Comments on: City of London Police: Road Safety Forum

By: One bright idea to save lives: extend the lorry ban by three hours | The Bike Show - a cycling radio show and podcast from Resonance FM

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:03:34 +0000

[...] of lorries killing cyclists in recent years, the most dangerous time is the morning rush-hour. Statstics from the City of London Police back this up. Why not use the Lorry Control Scheme to make [...]

By: Mayor's Questions - HGV action - London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

Mayor's Questions - HGV action - London Fixed-gear and Single-speed — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:19:43 +0000

[...] Turning to the issues of lorries, Inspector Aspinall told the meeting about a day of City of London spot checks on HGVs, carried out on 30 September 2008 as part of the Europe-wide Operation Mermaid, which is intended to step up levels of enforcement of road safety laws in relation to lorries. On this one day, 12 lorries were stopped randomly by City Police. Five of those lorries were involved in the construction work for the 2012 Olympics. All of the twelve lorries were breaking the law in at least one way. Repeat: a 100 per cent criminality rate among small random sample of HGVs on the streets of central London. The offences range included overweight loads (2 cases), mechanical breaches (5 cases), driver hours breaches (5 cases), mobile phone use while driving (2 cases), driving without insurance (2 cases) and no operator license (1 case). In some cases the drivers were given a warning and in other cases there was a more formal police follow up. No information was given on convictions following this operation. Inspector Aspinall said that the London construction vehicle market (skips, cement mixers, construction materials haulage) was very tight and competitive. Shady operators with dubious standards and legality exerted a downward pressure on market prices and that was forcing even the more responsible companies to cut corners in order to win tenders . Some companies were even factoring into their costs the inevitability of a certain number of fines for breaches of the law. I found this revelation shocking. http://thebikeshow.net/city-of-londo…orum/#more-342 [...]

By: City of London: Cyclist traffic casualty statistics | the bike show

City of London: Cyclist traffic casualty statistics | the bike show — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:30:38 +0000

[...] previously wrote about the City of London Police’s recent Road Safety Forum. I mentioned some statistics that [...]

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:41:35 +0000

Gary P: Where was the collision? Was it in the City of London? If so, you should report it to them. I did get the feeling that they were taking this seriously. Clearly this is just one police force and the Met may be another story altogether. Whatever happened, you should report anyway. Did you call police to the scene? Did they just fob you off?

By: Gary P

Gary P — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:14:37 +0000

Inspector Aspinall stressed that any collision in which a motor vehicle causes damage to property or injury to a person is a police matter and that cyclists should not hesitate to call the police to the scene of all but the most innocuous of incidents, even if it isn’t clear what happened or who – if anyone – was to blame.

Laughable.

Seriously injured in a hit and run accident and the Police couldn’t be bothered. They are not interested in cyclist’s accidents.

By: Ingo

Ingo — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:35:41 +0000

These are not really surprising results if you look at statistics from other countries.

We know that bike paths and bike lanes increase the accident risk. We see that increased usage of helmets has lead to an overall increase risk of injury and death. So the numbers are just as could be expected. The problem is that the public has quite the opposite image in their minds.

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:53:36 +0000

Christian: that too would be a logical explanation.

By: Brenda P

Brenda P — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:14:06 +0000

Excellent report, Jack.

I asked ‘statto’ Sergeant Alan Rickwood about this after the presentation and he said for all the collisions involving cyclists reported to the (CoL) police, 25% were the attributable to an error made by the cyclist, and the rest were the fault of other road users.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:18:02 +0000

Thanks for this full report. Interesting to read that City Police Traffic Policy, which is clearly disproprortionate to all observers, stems from higher levels of the CoL. This is a prime example of why politics and policing must never be bedfellows. I realise that the CoL Police has always been subject closer political control than the Met. by reason of its history. We should all beware that once “here today-gone tomorrow” polititians have day to day control of police, it will be at the whim of such temps that where you enter an ASL could change at every election! (not to mention the hiring anf firing of police themselves).

By: Christian

Christian — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 01:47:14 +0000

Hi,

My impression is during the London morning rush hour I find myself surrounded by many more cyclists than in the afternoon. It seems in the morning cyclists are on the road within a clearly defined time ‘slot’ to arrive at work at 09.00 while in the afternoon/evening they return from work between – let’s say – 5ish and 7ish (very rough estimate).

Overtime, dinner shopping, going for an extra lap at Regents Park, taking a different route that doesn’t have to be quicker but is more enjoyable (and less busy), or exploring the city you missed for so many years by taking the tube?

I think you’ll find the phenomenon’s origin in the flexibility and joy of cycling.

Christian

By: David

David — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:55:17 +0000

Thanks for reporting!

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:35:23 +0000

Thanks, Adam, that’s an interesting insight.

By: Adam B

Adam B — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:08:35 +0000

“injuries and fatalities to cyclists peak in the morning rush hour (around 8am) and, to a lesser extent, the evening rush hour (around 5pm). It’s not clear why the morning is worse than the late afternoon/evening

I’m not a London cycle commuter so can’t answer with authority. However, from my commute I suspect that it could be something to do with the fact that there is a lot more heavy construction traffic on the road in the morning. Sites like their deliveries early (who wants a load of concrete at “knocking off time”…) and most construction traffic hits the road at about 6am. A part of this heavy traffic disappears by 5pm because of the drivers hours regs limiting the length of time a driver can be on the road.