Reporting from the front line

6 Mar

It’s been an interesting few weeks! Motorists have been fighting (sometimes literally) for the right to park their beloved cars somewhere. Police and authorities have been fighting back. People have ended up in hospital, in court and some have almost gone to jail. In one instance the police in South Africa ended up drawing guns on each other over a disputed parking space.

Starting with the good news..

Police in Loughborough will be delivering leaflets to every household in the town warning of a crack-down on pavement parking by the police and the council. In future motorists will risk getting a fine if they leave less than 1 meter of pavement clear for people to get by. The RNIB regional campaigns officer said that they were “ incredibly pleased that we have had such a positive response from all the organisations. .”

In Perthshire the police have warned drivers that they face receiving three penalty points and a £60 fine if they block pavements. The police have told drivers that they should leave at least enough room for a pram or wheelchair to get pass. They have got their work cut out, because traffic wardens locally have been assaulted on numerous occasions over the past few years with one motorist threatening to shoot a warden and another trying to run a traffic warden down.

In Bolton the police have warned drivers that if they force wheelchair users and parents with pushchairs into the road by parking on the pavement they could soon be fined £70. They launched the campaign after ‘a flood of complaints’ and their action has the support of 57% of those who responded to a poll organised by the local paper.

In Reading Labour councilors are objecting to plans by the Conservative-led council to ban pavement parking. Labour think this should only be brought in for roads where all residents have ‘adequate’ off-road parking, which they define as meaning off-road parking for ‘one or two vehicles’. I see… if the motorists ‘need’ the pavement then they get it, if not then the pedestrians can use it. Nice.

In Middlewich a parent claimed that irresponsible drivers were ‘dicing with death‘ after her 5yo son was nearly knocked down by a reversing car outside the school.

Meanwhile a man in Machester only just avoided a jail term after punching a female traffic warden to the ground – he was given a four month prison sentence suspended for a year and 250 hours unpaid work.

In Oxford a 24yo man was also given a suspended prison sentence after punching a 66yo traffic warden and dislocating his shoulder.

A survey of 3,000 motorists in the UK found that 25% of these drivers admitted to ‘verbally assaulting’ other motorists for their parking decisions or worse and in one third of cases the incidents related to parking on pavements.

In New York and woman is in a coma after being punched in the face during an argument over a parking space.

And finally…  in South Africa police from two different forces drew guns on each other when officers from one force attempted to tow away a vehicle belonging to another force from outside their offices. It is reported that the argument escalated with more and more policemen coming out of the building, fighting, and then threatened to shoot each other!

Number crunching

4 Mar

Annual cost of a operating a single school crossing patrol in Suffolk: £2,232. Annual cost of keeping a second-hand car on the road : £4,441 (not including any actual usage – RAC figures)

So… Pass 50 parked cars and the ownership costs are the same as all of the Suffolk Crossing patrols which are to be disbanded in the summer. Pass 250 cars (which doesn’t take long) and the annual ownership costs have hit £1 million which is the same as a very fancy boat.

 

Down memory lane – 1980s information film

3 Mar

Here is a public information film that was made some time in the mid to late 1980s (the car has a 1981/2 plate on it). So… not a lot has changed in the intervening 25 years then.

I have also just been trying to track down an old public information film made with a young Tony Robinson for the National Institute for the Blind. I am sure it was him but I can’t find anything on the web about it at all now which is a bit strange. Can anyone help?

‘Costs’ and ‘benefits’ of 80 mph speed limits

2 Mar

The government is wanting to increase motorway speeds from 70mph (112km/h) to 80 mph (130 km/h). The Transport Secretary explains: “We need to do this on a pretty rigorous cost-benefit analysis basis…at the moment there are a clear set of criteria for making these decisions. Perhaps we ought to ask if we are using the right set of criteria”.

Netherlands is also planing to increase it’s motorway speed limit to 130 km/h while Spain is currently lowering its speed limit from 120 km/h to 11o km/h to reduce fuel imports! Check out this useful blog post on the subject confusion that we are in at present.

Lets do a rough and ready cost-benefit analysis given that both the ‘costs’ (ie mainly injuries, deaths) and the benefits (mainly a few minutes off journey time for car drivers) can be reasonably easily calculated so lets have a go.

For every 100 miles driven one will save 10 minutes in travel time (75 mins, down from 85 mins). This does of course depend on having a clear road and no holdups due to crashes.

Lets look at the ‘costs’. According to a review of changes to speed limits conducted for the authorities in British Columbian 2003 the rate of crashes and fatalities is likely to increase significantly. They don’t report on any countries increasing speed from 70 mph to 80 mph (110km/h to 130km/h). They do however report on when Switzerland reduced its speed from 130km/h to 120km/h with reduced fatalities by 12% and when Sweden reduced speeds from 110km/h to 90km/h and fatalities declined by 21%. Also interestingly when the UK reduced speeds from 100km/h to 80km/h  and saw a reduction of 14%.

By contrast when Australia increased its speed limit from 100 km/h to 110 km/h it saw an increase in fatalities of 25%. Increasing speeds in the USA from 89km/h to 105 km/h often had associated increases in fatalities of about 20%.

The Wikipedia Road Safety Article has a useful table which shows motorway casualty rates in the first column and speed limits in the right column (this is not properly referenced though). Is it just me or is it significant that all the worst countries have high speed limits and all the most safe countries have low ones?

Speed safety stats

Do also check the excellent UK Speed Limit article which has a lot of detail of the history of UK speed limits and which is fully referenced.

So, lets get back to an estimate of the ‘costs’. In 2008 there were 158 fatalities on Motorways. As a rough indicator based on the above research, it looks like we can expect about 30 more fatalities. There are many other costs not yet considered including: increased fuel usage, more road noise, more carbon emissions, more stress, more delays caused by crashes. These concerns are echoed by the AA Trust who warned back in 2005 against a blanket increase in the motorway speed limit to 80mph saying that in the absence of strict enforcement to would lead to “unacceptable enforcement drift to 90 mph” – which would “increase the risk of accidents and raise the total of fatal and serious injuries”.

Incidentally, almost half of UK drivers wanted vehicles to be fitted with Speed Limiters which are already used on trunks which are limited to 56 mph and on express coaches at 65 mph which will also be using the motorways.

There there is the research study conducted by the Institute of Advanced Motorists and the RAC Foundation back in 2006 found that some 26% of motorway drivers were following the vehicle in front too closely and that on the M4 the figure was 50%. Do we really want people tailgating at 90 mph?

The ‘cost’ is some 30 deaths and more crashes, which, errr.. might actually reduce the benefit by creating more hold-ups. Also, increased road noise, fuel consumption and driver stress. The benefit is some 10 minutes off journey times per 100 miles (assuming that there are no congestion, road works or crashes to contend with).

At this point transport consultants would convert these costs and benefits into money using standard calculations used by transport planners. I won’t do this because I don’t have the figures to hand and I find the idea rather offensive.

Finally, here is a chart showing road deaths on UK roads since 1929. Be aware that it was a nasty Labour government that introduced the 70mph speed limit in the 1960s after some terrible crashes in fog. since then fatalities have reduced impressively over the past 40 years under both Labour and Conservative governments. Is this trend going to continue going down or are all these ‘motoring’ biased initiatives (such as removing school crossing patrols, re-timing lights in favour of motorists, increasing speed limits, cutting back on bus services, bus lanes and cycle lanes), are we going to see the graph turn up again. I do do hope that this in not going to be the case.

Killed on British Roads

What I would like to is see now is someone doing a FOI request on the Department for Transport requesting their official report on the subject. There is the nice WhatDoTheyKnow website that makes this very easy to do.

What makes the news and what doesn’t and why?

28 Feb

I have done a quick little survey of what transport safety stories have hit the news in the past few days. I was prompted to do this when I noticed that a horrific story from Brazil about a car driver who drove at speed through a throng of cyclists taking part in Critical Mass had only resulted in 3 stories in the main-stream media (on CBS, Sky and just now also on the BBC) according to Google News. Update: This story has just hit mainstream media, and  Google now reports over 200 articles around the world. It did however take four days to do so, and only went mainstream after the driver was brought in for questioning. The event took place on Friday evening, and by Monday evening this was what Google reported, only 11 articles of which most were cycling media:

Brazil Critical Mass news reports

Have a look at the video of the incident and consider why this was ignored and check out what did make it into the papers.

The big story from today is that the UK government wants us to drive faster on motorways to boost the economy. This resulted in some 793 new articles according to Google News within hours.

Google news resuluts – 80mph

Then there were the 690 news stories acknowledging the 10th anniversary of the ‘Selby rail crash’, which should more accurately be called the ‘Land Rover driver kills 10 rail passengers crash’. Incidentally the driver of the Land Rover was out of jail after serving 30 months of his 5 year term.

Selby crash anniversary

Go back a few weeks there was the story that a possible new inquiry into the deaths of two teenagers who died five years ago while crossing a railway line at a level crossing when the warning lights were flashing. 266 articles for that one, including a front-page story in The Times.

Essex level crossing deaths

And finally there was the story about ‘the footballer who crashed his fast car’. Where have I heard that one before? Result: 305 articles.

Footballer crashes fast car

For comparison, here are the stories that relate to terrible 2006 incident where a car driver slipped on ice and crashed into a group of cyclists and killed 4 of them including a 14yo boy which only resulted in 15 news stories that Google News can find today. The drive, who admitted that he may ‘very possibly’ have been driving too fast, was only fined a total of £180 with £35 costs and given 6 points on his license.

Welsh cyclist deaths 2006

My only conclusion is that motorists (and I am one) hate to be reminded about how dangerous this activity is and of the risks that we are taking on a regular basis. We prefer to read about other stuff, even if it is that we are going to be able to drive faster and take more risks while driving. So much for ‘ending all car crash fatalities‘ as was predicted by the BBC recently!

Repairing pavements again and again?

28 Feb

Some time back I reported that Cambridge County Council estimated that pavement parking caused £3m in damage every year. Suffolk council recently replaced a load of damaged paving along a residential street in Ipswich. In this photo first photo you can see a section of cracked and damaged paving slabs, then there is a section of new paving and…  wait for it… yes, there it is, a car back on the pavement on new paving.

Damaged paving, repaired paving and… a car back on the paving

And here is a close up. Notice that nearly every paving slab has been replaced on both sides of the road on the row of slabs closest to the carriageway where the vehicles wheels go. All the ones closest to the gardens are ok.

A close up of a car back on the repaired paving

Search terms and page views

27 Feb

Here are the search terms that people used who ended up at Pedestrian Liberation over the past 7 days with the count of the number of times for each term. I did indeed mention the remarkable  Michigan Theater in Detroit, which is now a multi-story rococo car park at the end of a post on ‘Disaster car parks’.

Last week the blog had 700 page views and the best week was two weeks ago when it received 1,100. The total views since it was created is 11,000 and views are generally increasing as long as I keep post new stuff.

Take a look at what people type into search engines. The strangest search term was ‘why would heron house compliance manager in cardiff want to see me’! Sorry, but I haven’t a clue and I don’t think the blog will help either.

Search terms as logged by WordPress:

michigan theater detroit    3
pedestrian liberation    3
pavement parking    2
situation of conflict for children pedestrian    2
flickr michigan theatre    2
garden leaflet    2
is it illegal to park on the footway    2
traffic near school    2
road works signs layout    2
parcel delivery scheme    2
detroit car park theatre    2
pavement parking bays    2
go express logistics    2
section 148 of the highways act 1980 – removal of dangerous deposits    2
people walking in snow    2
pavement parking new laws    2
drop curb at pedestrian crossing    2
car park low on the ground    2
norman baker parking on verges    2
disability discrimination acts obstructing a pavement    2
police use facebook    1
pedestrian pupil    1
is it illegal to park on the pavement?    1
boy knocked down muller rd bristol febuary 2011    1
documentary safety measures while walking    1
apc overnight vehicles    1
highway obstruction    1
michigan theater parking garage    1
effective pedestrian campaign    1
norman baker pavement parking    1
norman baker on traffic issues in villages    1
car parking    1
dropped kerbs    1
car parked across footpath accident    1
why schools should have crossings?    1
controllong parents parking schools    1
dangers of parking    1
good bbc documentaries    1
nagy v wetson    1
cash cow pics    1
work blocking pavement pedestrians    1
mumsnet parking live near school    1
pavement facebook    1
speeding in car parks near hit a pedestrian    1
work obstruction pavement pedestrians    1
what type of vans do dpd lease    1
parking obstruction    1
damaged pavement    1
laid on wheel paths    1
maps biased    1
cash cow    1
highway obstruction cars on the pavement    1
pavement parking 1974 legislation    1
school crossing patrol suffolk    1
car parking on footpaths regulations    1
bbc pedestrian safety    1
angela bywaters living    1
pedestrian crossing kerb photos    1
how can pedestrians protect themselves from car accidents    1
https://pedestrianliberation.wordpress.com    1
dropped kerb    1
is it unjust to watch a pedestrian get hurt    1
zig zag lines    1
roman signer    1
when your child has a near miss on the road    1
bbc car safety    1
there was nothing to be done    1
driving faster pedestrians less likely to cross    1
england zigzag lines    1
pedestrian    1
unreasonably obstructing the path of pedestrians    1
new law parking on pavement news    1
pavement block    1
can the body of my car overhang zig zags at a zebra crossing    1
can i park a large vehicle in my driveway in west yorkshire    1
defective pavement obstruction exposed pavement    1
can you park on a pavement according to the highway code    1
tight parking    1
what can pedestrians and cyclist do to protect themselves from being involve in an accident    1
can you park on the pavement    1
can you park on pavement if you do not block it    1
ipswich parcelforce complaint    1
why would heron house compliance manager in cardiff want to see me    1
(a) the driver of a car driving at a fast speed hits a pedestrian who had just stepped down from the footpath to cross the road. is the driver liable?    1
what do english stores look like    1
petition letter for illegal parking samples    1
i am sick of people using my customer car park    1
thank you parking    1
bad leadership images    1
can i block small part of dropped curb    1
parking with one wheel or more on a urban road    1
health and safety why are drivers allowed to park on pavements?    1
pedestrian liberation front    1
what happens if i bump into a parked car on the pavement.    1
obstruction sign    1
have school crossing patrol officers been saved from closure in northamptonshire    1
uk council new powers to tackle parking on pavements    1
parking commercial vehicle on drive and covering pavement    1
pedestrain freedom    1
pediestria liberation ipswich parcelfoce    1
successful pedestrian campaigns    1
do the police use facebook    1
bbc documentary millions of people die in car crash, humans are in love with cars, road safety    1
are you allowed to blockpave highways    1
government set to fine drivers for parking on pavement    1
overnight apc    1
car street diagram    1
are the ploice alloed to park on the pavemebt    1
parking on payvaement dotted lines    1
england street zig zag line    1
roadworks vehicles from above    1
what have cars done that minimize damage to pedestrians    1
handicapped bad parking    1
how many kids drive to school    1
motorists who shout at pedestrians    1
car crash documentary    1
roman signer – engpass    1
wheelie bin in walkway in workshop obstruction    1
bbc safety    1
hamptonshire police car    1
buildiing more parking will    1
man running with parcel    1
should you park wholly or partly on a pavement and why    1
child rain puddle

Breaking news – new powers for councils to tackle pavement parking?

21 Feb

No pavement parking signage (as published in The Sun)

The Sun has reported in today’s paper that the Transport Minister Norman Baker is about to announce a ‘nationwide blitz on motorists who selfishly force pushchair mums into the road’.

He will evidently be writing to all council chiefs today to inform them of their new powers which allow them to create traffic regulation orders covering local pavement parking blackspots. After installing warning signs they will be able to fine those who park on or partly on the pavement £70. More details will no doubty follow soon.

I have selected a range of supportive and opposing comments from The Sun’s website which I have reproduced verbatim. Clearly there is considerable support for getting cars off pavements and also a vocal group of more ‘extreme motorists’ who will fight this tooth and nail.

Supportive:

  • I am in a wheelchair and live on a road used by drivers to park like that for the day and buddy up to go into town. There are no dropped curbs near these idiots so I often have to travel several hundred yards on the road which is a major bus route
  • Good. I am sick and tired of having to squeeze past cars parked like that. Trouble is though will there be anyone to give out the fines? Secondly will anyone of the selfish drivers pay? I doubt it.
  • Get a fleet of tow trucks and haul their cars away for a week that will make them think twice about being so inconsiderate.
  • We in Basingstoke, have a second hand car dealer, right on a set of busy traffic lights, he has NO customer parking, so they park on the pavement, which not only makes people have to walk in the road, but causes mayhem at peak times, so I welcome these rules.
  • Parking on the pavement is NEVER an option.  Indeed, being allowed to park on the road at all is a privilege.  There was a 17th century High Court judge who ruled that “the highway shall not be used as a stable”.  That ruling is still in force today.
  • I think its a good idea, though it does point out its not a blanket ban as sometimes people need to park that way, and don’t block pavements. As a mother I’m sick of having to go round cars selfishly parked on the path. It’s not right.
  • Some of you need to remember, pavements are for people, not cars. That’s what roads are for, so good on him for finally doing something.
  • About time too. There are no acceptable excuses for parking on pavements. If the road is too narrow to allow other vehicles to pass with vehicles parked on a pavement, that is an indication that vehicles should not be parked in that road not that vehicles should be parked on the pavement. Why do motorists consider pedestrians to be second class citizens? The rights of a pedestrian to walk along a pavement are just as important as the right of a motorist to drive along a road.

Opposing

  • traffic waldon’s are filth
  • MOTORIST`S HAVE NO CHOICE – A LOT OF ROAD`S ARE TOO NARROW FOR TWO WAY TRAFFIC TO FLOW AND THEN HAVE CARS FULLY PARKED ON THE ROAD.
  • TRANSPORT MINISTER BAKER SHOULD BE FINING COUNCILS FOR NOT DEALING WITH POT HOLES.
  • Wahay. Another way to rip off motorists. Can I set up a direct debit to have all my motoring fines each month paid straight to the exchequor?
  • Are they gonna widen the roads then? the only reason to park on the pavement like that is because the road is too narrow to park on normally, without risk of having your car side swiped. how does this also “force” buggy pushing mothers into the road?
  • This is just another of what will be an ever increasing methods the government will use to extract money from us the hard working public. The at the same time after taking massive taxes and spurious fines then have the cheek to tell us that we need.
  • I’d rather force a mother into the road, where she can stop, look, listen and navigate carefully than park my car obstructively in the road.
  • Will they make extra spaces in places where they have to enforce such rulings? like hell they will, they’ll just coin it in whenever someone gets sick of the inconvenience of parking half a mile down the road
  • I don’t even know where to begin with this, this is open to so much abuse it is ridiculous.  Wide vehicles regularly MUST park partially on the pavement to prevent endangering motorists on narrow roads, or even blocking them completely.

Update

Today’s government press release on the subject.

“The Department for Transport has given all councils in England permission to use signs to indicate a local pavement parking ban. Until now councils have had to gain special signs authorisation from Government each time they want to put a pavement parking ban in place.

In the press release Norman Baker clearly states that the regulations are aimed at a ‘selfish minority’ who ‘dump their cars wherever it suits them without a second thought for others’. Good stuff!

FOI request regarding prosecutions for ‘driving on’ and ‘obstructing’ the footway

12 Feb

I have just submitted a Freedom of Information request to Suffolk Constabulary to find out how many people have been prosecuted for ‘driving on the footway’ and for ‘obstructing’ of the footway over the past 2 years in the county. I am expecting the number of to quite low, indeed for driving on the footway it am expecting it be very low even though every car parked on the pavement was most clearly also driven on and off the pavement as well!

I have asked Suffolk Constabulary because they are my local police force, not because I think they are particularly bad – indeed I am very impressed with my local seargent who is both supportive and knowledgeable on the subject.

FOI request – Suffolk Constabulary

How was school today?

11 Feb

A quick internet news search turns up numerous stories about dangerous parking and conflict outside the school gates over the past few weeks. And… also stories of youngsters challenging this selfish behaviour and of local newspapers getting in on the campaign.

Cambridge: “A headteacher has apologised over continuing tensions between parents and residents over parking outside a Cambridge school. Parents have been hurling “abuse” at residents and police have launched a crackdown on the anti-social behaviour involving parents of children at the Shirley School, in East Chesterton.

Crewe: “Five schools on the Wistaston Green and St Mary’s wards expressed their concern regarding the parking of vehicles outside their premises. A key concern for all of us is safety for all road users. The schools, police, local councillors and Cheshire East Council are working to find a long term solution, but in the meantime a uniformed presence is in place to deter bad parking around the schools in Wistaston Green and St Mary’s area.

Pupils on the case!

Cumnor, Oxfordshire: “Children in Cumnor took to the streets to urge parents to park safely on the school run. Pupils at Cumnor Primary School have been investigating the issue after a survey found one in four of them had experienced a near-miss in the road outside the school. And they decided that parents parking on pavements and zig-zag lines were causing the safety problems in Oxford Road. To hammer their message home, they made special banners and staged a protest at school closing time, backed up by a letter that was sent home to their parents.

Maidenhead: “Mums on the school-run in Maidenhead are endangering their own kids by ignoring parking restrictions – which they asked for. According to Jenny Stephen, the headteacher of Boyne Hill Infant and Nursery School in Rutland Road, the surrounding roads are being clogged through ‘inconsiderate parking’ by a minority of parents. Cllr Mike Holness (Lib Dem, Boyn Hill) is also concerned about the danger to the school’s 200 young students while neighbours are fed-up of being blocked in their driveways.

Peterborough: “The Evening Telegraph is backing calls for parents to park safely to prevent the school run motoring mayhem that is putting children’s safety at risk. Scenes of traffic chaos surrounding a number of city schools have been pictured by our photographers showing cars blocking roads and pavements, heavy congestion and parking on double-yellow lines.

Reading: “An irate licensee has banned school-run parents from using her pub’s car park and been forced to issue parking permits to her regulars. She introduced the system after finding the exterior of the pub had been damaged and customers were being blocked in. Tracy said: “90 per cent of those using my car park had never even been into the pub – if they’re not going to patronise my establishment then why should they be allowed to damage my property?”

Sheffield: “Pupils who became concerned about the levels of traffic congestion outside their school have designed their own posters in a bid to discourage parents from parking directly outside the school gates. Youngsters at Westbourne School, in the Broomhill area of Sheffield, decided to take action after a parent contacted Sheffield Council to ask for help in improving the situation. School spokesman Angela Bywater said: “These posters are so colourful and have such a direct message that we have already been approached by other schools who all have a similar problem. “It would be great if we could see the campaign spread throughout the city.”

Wolverhampton: Plea over Wolverhampton school parking – “Neighbours have filed a petition calling for the plans to amended to include more parking spaces. They say private driveways and public footpaths are being blocked during the school run, leading to angry exchanges.

And then of course there is a repeat of the tired old ‘unfair traffic wardens and councils’ story as printed recently in a Hampshire paper. Yawn.

Farnborough: Parking CCTV to target school run mums. TRAFFIC wardens will be using CCTV spy cameras to catch people parking illegally in Aldershot and Farnborough town centres.

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