TfL consulting on new Road Safety Action Plan

TfL want your views on their proposed new Road Safety Action Plan, with the consultation running until 28 September.

It looks very poor to me. They are proposing to drop a cycling-specific casualty reduction target, presumably because cycling casualties have rather inconveniently increased in recent years. Instead they are proposing a target to reduce serious/fatal road casualties by 40% by 2020 from the baseline of 2005-09. Obviously this target could be met even if cycling casualties continue to rise, as indeed has been the case recently.

However, even the overall 40% reduction target is pretty unambitious since casualties have already fallen by 23% from the baseline as of 2011. And there is not much sign in the document of a radically new approach to either road safety or cycling infrastructure, apart from a mention of the junction review, which they must not expect to reduce casualties very much or they would have adopted a tougher target.

I'd be interested to hear anyone else's views on the topic. Does anyone know if LCC will be making a formal response?

Replies

  • By paul at 09:01pm 26 Jul 2012

Agreed - looking at figure 13 the number of KSIs halved from over 6000 to fewer than 3000 between 2001 and 2010. A linear extrapolation would eliminate KSIs by 2020. More realistically another halving would mean 1450 at a sensible target (???) and 2175 decidedly unambitious.

To be fair it is the cycling casualty RATE that should be targeted ( we don't want cycling to be discouraged to keep the overall figures down).

The CTC comment focusses on other defiiencies.

 

 

This post was edited by paul at 04:31pm 27 Jul 2012.

There is also a TfL 'Roads Task Force' consultation (open 13 Jul 2012 to 14 Sep 2012) which will form part of TfL’s contribution to the Mayor’s 2020 vision for the capital.

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/taskforce/consult_view

The consultation asks for opinions on percieved issues for Roads in the short, medium and long term, possible solutions and how they can be implemented.

I suppose LCC will be making a formal response, but I think it would be worthwhile for individuals to respond as well, as there are many issues which need to be addressed, e.g.:

- failure to prioritise cyclist and pedestrian safety and convenience in design of new roads

- lack of cycle facilities along major roads and at junction

- poor quality of cycle facilities (dangerous, too narrow, indirect, poor surfaces, having to give way inappropriately)

- poor driving (need more speed cameras, more traffic police, strict enforcement of highway code for motorists, tougher sentencing etc.); in the long term we expect driver behaviour to improve as more of them also cycle

- congestion, noise pollution, atmospheric pollution, poor quality of urban environment - need to eliminate unnecessary car journeys by encouraging people to cycle

lack of helmets 

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