month or so. These claims of ‘extortion’ are somewhat overstated, given that people are quite at liberty to do their shopping elsewhere, where parking is cheaper, or indeed in places where parking is free – even places 50 miles away. This is indeed one of the arguments given against Horsham District Council’s decision to raise the charge – that it will simply drive shoppers elsewhere. This is an option shoppers would not have if they were genuinely the subjects of extortion.

Of course, many trips into Horsham have to be made; going elsewhere is quite obviously not an option if you have to visit a particular shop, or if you work here. The word ‘extortion’ is therefore revealing when it is used to describe the cost of parking for these kinds of trips, because it plainly suggests that people feel they have no choice but to park in Horsham’s increasingly expensive car parks.

The distance from Roffey, Horsham’s most distant suburb, to the town centre is 2.5 miles. Broadbridge Heath – where the anonymous Bluewater shopper lives – lies outside Horsham’s ring road, but is barely 2 miles from the town centre. Walking these kinds of distances, which may take up to an hour, is not particularly feasible, especially so if one is laden down with shopping.

There are buses available for these trips, but the cost of a ticket is similar to, if not greater than, the cost of parking – a spontaneous trip into town from Roffey and back again, for instance, will cost you £3.60.

The one remaining option, if you don’t wish to subject yourself to the extortionate cost of Horsham’s car parks, is to make these reasonably short trips by bicycle. Two or three miles is an eminently possible distance for anyone, and unlike the bus and car, a bicycle is free. It also provides a convenient way of carrying your shopping.

It might be instructive to consider the reasons why it’s not leaping out at Horsham’s residents as an obvious way of escaping the extortionate cost of the town’s car parks.

Taxes and fines

Last weekend’s Sunday Times poses the question

Are drivers being used as a cash cow?

with reference to the government’s proposal to increase the standard motoring penalty charge from £60 to £100.

Given – for instance – the substantial danger posed by driving while using a mobile, and how little apparent effect the current £60 fine is having on offending levels, this strikes me as a prudent measure – to say nothing of how the potential extra revenue might end up being spent.

But the use of phrase ‘cash cow’ in the sub-title of the piece gives us a clue as to where we are heading. Via a reference to comments made by Conservative MP David Ruffley that ‘the previous government treated the British motorist like a massive cashpoint on wheels’, we arrive at the opinions of Professor Stephen Glaister -

Motoring groups accuse Clarke of unjustly increasing taxes on drivers. Stephen Glaister, the director of the RAC Foundation, said: “Clearly speeding motorists are law-breakers but their punishment should fit the crime, not turn into a tax paid only by this group of offenders simply because it is easy to collect.”

A curious statement in several regards, the foremost of which is the claim that a fine for breaking the law is a ‘tax’. From the Oxford English Dictionary -

tax |taks|noun

a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers’ income and business profits or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.

And likewise

fine |fīn| |faɪn| |fʌɪn|noun

a sum of money exacted as a penalty by a court of law or other authority

It’s not really that difficult to tell the two apart. A fine is a penalty. A tax is not. Benjamin Franklin was not, I think, a serial law-breaker, and therefore did not utter

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and fines.

because fines, specifically the ones Stephen Glaister imagines to be ‘taxes’, are avoidable, through the simple expedient of actually doing up your seatbelt, or not using your mobile phone while driving.

Professor Glaister also thinks that cyclists should ‘address their “cavalier” attitude towards the rules of the road.’ Whether he believes compelling cyclists to do so is best achieved by some form of taxation or, instead, fines for red light jumping and cycling on the pavement is a matter for speculation, although I think the answer is probably quite obvious.

This isn’t, of course, the only recent example of imaginary taxes – campaigners against double yellow lines in Westminster evidently believe them to be a ‘stealth tax’, presumably on the basis that they simply can’t stop themselves from parking on them

Inanimate object strikes again

This post is rather supplementary to my previous one, as it provides another instance of an inanimate object being party to a collision – indeed, in this case, it even appears to be responsible.

Bollard to blame for recent Wimbledon crashes, residents claim

Residents have called for the removal of a problem bollard which has taken the blame for several car accidents in recent weeks. The complaints have arisen following a crash on Thursday, February 2, when a woman driving a silver people carrier ploughed into the traffic island when turning right into Worple Road from Wimbledon Hill Road at 5.25pm.

At least in this story, the facts are reported plainly – ‘the car ploughed into the traffic island’. But read on…

The road, connecting the village to Wimbledon town centre, was shut in both directions for two hours while the driver was cut out of the car and treated for neck injuries, while her 11-year-old daughter was unharmed. Sarah Davies, a lettings manager at Haart Estate Agent at the corner of the junction, said she knew of eight accidents which happened in exactly the same way since the middle of November. She said: “To date I am surprised that no action has been taken…. In my opinion it is only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or worse.”

Sarah England, a nurse who lives in Griffiths Road, Wimbledon, saw Thursday’s incident reported on our website and revealed she had crashed at the same junction on December 20, 2011. She said: “I don’t see why a bollard of that shape has to be there in that position and I think there is an issue with drivers in people carriers trying to take this corner when it’s dark. I don’t believe for a second I was driving carelessly or too fast. I slowly turned right and felt a crash, thinking I had been hit, but it was the traffic island. My car was completely written off. The council needs to seriously think about whether it needs to be there at all.”

Quite why the bollard should be an issue with the drivers of people carriers, and not with the drivers of other cars, is not explained. Perhaps this is some kind of magic bollard, that selectively renders itself invisible once it spots an approaching Ford Galaxy or a VW Toerag Turan Toeran large VW?

Or perhaps, more reasonably, this is a clue that the cause of the ‘accidents’ might not be the bollard, but instead the people behind the wheels of cars, specifically mums in a hurry to get somewhere, who are ‘trying to take this corner’.

And while Sarah England cannot see why a bollard has to be there in that position, I can think of one very good reason, which emerges in the next paragraph of the news article -

Councillor David Dean, who represents Dundonald ward at Merton Council, witnessed Thursday’s crash scene and said the council needed to remove the bollard, which protects pedestrians standing on a traffic island. Councillor Dean said: “It was exactly the same colour and make as my car and so I got a nasty shock when I saw it. I told Councillor Andrew Judge at a Street Management meeting [in June 2010] there should be more space for cars to turn right there. They need to move this island back and cars should also be allowed to turn right from Worple Road into the town centre.”

It is there to protect pedestrians who have partially crossed the road, and are waiting to cross the other carriageway. You can see the location below -

People crossing the road from the left, while traffic is waiting to come out of Worple Road, can ‘seek refuge’ behind this bollard, while vehicles are turning into it. (The illuminated bollard in this streetview image has been replaced by the increasingly fashionable curved metal one that lies under the car in the image at the top of this post – doubtless the lack of illumination is also ‘to blame’.)

Obscenely, having correctly diagnosed, and then stated, the purpose of this bollard – the protection of vulnerable road users - Councillor Dean demands its removal. That is, he is proposing taking away a piece of street furniture there to protect of pedestrians, in order that incompetent drivers can cut the corner of the junction without risk to their vehicles.

The position of the car perched on the bollard in this latest incident demonstrates quite clearly that the lady driver was, indeed, cutting the corner, and turning in on the wrong side of the road. Despite being responsible for damage to the bollard, and for causing delays to hundreds of other people, I firmly expect she escaped the attentions of the police, when really she was driving without due care and attention.

Let us also remember that Sarah England, who also drove onto this bollard, said

I don’t believe for a second I was driving carelessly or too fast.

Newsflash – driving into a side road on the wrong side of the road (the only way you could have ended up hitting the bollard) is careless. It is only the increasingly consequence-free nature of driving in our towns and cities that deludes you otherwise.

This is a subject quite close to home, because I was knocked off my bicycle in September last year by a lady turning into a side road on the wrong side of the road – she was cutting the corner, and worse, was not looking where she was going. As a consequence I ended up on her bonnet, before bouncing off onto the road as she braked rather suddenly.

This is what is happening here in Wimbledon. Drivers are lazily cutting the corner, and turning into Worple Road, again, on the wrong side of the road – doing so allows them to take the corner rather faster. The bollard is both there to stop them doing this, and, as Councillor Dean notes, before brazenly suggesting its removal, to protect pedestrians.

In an ideal word, of course, bollards like this one in Wimbledon would not be necessary;  we would be able to trust drivers to turn into side roads on the correct side of the road. But drivers have long since proven that they can’t be trusted to do this; that is the very reason why these bollards have sprung up everywhere. Their removal would therefore serve only to facilitate and enable the bad driving that made them necessary in the first place, without consequence for the person behind the wheel, beyond the cost of beating out the pedestrian-shaped dents from their bodywork.

Thanks to @bassjunkieuk